Joy Reid, Lincoln Project claim Ron DeSantis is 'openly fascist' and 'threat' to American identity

Joy Reid and Stuart Stevens of the Lincoln Project called the Ron DeSantis campaign "fascist" and a "threat to what it means to be an American" on MSNBC. 

Stevens is a senior advisor to the Lincoln Project. The project's claimed mission is "to protect the American Republic from Donald Trump and those who identify (publicly or privately) as MAGA supporters." The founder of the project has said before that "Antifa isn't real."



According to Stevens, DeSantis is "worse than Trump" and "it is a hard thing for a lot of us who worked in the [Republican] party to accept" that he is second in the running for the nomination." 

The Lincoln Project itself wrote an open letter to DeSantis after he announced his presidential bid. They were critical of his announcement on Twitter saying it was just him "and Elon Musk – a South African who believes that the radical right deserves their own space to scream racist tropes, promote political violence, and push a bizarre culture war."

Joy Reid, on the other hand, has used the allegation of "fascist" multiple times against the candidate. 

From her personal Twitter account, she apparently has not directly mentioned DeSantis since December 2022, when she said his whole platform is about fighting the "woke" and that it is "literally DeSantis’ entire political philosophy."

"It’s why they love and adore him, and why he is their new Trump. Dude is literally anti-empathy in human form. Fascism in snow white boots and a Top Gun flight suit," Reid concluded. 

More recently, on June 24, her show account, The Reid Out, shared an article about DeSantis which was critical of him for answering "is there someone you would want to have dinner with in history" with his pick of Christ and his disciples.

DeSantis is the number two runner according to many recent polls for the Republican Party nomination in the upcoming 2024 election behind former President Trump.