America’s Parents Agree with Ron DeSantis on Education

CLAY: We’re going to be joined by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at the top of the third hour, and I wanted to play this because he signed the Parental Rights in Education bill yesterday, refused to back down despite the pressure from Disney and the regular Blue Check Brigade members who tried to brand this bill as the “don’t say gay” bill.

Here is Ron DeSantis signing and announcing what exactly his goal in signing it is.

CLAY: This is why, Buck, yesterday we talked a little bit about the fact that DeSantis is being attacked by the New York Times now as “Trump 2.0,” and I believe you will see more and more of these attacks going forward because regardless… Let’s say Trump wins in ’24. He’s just got four years, and so at some point the Trump bogeyman disappears. But the calumnies, the attacks, the insults that have been leveled against Donald Trump have to be transferred to other Republican politicians, and you can see who they fear by who they brand as Trump 2.0.

BUCK: Hold on, hold on.

CLAY: That’s the people that they are afraid of.

BUCK: “Worse than Trump,” Clay. It’s gotta be “worse than Trump.” People have to have — the sequel has to have — bigger special effects than the original, so somehow they’re gonna have to convince you that it’s even worse than Donald Trump was before him, which will be a remarkable thing. Look, there are a lot of people… I understand the business model for the average Washington Post subscriber and New York Times subscriber is just to be fed a steady diet.

There’s no such thing as too many “Trump is the worst thing to ever happen to the country” editorials as far as they’re concerned. That is the business model because there are people that just need that every day. They think that that’s… It’s reaffirming their very stubborn and hysterical belief, which, when you look at what actually happened over the Trump years, none of the stuff they said was going to happen happened.

CLAY: Of course not.

BUCK: Everything was actually pretty great. It was like people are saying, “You sound too happy!” In 2018, 2019, I was telling everybody, “Guys, it doesn’t get much better than this!” I would tell the radio audience this, Clay. The economy’s great, we’re at peace, Trump’s hilarious, good things are happening. You’ve got somebody who seems like a normal person who makes…”

“Normal” is not really the right description. But takes a gut instinct approach to things that is shared by other people who are not brainwashed with wokeness — and, yeah, of course that’s all gone now. But Governor DeSantis in his, “I’m gonna stand on this issue and double down,” I really mean this, we have to… The more agitated the left gets about things that involve parental involvement in schools…

Remember there’s so much at stake here, Clay. It’s not just the indoctrination of the kids and really the validation of some of the most far-left wing beliefs when it comes to gender identity. They want to teach 5-year-olds about multiple-pronoun individuals and all this stuff, multi-pronoun theory, all of this stuff that’s out there. They clearly want to do that.

But also, they’re very touchy just in general about anything where it’s greater parental involvement in education because really — unfortunately — the right had ceded public education largely to the Democrat Party and the left for decades now. And people are waking up to this and realizing this is a problem. Even if your kids aren’t in public school, it’s a problem, and the teachers unions are the heart of the Democrat Party’s political muscle and donations.

CLAY: What happened, Buck, is — I really do believe this — so much of the learning moved remote, and it woke up parents. I get it ’cause I’m a parent with kids in public school. Buck, you can well imagine. You’re busy. On a day-to-day basis, man, I spent my whole weekend at two Little League baseball games and then yesterday kids got a home game, and I went and coached —

BUCK: How’d the Travis boys hit, by the way?

CLAY: They’re hitting pretty well. Now, defense, we had an egregious error in the field that may have cost us the Sunday game by one of my boys. So there’s always a balancing act between, you know —

BUCK: Learning experience. A learn experience.

CLAY: Learning experience, yeah. And the older I get, the less maybe fired up I get about mistakes or whatever. But the point is, like, parents are just busy, and there’s so… Every day of a parent, especially when you have young kids — and I know a ton of our listeners know this feeling — it is such a wild moment-to-moment, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, that when you get through the day and everybody’s in bed, you’re just like, “Ahhh, you know, finally everybody’s in bed.”

I think what happened was, there were so many parents at home and you couldn’t help but look over your kid’s shoulder when you’re walking through the house and you started to pay attention in a way that maybe you hadn’t — when everybody’s at home — to what’s going on inside the schools. And I think masks also factored in in a big way because people got more engaged. Remember, Buck, when I spoke back in August, I called you afterwards and I said, “Man, this is gonna be a tidal wave,” and it already has led to Glenn Youngkin’s election.

BUCK: You were fired up because the parents were so fired up.

CLAY: It’s the best I had felt since covid happened, seeing how engaged all these parents were and how they weren’t gonna stand for it anymore. It felt like America was waking up, and I feel like that’s what’s going on. More steam! Do not let up. The more you get attacked on this, the more right you are. Don’t back down. I think that’s what Ron DeSantis has essentially decided, and the polling’s on his side. Parents don’t want their kindergarten, their first grader, their second grader, their third grader being taught about transgender issues or sexual orientation.

BUCK: By the way, why isn’t every state legislature with Republican majorities and a Republican governor…? Where are the companion bills?

CLAY: It’s a good question.

BUCK: Let’s drill down on this. Let’s force the Democrat Party to say, “No, we insist on the teaching of gender identity to 5-year-olds.”

CLAY: It’s madness, absolute madness.