The Left spent years tearing down Christopher Columbus statues and throwing them in lakes.
Now Ron DeSantis just said enough.
And Ron DeSantis just put Christopher Columbus back where the Left tried to erase him.
The Left's War on Columbus
This wasn't a symbolic gesture. It was a direct answer.
While Democrat mayors were sending crane operators to yank Columbus off his pedestal, DeSantis was commissioning bronze.
In the summer of 2020, the Left went on a rampage against Western history.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2110894957980438798?s=20
A Columbus statue in Richmond got lit on fire and dumped in a lake.
In Boston, protesters sawed the head off one.
Chicago's Mayor Lori Lightfoot had two Columbus statues wrapped in plastic and hauled away in the middle of the night.
Baltimore took theirs down.
San Francisco took theirs down.
The city of Columbus, Ohio – named after the man – tore his statue from in front of City Hall and put it in storage.
Then Joe Biden made it official.
In 2021, Biden became the first president to formally proclaim Indigenous Peoples' Day – a direct shot at Columbus Day and the Italian-American heritage tied to it.
Cities across the country followed, replacing Columbus Day with a holiday designed to erase him from the calendar.
Washington D.C., under Mayor Muriel Bowser, kept ignoring Columbus Day even after President Trump formally restored the holiday last year.
The Left's message was clear: Columbus is canceled. Western exploration is shameful. Italian heritage is embarrassing. The history that made America possible needs to be hidden.
DeSantis Draws the Line
Ron DeSantis just said no to all of it.
On Thursday, he stood in front of a 6-foot bronze Columbus statue in Naples – the Florida city that shares its name with the Italian city of Columbus's heritage – and said the quiet part out loud.
"In the Free State of Florida, Christopher Columbus is a hero. End of story," he said.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2110834917538255118?s=20
The statue stands in front of the Knights of Columbus building, funded entirely through private donations.
The Knights of Columbus – a Catholic men's organization with 60,000 members across Florida – chose Columbus as their namesake more than a century ago because he represented what it meant to be Catholic and American at the same time.
"He discovered this place, this place where we call our home today, the Americas, the greatest country in the world," Michael Josephs-Tobias, the organization's Florida State Deputy said.
Italy's Consul General Michele Mistò was there too.
He called Columbus "the best of Italian genius, courage, and genuine passion for discovering."
That's worth remembering every time the Left tells Italian-Americans they should be ashamed of their heritage.
Florida Is Building While the Left Tears Down
The Columbus unveiling is one of more than a dozen DeSantis has executed under Florida's America 250 initiative.
Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Monroe, Hamilton.
Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan.
Juan Ponce de León, Andrew Jackson, Lady Columbia.
And now Christopher Columbus.
Every one of these statues went up while blue-state Democrats were still debating whether to rename holidays, tear down monuments, and scrub American explorers from school curricula.
Florida isn't just preserving history.
Florida is actively rebuilding it – while the rest of the country watches.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2110878396842725711?s=20
That matters, because what the left actually wanted in 2020 wasn't justice for indigenous people.
They wanted to erase the chain of events that produced the United States.
No Columbus – no Ponce de León, who named Florida.
No Ponce de León – no Hernando de Soto.
No de Soto – no Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who founded St. Augustine in 1565.
No St. Augustine – no oldest city in America.
No oldest city in America – no Florida.
The Left understood that erasing Columbus meant erasing the entire story of Western civilization arriving in this hemisphere.
DeSantis is methodically restoring every piece of that story they tried to steal.
Sources:
- Governor Ron DeSantis Press Office, "Governor DeSantis Unveils Christopher Columbus Statue in Naples," Florida Governor's Office, October 15, 2026.
- WINK Digital Team, "Gov. DeSantis Unveils Christopher Columbus Statue in Naples," WINK News, October 15, 2026.
- Just the News Staff, "Trump Restores Columbus Day to the Elation of Italians, but Some Liberals Resist," Just the News, October 12, 2025.
- Fox 32 Chicago, "City of Columbus, Ohio Capital, Removes Christopher Columbus From City Hall," Fox 32, July 2020.
- Governor Ron DeSantis Press Office, "Governor DeSantis Unveils Statue of Juan Ponce de León as Part of Florida's America 250 Celebration," Florida Governor's Office, July 17, 2026.
