Yesterday, Ron DeSantis caused a great triggering by signing a bill to protect girls from having to compete with biological boys in grade school sports. That it was the first day of ‘pride month’ only amplified the outrage. As per our usual arrangement, the Never Trump crowd got in on the action as well, with various writers from The Bulwark expressing their outrage.

DeSantis truly is public enemy #1 at this point.

Bringing his daughter as a prop for this is grotesque https://t.co/a3hSbrucMs

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) June 1, 2021

Prior to the passage and signing of the new law, which is objectively not controversial to the overwhelming majority of Americans who agree that girls’ sports should remain protected, the NCAA dropped their usual threats about pulling events out of the State of Florida. Remember, this is the same organization that threatened North Carolina over trying to stop men from using women’s restrooms. The woke is strong with college sports.

DeSantis, in a move that makes many other Republican governors look small and weak, called the NCAA’s bluff in devastating fashion.

FL Gov Ron DeSantis signed a law banning trans female athletes from competing against biological girls in sports. He did this, he tells #TuckerCarlson, despite pressure from corporate interests. pic.twitter.com/6iSOCGvoF6

— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) June 2, 2021

Here’s a bit of what he said transcribed.

“I think as these bills were going through various legislatures, I remember the NCAA put out a statement saying any state that enacts this, we’re not going to hold events there,” DeSantis said. “And so I called the Speaker of the House in Florida and I said, ‘did you hear what they said?’ And he’s like, ‘yeah,’ I said, we definitely got to get this done.”

“You can’t be cowed by these organizations, or particularly by woke corporations from doing the right thing. And so my view was throughout this whole time, we have to protect our girls, it is discriminatory to force them to compete against biological males,” DeSantis continued. “And so if the price of having a tournament is that I have to deny equal opportunity to hundreds of thousands of young girl and women athletes throughout Florida, I am much more willing to stand with the girls. And to hell with these events.”

DeSantis is a man with leverage, but more importantly, he’s brave enough to use it. The NCAA needs Florida far more than Florida needs the NCAA. For starters, there is zero chance the actual colleges in the state will be sanctioned. What this effectively means is that a few tournaments could get canceled. Big deal, right? Florida is already seeing an explosion in commerce and migration from people fleeing blue states. They aren’t going to go to be affected by the NCAA canceling events in the state, and that assumes the NCAA even has the courage to follow through.

In my opinion, they don’t. They may pull a womens’ basketball tournament or something to virtue signal a bit, but they aren’t pulling CFB bowl games, of which Florida’s weather and variety of venues serve as a major resource for the NCAA.

While South Dakota certainly doesn’t have the same level of leverage, Gov. Kristi Noem should have done exactly what DeSantis did here. There was no reason to bow to the NCAA when their threats have always rung hollow.

It’s long past time for Republicans to recognize that we are in a cultural battle for the very core of our society. Folding to economic interests every single time pressure gets applied is no longer an option, especially when major corporations, including the NCAA, have gone fully woke and seek to force their political views down on the nation just as fiercely as politicians do. DeSantis is one of the few who gets it, and he’s not going to back down. We need more of that across the board from the GOP. Now is the time.