Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is seen as an doctrinaire conservative by the political press, who much like activists seem driven far more by social issues than economic ones. DeSantis’ desire to push the buttons of COVID-denial and appeal to anti-Vaxxers has him pushing yet another Soviet-styled attempt to crush free enterprise in Florida.

Today, DeSantis signed an Executive Order to ban private corporations who seek state money or contracts from asking for “vaccine passports.” Let’s get this straight, this is an attempt by Government and a single executive who is essentially saying “I am the state” from allowing the private enterprise to respond to market demands and protecting their private property rights.

Last month at CPAC, the heart of the DeSantis well-received presentation was a summary of his attempts to use government to scuttle the independence of private tech companies who wish to regulate their platforms in accordance with their user agreements. Making no reference to tech’s indulgence of extremism before the January 6 coup attempt which is after all what prompted this reaction, DeSantis laid out the plan of Florida Republicans to muzzle big tech, forcing them to allow all speech by politicians as “free speech” or face major fines.

Those attending the conference responded by anointing DeSantis the clear GOP front-runner should former President Trump not run in 2024, based on the straw poll held at CPAC.

So basically if you are a tech company that tries to regulate your platform with decency standards dictated by the free market, the consumers who your platform is meant to appeal to, you will be manipulated, fined and perhaps even muzzled in DeSantis’ Florida.

Governor DeSantis’ is a true conservative when it comes to cultural issues. But these trump economic ones for him, despite his claims to be a free market guy. A state dependent on travel and tourism like Florida is effectively at the mercy of industries like the airlines and cruises that depend on high levels of vaccination and ensuring the safety of their customers. DeSantis’ gambit could end up backfiring immensely in terms of the economy, but by that time he’d probably be reelected and running for President, so what does he care?

On the economy and COVID of late his solutions have been downright Soviet or Communist Chinese in its approach. DeSantis goal is to tell private companies how they should do business in the state and force private companies to bend to the will of government to echo the cultural bias of the Governor rather than the free market and air what is essentially state-driven propaganda on social media platform.

Florida Republicans, who have long taken an approach that elections don’t matter and they can race to pass laws that would be impossible in a genuinely pluralistic society believe they can get away with this.

Florida has at the state level for over two decades essentially been a one party state like the Soviet Union was. This is the result of pluralism failing. It’s imperative to stop power grabs, dictatorship and Soviet-styled governance that we once again have competitive two-party statewide elections.