Home / General / He was what he is

He was what he is

/
/
/
2237 Views

Ron DeSantis spent a year as a high school teacher. His students remember him as a very creepy dude:

“Mr. DeSantis was kind of a smug guy,” Mr. Arne said. Students were well aware that he had just graduated from Yale, he said. “It was like a, ‘I’m kind of better than you,’” he said. “And we were all just kids.”

Several students recalled that Mr. DeSantis was a frequent presence at parties with the seniors who lived in town. Most spoke about socializing with him on the condition of anonymity because they feared backlash for speaking publicly about it.

“As an 18-year-old, I remember thinking, ‘What are you doing here, dude?’” one former student said.

Ms. Minis said that when she was a senior, the fall after Mr. DeSantis left, she found a memo on a teacher’s desk reminding the staff that fraternizing with students was inappropriate, even after they graduated.

And, you will be not shocked to learn, a smarmy apologist for the Slave Power and the Confederacy:

“As an 18-year-old, I remember thinking, ‘What are you doing here, dude?’” one former student said.

Ms. Minis said that when she was a senior, the fall after Mr. DeSantis left, she found a memo on a teacher’s desk reminding the staff that fraternizing with students was inappropriate, even after they graduated.

“Like in history class, he was trying to play devil’s advocate that the South had good reason to fight that war, to kill other people, over owning people — Black people,” she said. “He was trying to say, ‘It’s not OK to own people, but they had property, businesses.’”

Ms. Pompey said she saw parallels between Mr. DeSantis’s views as a young educator and his policies as a governor 20 years later.

“He had a good opportunity to enrich people, to come there from the Northeast and show people in the South that we can blend,” she said. “It seemed like he didn’t want to do that.”

Ms. Minis, who is white and was in the same history class as Ms. Pompey, also remembers debating issues around the Civil War. Mr. DeSantis wasn’t so much politically opinionated, she said, but, in her view, factually wrong. She remembers him claiming that every city in the South had burned, even though she knew her hometown, Savannah, had not and she called him out on it.

Another student who requested anonymity because he feared repercussions for his job said Mr. DeSantis’s takes on the Civil War were the subject of so much talk that students made a satirical video about him at the time for the video yearbook.

The video, which was reviewed by The Times, includes a short snippet in which a voice purporting to be Mr. DeSantis is heard saying: “The Civil War was not about slavery! It was about two competing economic systems. One was in the North. …” while a student dozes in class. (A student voiced the role of Mr. DeSantis, because students did not have any actual footage of him, according to a student who helped put it together.)

Well, you can’t say that he’s inauthentic!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
This div height required for enabling the sticky sidebar
Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views :