Ron DeSantis Declares a Civil Rights Group “Terrorist.” Welcome to Florida.

 

There is, according to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a new terrorist organization operating in the Sunshine State.

Not a shadowy militia. Not a violent underground cell. Not even a group the federal government has ever accused of terrorism.

It is, somehow, a civil rights organization.

With a quiet executive order posted to X, DeSantis declared CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to be a threat to Florida’s democracy. Not American democracy, mind you. Just Florida’s. Apparently we now run our own parallel national security apparatus down here, complete with a bespoke enemies list curated by the governor’s office.

If this all sounds surreal, that’s because it is.

What CAIR Actually Is

CAIR is a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with chapters across the country, including Florida. For decades, its work has focused on First Amendment protections, religious freedom, anti-discrimination cases, and civil liberties. In other words, the same basic lane occupied by groups like the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, or the ACLU, just serving a different community.

A weird but telling historical footnote: CAIR was founded in part as a response to the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies, which leaned heavily into the then-fashionable trope of Arabs and Muslims as cartoon villains. Life imitates art, and then politics imitates paranoia.

At no point in its existence has CAIR been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. It is not on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. It has not been accused of planning or carrying out violence in the United States. Not in Florida. Not anywhere.

And yet, here we are.

The Crime of Being “Islamic”

It doesn’t take a trained political analyst to notice what changed. The “I” in CAIR stands for Islamic.

DeSantis’ order leans heavily on guilt by association, noting that some of CAIR’s founders had connections, decades ago, to people who had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has affiliates, some of which are designated terrorist organizations, such as Hamas.

If that logic feels like a game of six-degrees-of-terrorism, that’s because it is.

By this standard, nearly any organization could be declared a threat if you trace ideological or personal relationships far enough back in time. It’s a framework so loose it barely qualifies as reasoning at all. But it works politically, because it taps into a long-standing Islamophobic narrative where suspicion alone becomes evidence.

Copying Abbott, Again

This is also not an original idea.

Texas Gov. Greg “Hot Wheels” Abbott issued a similar declaration, and DeSantis, who has never met a right-wing culture war stunt he didn’t want to plagiarize, followed suit. This is the same dynamic we saw when Abbott began flying migrants to liberal enclaves like Martha’s Vineyard as a publicity stunt. DeSantis promptly grabbed taxpayer funds, leased planes, and joined the spectacle.

The pattern is familiar. Abbott does something cruel or unconstitutional. Conservative media cheers. DeSantis copies it, hoping to look just as tough while auditioning for national relevance.

Florida governance by TikTok trend.

The Quiet Announcement Says Everything

One of the more revealing details here is how DeSantis announced this move.

Usually, when he wants attention, there’s a stage, flags, applause, and a carefully curated crowd. When he rolled back childhood vaccination mandates, it was a full press spectacle. Cameras everywhere. Victory laps included.

This time? A tweet.

No press conference. No questions. No accountability. Just a post on X, which CAIR-Florida accurately described as a “stunt.”

That alone suggests DeSantis knows how shaky this move is. It plays well to a certain base, but it collapses under even minimal scrutiny.

Weaponizing the State Against Dissent

CAIR’s response has been measured but sharp. The organization has already sued Texas over Abbott’s order and may do the same in Florida.

Their general counsel, Lena Masri, put it plainly when announcing the Texas lawsuit. If a governor can unilaterally label a civil rights group a terrorist organization, ban it from buying land, and threaten it with closure, then no advocacy organization is safe.

That’s not hyperbole. It’s a warning.

Today it’s a Muslim civil rights group that supports Palestinian rights. Tomorrow it’s an environmental organization accused of “eco-terrorism.” The next day it’s a labor group deemed a threat to “economic stability.” Once you normalize the idea that executive power can erase civil liberties with a label, the targets multiply quickly.

This is what authoritarian politics looks like in practice. Not tanks in the streets, but paperwork and press releases.

Florida’s Selective Outrage

It’s worth noting what DeSantis does not consider terrorism.

White nationalist violence? Downplayed.
January 6 insurrectionists? Reframed as patriots.
Armed militias training openly? Ignored.

But a Muslim civil rights organization advocating free speech and due process? That crosses the line.

This is not about public safety. It’s about signaling. It’s about feeding a political ecosystem that thrives on fear, particularly fear of Muslims, immigrants, and anyone who challenges U.S. or Israeli state power.

The Dangerous Precedent

There is no evidence that CAIR has ever sponsored, organized, or supported a terrorist attack in the United States. None. Not even in Florida, where apparently the definition of terrorism is now “advocacy we don’t like.”

What DeSantis has done is attempt to redefine terrorism as political disagreement. That should alarm anyone who cares about civil liberties, regardless of religion or ideology.

If the state can declare its critics enemies of democracy without evidence, democracy itself becomes little more than a slogan slapped onto executive orders.

And that, far more than any civil rights group, is a real threat to Florida.