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Being a political reporter in Tallahassee, the way Mary Ellen class is, means bearing witness

to an evolution. This evolution is happening in the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

And Mary Ellen says, it all started in the wake of the presidential election. It was

clear Donald Trump had lost. Acolytes like DeSantis were looking around for their next move.

And he began this culture work campaign, starting with, you know, Florida is a free state,

and we operate businesses without any requirements of vaccines or home asking.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. It's always wonderful to be in Florida's friendliest hometown,

which happens to be the center of the freeest state in the United States.

And then DeSantis began to get a little bit obsessed with this word. The word is woke.

And I think what you see now with the rise of this woke ideology is an attempt to really

delegitimize our history.

And I view the wokeness as a form of cultural Marxism.

Governor DeSantis has started talking about wokeness all the time.

I mean, tell me where you would find this success story of woke progressivism imposed on

people. I don't see it.

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