One of the things conservative Republicans were most hungry for in their 2016 presidential nominee was someone who would not back down from a fight and someone who understood how the MSM and Big Tech companies often work hand in hand to control the political debate and constrain conservative voices.

They picked candidate Donald Trump to be their man in the ring, and several months later all their campaigning and hard work on behalf of Trump paid off with him defeating Hillary Clinton with a win many so-called political “experts” never saw coming.

But Trump is no longer president, and his reach has been significantly reduced (but not for long?) thanks to those same social media titans he waged war against for four years.

With all of that in mind, who is there to step in and fill the latest leadership void in the Republican party?

While it’s unclear whether he’ll run for president in 2024, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is making all the right moves that would position him as a top contender for the nomination. But even if he doesn’t run, the stances and actions he’s taken on behalf of his state since he was elected governor have been the equivalent of a conservative Republican leader putting on a clinic and showing how it’s supposed to be done – especially at a time when Democrats and their allies are aggressively trying to cancel opposing voices and smother dissent altogether.

Case in point, Gov. DeSantis’ recent interview with The Federalist where he talked about some of the issues he’s had to deal with in his state, like Big Tech’s censorship of conservatives, and transgender women competing in women’s sports, two issues he’s tried to combat with recent bills signed into law.

He made clear during the interview that he understood that the way to promote conservative values in your city or state was not to bend the knee to the left/media in the debate, and he took particular aim at Republicans in Congress for sometimes allowing the media and Democrats to set the narratives, with Republicans responding with Democrat-lite solutions. That doesn’t go over well with most Republicans, DeSantis correctly pointed out, especially at a time when so many voices on the right are being marginalized by the same party that proclaims to respect a diversity of viewpoints but in reality, does no such thing

“If all you’re doing is, the Democrats propose $2 trillion in infrastructure, so we say we’ll do $1.5 trillion, that’s not going to animate anybody,” he told the outlet. “That’s just ‘me, too’ Republicanism and ultimately that’s not going to be successful.”

During the interview, he also said Republicans need to be willing to take the hits that go along with proposing legislation that triggers Democrats, the media, and “woke corporations.”

“I’m totally willing to sacrifice an event in order to stand with the girls of my state. It’s an easy decision, and I don’t view it as pressure as much as saying, ‘The battle lines are clearly drawn, so which side are you going to be on?’”

The most important advice he had for Republicans was in reminding them that they “need to understand where the battle lines are being drawn.”

“Stop trying to grovel in front of them [the media], stop thinking that they’re going to like you, stop trying to impress them. Fight back against them,” he said during the interview. “That’s really what you have to do.”

That simply cannot be said enough.

Watch the full interview below:

Related: Ron DeSantis Uses Fauci’s Lab Leak Admission to Perfectly Nail Point on Folly of Deplatforming Conservatives