Byron Donalds has announced his bid for governor of Florida, launching a campaign built around a familiar set of conservative talking points defining a particular brand of post-Trump politics. Central to his platform is the promise to restore “law and order,” a phrase that has become a shorthand for authoritarian posturing and fear-based governance rather than a serious plan for public safety in recent years. As someone who is not a Floridian but who closely follows national politics and cares deeply about the direction of this country, I find Donalds’s candidacy deeply troubling. His rise represents a coordinated and deeply cynical effort to repackage authoritarian instincts, personal ambition, and ideological extremism as leadership, posing a significant threat to our democratic values.
The contradictions embedded in Donalds’s public image begin with his personal history. In 1997, he was charged with marijuana possession. The charges were ultimately dropped as part of a pre-trial diversion program, and he paid a fine. Just three years later, he pleaded no contest to a felony theft charge for attempting to deposit a fraudulent check. His record was later sealed and expunged, which, according to legal experts cited by PolitiFact, would not have been permitted if the state had considered him a convicted felon. These incidents are not necessarily disqualifying in and of themselves. Many people have made mistakes in their youth and gone on to live productive, even admirable lives. What makes them relevant in this case is the hypocrisy of Donalds presenting himself as a “law and order” candidate while supporting policies denying others the very second chances he was afforded, a revelation that should leave us all disillusioned and wary.
This hypocrisy is not incidental. It is part of a larger pattern in which Donalds, like many politicians molded in the image of Donald Trump, appears to believe that rules are things to be enforced on others, not followed himself. This selective moralism allows him to speak about crime in abstract and punishing terms while never addressing the reality that harsh criminal justice policies often fall hardest on communities that look like the one he came from. Instead of using his platform to advocate for reforms that might expand opportunity and justice, Donalds offers the same tired and punitive ideas that have failed generations of Americans while protecting those like himself who are politically useful or ideologically aligned. This is why he is happy to have a policy of rounding up every illegal immigrant but is coy when it comes to Trump's felonies. He's all about law and order until it affects him.
Beyond the contradictions in his criminal justice platform lies a more profound concern about the ideological forces that shape his political identity. Donalds is not simply a Republican congressman with conservative views. He is deeply embedded in a network of far-right institutions that are actively working to undermine public education, discredit democracy, and reshape American society along rigid, exclusionary lines. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, one of the country's most powerful conservative think tanks. Heritage has long opposed affirmative action, public school funding, and voting rights protections and has played a central role in coordinating state-level policies that ban books, whitewash history, and criminalize dissent.
Donalds’s educational stance is particularly revealing and deeply informed by the ideological commitments of his wife, Erika Donalds, a leading figure in the national school privatization movement. Erika has long advocated for policies that siphon public funds toward private and charter schools, often framing these efforts as expanding “parental rights” or advancing “education freedom.” But beneath the rhetoric lies a coordinated campaign to dismantle public education, undermine teacher autonomy, and limit curricula that include honest discussions of race, gender, and American history. Erika Donalds holds advisory roles with the Classical Learning Test, Moms for Liberty, and the Independent Women’s Forum Education Freedom Center, organizations that are not simply pro-school choice but aggressively political in their attempts to reshape the education system along narrow ideological lines. These groups have championed book bans, vilified educators, and sought to replace inclusive curricula with sanitized, often religiously-influenced alternatives. While Byron Donalds does not officially serve on these advisory boards, his policy positions and public statements consistently echo the agenda these groups promote. He has aligned himself with the same movement that treats public education as a cultural battleground, prioritizing ideology over equity, access, and the well-being of students. The close association between his political messaging and his wife’s advocacy should not be overlooked, it reflects a shared vision for education that is more interested in control than in fostering critical thinking or civic engagement. That vision poses a serious risk should he ascend to the governorship of a state with nearly three million public school students.
This is not merely a difference in educational philosophy. It is a concerted campaign to dismantle the very idea of a public good. When schools are turned into ideological battlegrounds, when educators are treated as political enemies, and when history is rewritten to serve partisan narratives, the future of democratic society is put at risk. Donald is not just participating in this campaign—he is actively helping to lead it.
However, perhaps the most dangerous aspect of his candidacy lies in his rejection of democratic norms. In January 2021, Donalds voted to object to the certification of electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania, directly aligning himself with efforts to overturn the results of a free and fair presidential election. That decision was not about policy differences or constitutional concerns. It was about loyalty to a narrative that served his political ambition. Even after the violence of January 6, even after multiple courts and audits confirmed the legitimacy of the 2020 election, Donald continued to spread falsehoods. As recently as July 2023, in an interview with Vanity Fair, he repeated the lie that Joe Biden was not the legitimate president of the United States.
That lie is not just a fringe opinion. It is a direct assault on the foundation of representative government. A candidate who refuses to accept the results of an election is not simply controversial. He is unfit for public office. Democracy cannot function when elected officials treat truth as negotiable and power as the only principle worth defending. The threat posed by Donalds is not hypothetical. It is real, and it is urgent. We must be alarmed and motivated to act against this threat.
Furthermore, gubernatorial elections in prominent and politically influential states have national consequences. The policies enacted in Tallahassee often serve as templates for similar legislation nationwide. The rhetoric that gains traction in Florida can shape the discourse in school board meetings, state legislatures, and congressional races from coast to coast. That is why the prospect of Byron Donalds as governor should concern not only Floridians but all Americans who care about the integrity of democracy, the future of public education, and the health of our civic institutions.
Donald’s campaign is not about governing. It is about grievance. It is not about serving the people of Florida. It is about serving a movement prioritizing control over collaboration and spectacle over substance. His past raises serious ethical questions, his present affiliations expose a radical ideological agenda, and his rejection of democratic norms places him far outside the bounds of responsible leadership. This is not the profile of a man who should be trusted with executive power. It is the portrait of a candidate who has learned all the wrong lessons from the chaos of recent years and who now seeks to bring that chaos to one of the country's largest and most influential states.
Florida, and indeed the nation, deserves better. We need leaders who believe in the rule of law for others and themselves. We need public servants who value truth over political expediency and see education as a right, not a battlefield. And we need candidates who accept that democracy means sometimes losing, telling the truth, and still doing the work. Byron Donalds has made it clear that he is unwilling or unable to meet that standard. For the sake of Florida’s future and the health of our democracy, his candidacy must be rejected.
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