A Shocking New Documentary Reveals How Republicans Waged War on Education — With Your Tax Dollars. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Hijacked Florida's Honors College and Turned It Into a MAGA Baseball Academy. When DeSantis promised to rescue higher education from liberal indoctrination, he instead seized control of one of America's most successful public honors colleges, drove away more than half its professors, eliminated entire academic programs. And of course, he installed a Republican political insider whose compensation exceeds $1 million annually. “First They Came for My College” exposes how DeSantis and his right-wing allies transformed New College of Florida into a laboratory for their national culture war. And the experiment is a total FAILURE. I interviewed the film's producer, Harry Hanbury, a New College alumnus who spent three years documenting the takeover alongside director Patrick Bresnan. This documentary exposes the Republican Party’s MO: manufacture an ideological crisis, seize institutional power, install political loyalists, suppress dissent, and spend public money like drunken sailors remaking the institution to be unWoke. And useless. THE REPUBLICAN TAKEOVER OF NEW COLLEGE BEGAN ON JANUARY 6TH. Seriously. On January 6, 2023, exactly two years after Donald Trump's supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, DeSantis announced six new appointments to New College's governing board. New New College trustee Christopher Rufo, the right-wing activist who popularized the Republican crusade against critical race theory, and the Federalist Society member Matthew Spalding, a Hillsdale College Dean, who later became closely associated with Trump's Project 2025. DeSantis and his cronies wanted to transform Florida's public honors college into a conservative institution modeled on Hillsdale College. There was just one problem. NEW COLLEGE WAS ALREADY AN ACADEMIC SUCCESS STORY. During the decade before the takeover, New College produced more science and engineering PhDs per capita than any other public college in America, according to Hanbury. Its students earned Fulbright scholarships at extraordinary rates. And the Republican allegation that students were being indoctrinated? Florida's own mandatory viewpoint-diversity survey undermined that excuse. The ideology surveys revealed 88% of New College respondents agreed that their classes exposed them to competing arguments and multiple perspectives. The governor's own state-sponsored fishing expedition found evidence of precisely the intellectual diversity his allies claimed was missing. But DeSantis seized New College anyway. And trashed it. “First They Came For My College” exposes a fundamental contradiction at the center of the takeover: politicians campaigning against ideological conformity used government power to impose their preferred ideology on an institution that had been teaching students to think independently. MEET THE MILLION-DOLLAR REPUBLICAN COLLEGE PRESIDENT. The new board replaced New College's president with Richard Corcoran, a former Republican speaker of the Florida House and former state education commissioner. Corcoran had no previous experience serving as a university president. Corcoran's compensation reached approximately $1.3 million annually, including benefits, compared with $299,000 for his predecessor. What did Florida taxpayers receive in return? More than half the faculty departed. Academic programs disappeared. And New College plummeted approximately 74 places in the U.S. News rankings. Hanbury also pointed to a Florida government efficiency report placing the college's spending at nearly $500,000 per graduate — approximately four times the state university system average. These are the Republicans who nonstop lecture everyone about government fraud, waste, and abuse. Yet, you won't won't find Nick Shirley at New College. Fiscal conservatism becomes optional when the money is funding their anti-woke crusades. THE BASEBALL ACADEMY THAT REPLACED AN HONORS COLLEGE. One of the documentary's most astonishing revelations involves athletics. New College was a small, specialized liberal arts institution celebrated for academic excellence. The new administration created approximately 20 sports programs. Hanbury described a baseball roster approaching 90 players at a school enrolling fewer than 1,000 students. Why? Christopher Rufo publicly discussed recruiting male athletes to change the campus's gender and hormonal balance. You read that correctly. DeSantis claimed he would improve academics at New College. Instead, his appointees turned an acclaimed honors college into something resembling a taxpayer-subsidized baseball academy. You couldn't invent a more ridiculous example of Republicans carrying out all of their plans with unlimited funds and failing more miserably. The sad thing is that this kind of corruption by the Republican Party has only grown under Donald Trump. But it only happened because Democrats allowed Florida to become Ron DeSantis’ playground by abandoning the state in prior years. Not this year. Get out there and vote!

Voting season is here, don't be late! #VoteEarlyForNoKings

The reason we have an affordability crisis is because Donald Trump does not care at all whether Americans live, breathe, starve, or die. And he said as much out of his own Cheeto-crusted mouth. #RepublicanAffordabilityCrisis

Seen on the roads of Florida.

Donald Trump is going to lose this election because of just this one lie. He knows the number one issue to American voters is his war and resulting energy prices. Trump just can’t do anything about it without admitting he’s wrong, which would also lose him the election.

Donald Trump is burning your tax dollars, warning about communism, but promising to drop $5,000 out of the sky if everyone votes Republican next month. So why does it trigger Newsmax when I call him a communist?

They even let Donald Trump put a price on poisoning babies. Nothing is sacred to these Republicans. #TrumpsCorruptCongress

CNN just asked Trump about the war he lost, and he lost it.

Donald Trump’s minions just announced his plan to get hundreds of thousands of Americans off of Affordable Care Act’s insurance plans. Democrats want #HealthcareForAll. Any questions???

Calling Donald Trump’s $5000 giveaway a communist ruffled feathers on Newsmax. But they couldn’t disprove it.

Maria Elvira Salazar voted against the Biden infrastructure bill, then showed up at Miami City Hall to present a check from the federal government from the infrastructure bill. I asked her about it. She’s the same Republican who voted to fund ICE and now released a video opposing Trump’s immigration policies.

When I smuggled the fact onto Newsmax that even Trump's Administration reported that inflation is HIGHER today than when Joe Biden left office, the right-wing guest told a lie because the truth hurt him. In just over 7 weeks, we make them pay for the lies. #BlueWaveIn50Days

Now do Melania.

Went on a fact smuggling mission to Newsmax this morning, and when I told them that Donald Trump had set the record for highest diesel prices ever they went into denial. But it’s true, and diesel just hit $6 a gallon today for the first time ever. BEHOLD: