ESG isn’t just bad for your pension and retirement accounts, it’s also a way for liberal elites to circumvent the Constitution and rob the American people of their ability to govern their country, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned Monday.
“I don’t know where this stuff comes from – but, these elites grab it and they really want to impose it on the rest of us,” Gov. DeSantis said a press event where he described the dangers of ESG: “It’s called environmental, social, governance (ESG) – but, basically, what it’s devolved into is a mechanism to inject political ideology into investment decisions, corporate governance and, really, just the everyday economy.
“That is not, ultimately, something that’s going to work out well for us here in Florida or in the United States of America. There is not a real groundswell for this amongst the average citizen.
“I think this is something where you have a lot of folks, not just in the United States, but internationally, sometimes they convene in places like Davos, and they have these ideas to try to do this.”
ESG hurts Americans by hindering domestic energy production and by preventing investment in other profitable industries that are disfavored by the ESG Elites, Gov. DeSantis explained.
Banks have now begun employing so-called “Social Credit Scores” to deny services to companies, like those that provide services to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that ESG ideology opposes, DeSantis said.
“What they’re doing is they’re ranking you about what you’re doing to basically conform your behavior to their ideological imperatives. And, that’s not acceptable,” DeSantis said.
But, more even fundamentally, ESG circumvents the Constitution, enabling ESG Elites to ignore the will of the public, DeSantis explained:
“Their targets always seem to be – and I haven’t seen an example where it’s not – they always seem to be those people who are disfavored by the jet-setters in places like Davos: Second Amendment advocates, people involved in the production of domestic energy.”
“So, that is using your economic power to advance a political agenda. Now, this is something that is very serious, because I think the policies are bad, I think having a politicized economy is not the way that you want to go,” DeSantis said.
Gov. DeSantis said ESG also perverts the way U.S. society is governed:
“Our Constitution says We-The-People govern - through elections and different houses of the legislature, executive, and you can kind of arrive at policy. People can evaluate that. They can choose other people in future elections.
“Well, what ESG does, and when you have major asset managers and these international folks and folks in these big Wall Street banks, they just want to do an end-run around that.”
ESG Elites want to mandate their policies, without having to gain the approval of We-The-People – because the American public would never condone them - DeSantis explained:
“They don’t want to have to worry about winning elections. In fact, a lot of the policies they pursue could never win favor with the American public. I mean, abolish ICE? Saying that you should have an open border and that it’s, somehow, wrong to be involved in immigration enforcement? That would never fly with the public. But, that is what they are doing.
“So, this is a distortion of a government of, by and for The People.
“They are not accountable to you. They are not accountable to us. And, I think, ultimately, it does represent a threat, not just to a smooth and prosperous economy - a smooth, functioning prosperous economy - but also our very freedom itself.”
During his remarks, Gov. DeSantis announced to legislation “protect Floridians from the woke ESG financial scam.”
Editor's Note: This piece reprinted with permission and was first published on CNSNews.com.
