Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) presidential campaign is coming under fire across the political spectrum for its “pride month” campaign video, released on the last day of what society has deemed “pride month.”
The ad begins by featuring former President Donald Trump touting a commitment to “protect” LGBTQ citizens. It also highlights Caitlyn Jenner’s meeting with Trump and a drag queen saying, “Make America Great Again.” The ad then cuts to an image of DeSantis with lightning coming out of his eyes with the caption, “No.” The infamous “Giga Chad” meme appears on the screen before the ad highlights headlines of the actions taken by DeSantis opposing the LGBTQ agenda.
“DeSantis Signs ‘Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History,’” one headline reads before a brief clip of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman walking appears on the screen. Right after that, the ad cuts to an image of DeSantis walking with a group of people in a similar manner.
The ad features more headlines, including DeSantis’s efforts to shut down drag events geared toward children and signing what the HuffPost deemed a “draconian anti-Trans bathroom bill” into law.
It continued to showcase leftist outrage against DeSantis for taking such “draconian” actions to push against the LGBTQ agenda.
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Some on the right, however, were turned off by the campaign video.
The Log Cabin Republicans, a Republican LGBTQ group, deemed the campaign’s video “divisive and desperate.”
“Republicans and other commonsense conservatives know Ron Desantis [sic] has alienated swing-state and younger voters,” the organization wrote in a thread, asserting that “conservatives understand that we need to protect our kids, preserve women’s sports, safeguard women’s spaces and strengthen parental rights.”
“But Ron DeSantis’ extreme rhetoric…has just ventured into homophobic territory,” it continued, warning that DeSantis’ rhetoric “will lose hard-fought gains in critical races across the nation.”
“Left-wing gays have tried to hijack the equality movement by pushing their radical sex and gender policies on children while slandering anyone who disagrees with them,” Log Cabin Republicans said.
“Ron DeSantis and his team can’t tell the difference between commonsense gays and the radical Left gays. He, sadly, sees them all the same. His naive policy positions are dangerous and politically stupid,” it added:
Others also dunked on the video across social media.
“This video at one point appears to favorably compare Ron DeSantis’ crusade against LGBTQ rights with…American Psycho serial killer Patrick Bateman,” Daily Beast reporter Roger Sollenberger observed.
“Truly one of the weirdest videos I’ve ever seen a politician put out. Also, splicing images of DeSantis alongside images of shirtless and masked men… does not quite send the anti-LGBTQ message apparently intended,” New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan remarked as others offered their perspectives.
Others on the thread of the original video offered their unfiltered opinions as well.
“Fire your campaign team tonight…this was a mistake,” one Twitter user said.
“Lol bro this just made me like trump for 2 minutes,” one wrote, as another added, “This is incredibly embarrassing.”
In a back and forth with Florida’s Voice’s Brendon Leslie and the DeSantis campaign’s Christina Pushaw, former U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell added further perspective, asserting that “every conservative is against the radical Left’s policies of indoctrinating our children, sexualizing kids and abusing children with trans surgeries and drugs.”
“But you’ve crossed the line into attacking gay adults. But we get it – you only exist as a media platform to promote RD. You win by addition not subtraction,” he added, calling the DeSantis video “undeniably homophobic.”