Not to comment on Ron DeSantis’ metaphorical monkey
business would be ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the middle of the room. The
Twittersphere and other platforms went bananas today when they heard DeSantis warn Florida voters
not to “monkey this up” by electing his African American opponent, Andrew
Gillum. I think his critics are up a tree with this one, as this usage has
clearly thrown a monkey wrench into DeSantis’ campaign plans. It was a mistake,
not a dog whistle. Dog whistles are usually precisely that—hard to hear, whereas “monkey
this up” is about ten degrees south of the N-word. There is no phrase “to
monkey up” in any kind of American slang. He was aiming for “muck up” and he
misspoke. That said, malapropisms don’t often come from nowhere. It is easy to
imagine the M-word making the rounds in meetings among close associates of a
Florida candidate who is a monkey-see, monkey-do for the Trump administration.
The opinion call from this desk is that DeSantis' use of the phrase, “monkey
this up,” was not an intentional dog whistle to white voters. However, his
having ceded a few sentences earlier in the speech that Andrew Gillum was
“articulate” may bear a closer look on those grounds. Dog whistle. A
little hard to hear.
