Another DeSantis debacle

Created
Sun, 03/09/2023 - 03:00
Updated
Sun, 03/09/2023 - 03:00
He seems to really loathe teenagers We all know that Ron DeSantis has a real problem with kids. Scolding a little kid for eating ice cream because it has too much sugar was bad enough. Humiliating those high school students who wore masks waseven worse. Now this: Quinn Mitchell has seen at least 35 presidential candidates in person since 2019, when he first started showing up at New Hampshire primary events to ask them questions. Not a single one of them had ever treated the now-15-year-old as if he were a threat—until Ron DeSantis came to town. It all started with a straightforward question. In June, when DeSantis stopped for a town hall event in Hollis, Mitchell raised his hand in the crowd. “Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power,” the teenager asked the governor, “a key principle of American democracy that we must uphold?” DeSantis dodged the question and said Americans shouldn’t get stuck in the past, but not before remarking—in a somewhat impressed, incredulous tone—on Mitchell’s age. “Are you in high school?” the governor asked. The moment went viral, with DeSantis’ non-answer encapsulating how even Donald Trump’s lead primary rival could not bring himself to acknowledge the former president’s efforts to undo the 2020 election. CNN even played it during an interview with Chris Christie to tee up a question to the Trump foe. […] Across all of the reboots and turmoil, a consistent thread apparently remained: the DeSantis team’s willingness to go to unusual lengths to prevent a teenage boy…