Governor DeSantis is back on the warpath against wokeism, this time turning his sights away from Disney and leftist teachers and instead focusing on banking discrimination against conservatives.
As background, PayPal and other banks have started “debanking” certain conservative figures. Mike Lindell’s bank, for example, gave him and many of his companies the boot, and PayPal froze the account of a patriotic group called “Moms for Liberty” (it unfroze the group’s account following DeSantis’ announcement).
Well, DeSantis isn’t content with that state of things and wants to prevent banks and payment service providers, such as PayPal, from booting conservatives for their views and to stop ESG investing from pressuring companies to act in an anti-conservative way.
Speaking on that in a recent statement, Governor DeSantis pledged to fight back against wokeness in corporations, particularly the sort of wokeness pushed by ESG investing, saying
“The leveraging of corporate power to impose an ideological agenda on society represents an alarming trend. From Wall Street banks to massive asset managers and big tech companies, we have seen the corporate elite use their economic power to impose policies on the country that they could not achieve at the ballot box. Through the actions I announced today, we are protecting Floridians from woke capital and asserting the authority of our constitutional system over ideological corporate power.
“Woke elites use ESG investing to prop up far left policies, undermining our national security and raising prices for Americans,” said Speaker Designate Paul Renner. “The Florida House will join the fight to stop woke financial titans who seek to dictate policy to Floridians regardless of our choices at the ballot box. I look forward to working with Governor DeSantis to protect Floridians’ pocketbooks and strengthen our national security.”
And, on the topic of stopping banks and payment service providers from discriminating against conservatives, DeSantis proposed legislation for the 2023 legislative session that would, in addition to stopping ESG investment:
Prohibit big banks, credit card companies and money transmitters from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs.
Further, in addition to generally preventing those that invest public money from investing based on ESG standards and preventing financial service providers from discrimination based on the aforementioned beliefs, DeSantis’ legislation would target the nexus between ESG investing and financial discrimination, as a press statement released by his office announced, saying:
The proposed legislation will amend Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices statute to prohibit discriminatory practices by large financial institutions based on ESG social credit score metrics.
Such initiatives are critically important to conservatives: everything requires money, particularly politics, so movements starved of cash because financial service providers cut them off for political reasons have a very hard time making their message heard.
By striking at ESG investing and financial discrimination, DeSantis is taking action to level the playing field for both non-woke companies seeking investment dollars and groups that push non-woke messages, something that, if it passes, would be a terrific win in the war against wokeness.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Facebook and Subscribe to My Email List
This story syndicated with permission from Will, Author at Trending Politics