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Inside DeBartolo Hall, the packed auditorium gave Gov. Ron DeSantis a standing ovation as he took to the stage.

The Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government invited the governor to deliver the 2024 Jeanie Poole O’Shaughnessy Memorial Lecture on “Conservative Leadership on the Eve of America’s Semiquincentennial.” The lecture came just three days after the U.S. presidential election.

Professor Phillip Muñoz introduced the lecture and described it in relation to the Center’s mission. “The Center aims to explore the fundamental principles and practices of constitutional government so our Notre Dame students are equipped to protect their God-given natural rights, exercise the responsibility of self-government and to be the future leaders of our country,” said Muñoz. “In our classes, in our programs, we try to foster the leadership that will actually make our country great, and there’s no better way for us to foster that leadership by introducing our nation’s future leaders to our current leaders.” Luca Fanucchi, a senior in the Center’s Tocqueville Fellows program, introduced DeSantis.

“I committed to come here this summer for this weekend thinking that tomorrow’s game would be a clash of two top 10 ranked teams,” DeSantis began, “Florida State didn’t exactly keep up their end of the bargain.” After some preliminary remarks about Notre Dame football and his friendship with Lou Holtz, DeSantis posed the question of what modern conservatism means today.

“For me, conservative leadership is about having a certain foundation that you bring to the job that you are doing. It means that you have a fidelity to the founding principles of this country.” DeSantis asserted such fidelity “does not mean kneejerk preservation of the status quo.”

“In fact, given the degradation of so many of our institutions, I often find myself in the role of being a rebel. I’m taking on a failed elite, the consensus that they try to manufacture, and I’m trying to reorient the institutions in my state.”

DeSantis described the importance of leaders protecting the people they represent from “the pathologies of the modern American left.” He spent much of the rest of his speech describing how he has “protected” his constituents during his time in office, including protecting Floridians from descent into a “Faucian dystopia,” protecting children from the “pathologies of the left” by “taking on teachers’ unions” and protecting citizens from “corporate America run amok.” He also characterized modern legacy media as “protecting power from truth” and alleged that it would be more apt to call diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives “discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination.”

DeSantis referred to another former head coach, Knute Rockne, in his conclusion. “We have taken on big fights and we have delivered big results,” said DeSantis. “and I kind of view it the same way that Knute Rockne viewed the football [team] when he gave the pep speech, talking about ‘we’re going to get him on the run we’re going to keep them on the run, and we’re not going to stop until we get over the goal line.’ That’s exactly what we’ve done and taking on the left and beating the Democratic Party and making Florida a place that people want to move to.” 

Muñoz returned to moderate the Q and A, which he described as a necessary “condition” for giving a lecture through the Center. Members of the audience submitted questions via Slido for DeSantis to respond to.

Tocqueville Fellow Michael Canady asked how DeSantis would respond to claims from the student protesters just outside about his being “anti-democracy, anti-LGBTQ, restrictive of voting rights and immigration, and anti- Palestine.”

“dOn the protesters,” DeSantis said, “honestly what I would tell them is, ‘Get some new material.’” The crowd erupted in applause.

“I mean those are just left-wing clichés.”