A new report warns that DeSantis’ private army is a potential hotbed of extremism

One of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' more bizarre moves has been the establishment of the Florida State Guard. This during a gubernatorial tenure that has seen DeSantis lurch to the far, far right on everything from civil rights to public education to whether or not people suspected of "drug smuggling" ought to be summarily executed upon crossing our southern border. The guard was announced with some pomp in 2022 and premised as an alternative version of the state National Guard under the orders of nobody but the governor himself and would be focused on emergency response in case of natural disasters or other state emergencies.

Why DeSantis needed his own alternative to the National Guard was always sketchy, and critics warned from the beginning that the authoritarian-minded, vengeance-obsessed DeSantis was exactly the sort of political leader who should not be given his own dedicated paramilitary force. The suspicions were that Florida Republicans were not creating an "emergency preparedness" force, but a state-sponsored anti-federal militia.