Ultimately, it wasn’t the culture war over restricting LGBTQ+ rights, alienating Black voters, or smearing immigrants that ultimately quelled Republicans’ DeSantis fever in Florida.
Nor was it his right-wing takeover of higher education, his banning of books from school libraries, his restrictions on drag shows, or his passive acquiescence in neo-Nazis parading outside Disney World waving flags bearing the extremist governor’s name that eventually caused them to rise up against him.
But it was a love for the vulnerable Florida scrub jays, a passion to protect endangered gopher tortoises and, above all, a unanimous desire to stand up for nature, despite Ron DeSantis’s mind-boggling plan to pave thousands of pristine acres in nine state parks and build 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.
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The outrage when DeSantis’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled its preposterously named Great Outdoors Initiative last week was immediate, overwhelming and unprecedented. Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida wrote a joint letter denouncing an “absolutely ridiculous” proposal to build a golf course at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County. Republican Congressman Brian Mast, usually a staunch DeSantis ally, said it would happen “over my dead body.”
Dozens of Republican congressmen and senators, whose performance in the more than five years since DeSantis was elected governor has largely been limited to approving his far-right agenda, lined up to condemn the projects. Many noted that the plans were drawn up in secret, with no-bid contracts going to mysteriously pre-selected developers outside the requirements of Florida law.
Thousands of environmental activists and activists flocked to multiple state parks on Tuesday to protest not only the destruction of vast swaths of wildlife habitat, but also DeSantis’ lack of transparency and his intention to give the public just one hour to comment at each state park during meetings that were to be held simultaneously.
By Wednesday, DeSantis’ initiative was effectively dead, as the governor, clearly resentful of the unexpected challenge to his previously unchallenged authority from all sides, angrily backed down during an awkward news conference in Winter Haven.
“They are going back to the drawing board,” he said of the plans, which he admitted were “half-baked” and “not ready for the big TV broadcasts yet.”
This was a completely self-inflicted political wound, a political mistake by Governor DeSantis and his administration
Aubrey Jewett, professor of political science at the University of Central Florida
Desperately trying to shift the blame elsewhere for a misadventure that was very clearly his own, he continued: “This is something that was leaked. It was not approved by me, I never saw it. It was deliberately leaked to a left-wing group to try to create a narrative.”
His improbable comment denying any responsibility was left to dry his own inner circle, particularly his communications director Bryan Griffin, who just a week earlier had raved on X about an “exciting new initiative by the state of Florida … expanding visitor capacity, lodging and recreational opportunities at state parks.”
The volte-face did not go unnoticed. On Thursday, the Tampa Bay Times ran a headline asking, “Is DeSantis Losing His Grip on Florida?” citing his disastrous race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination as a possible catalyst for the burgeoning insurgency.
“The DeSantis administration is so tightly controlled and top-down, and the idea that he wasn’t aware of this or didn’t support it, or that the people in those agencies somehow pushed through a plan this grand without the knowledge or support of the governor, is just ridiculous,” said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science in the University of Central Florida’s Department of Politics, Security and International Affairs.
“People don’t just freelance and come up with this stuff on their own. This was a completely self-inflicted political wound, a political mistake by Governor DeSantis and his administration. There’s just no reason to have a policy where you’re paving over state parks to build golf courses and hotels, right? There’s no demand, nobody asked for this and they just decided they were going to do it anyway. It was politically tone-deaf.”
According to Jewett, the parks debacle has hurt DeSantis on two fronts.
“It shows how bad this plan was, that not only Democrats, progressives and environmentalists are objecting to these plans, but mainstream Republicans in the legislature and at the federal level who are all saying this was a terrible idea,” he said.
“It also shows that DeSantis has lost some of the grip he’s had on Florida politics for the last four years. It seemed like no one and nothing could stand up to him, and most Republicans didn’t want to. He was hitting home run after home run, right? He’d take an issue, exploit it, push it, and Republican conservatives would say, ‘Yeah, let’s get those liberals, let’s get those woke people.’ He just seemed to be on a winning streak.
“They also didn’t want to prove him wrong, because he showed time and again that if you crossed him, he would come after you and be politically vengeful.
Without a clear political path forward to something greater, he is just one of many lame duck governors with two years left in office
Aubrey Jewett
“Well, now it’s completely changed. We have virtually every major Republican in the state coming out and saying this was a terrible idea. This incident perhaps highlights how far DeSantis has fallen in terms of political control and impact in Florida.”
DeSantis, meanwhile, denied he ever had such a hold. Pressed further about the state park humiliation at a news conference Thursday, the governor said anyone who thought he was dictating anything “misunderstood politics.”
“I have never categorized [it] “Like I have a handle on everything,” he told reporters, according to Florida Politics, stressing that he only had “the ability to set an agenda and execute the agenda” by working with lawmakers.
Florida’s elated Democrats naturally seized the moment. State party chair Nikki Fried retweeted the article, alluding to the animosity during the Republican primary campaign between Donald Trump and the governor he had repeatedly humiliated.
“I don’t know who’s having more fun: Trump watching DeSantis lose power, or DeSantis watching Trump lose this election,” she wrote.
Jewett doubts whether DeSantis, who is due to leave office in January 2027, can be as effective in his remaining months in office — especially as Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature regains its footing.
“Without a clear political path to something bigger, he’s basically just another lame duck governor with two years left. He can’t get re-elected and it’s going to be a lot harder to influence people because they know you’re going away,” he said.
“It’s entirely possible that the Legislature will become a more equal branch again and stand up for itself. It will still be dominated by Republican conservatives, and DeSantis is still a conservative, so on many issues they will be on the same page.
“But right now, your normal allies on the Republican side are giving you as much grief as anyone else, and it’s entirely self-inflicted. You step on a rake and boom, the lever comes up and hits you right in the nose.”
