How Ron DeSantis Joined the ‘Ruling Class’ — and Turned Against It
nytimes.comEarly last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis nestled into his chair onstage in Naples, Fla., to explain to an audience of the would-be conservative elite his journey through the reigning liberal one they hoped to destroy.
His host was Larry P. Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College, a small Christian school in southern Michigan that has become an academic hub of the Trump-era right.
His subject was Yale University, where Mr. DeSantis was educated and where, as he tells it, he first met the enemy. “I’m a public school kid,” Mr.
DeSantis told the audience, unspooling a story that he has shared in recent years with aides, friendly interviewers, donors, voters and readers of his memoir, “The Courage to Be Free.” “My mom was a nurse, my dad worked for a TV ratings company, installing the metering devices back then.
