Casey DeSantis’s ‘Walmart Melania’ nickname divides opinion: ‘We can all be better’

Casey DeSantis was mocked as “Walmart Melania” after she wore a leather jacket in the Iowa heat that said “where woke goes to die” over a map of Florida and an alligator.

Melania Trump wore a jacket that said “I really don’t care. Do you?” while child immigrants were being separated from their families during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife appeared at a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa at the Roast and Ride annual event hosted by one of the state’s US Senators, Joni Ernst.

While Mr DeSantis frequently invokes the term “woke”, his main rival Mr Trump recently said: “I don’t like the term ‘woke,’ because I hear the term ‘woke woke woke’ — it’s just a term they use. Half the people can’t define it. They don’t know what it is.”

Responding on Saturday, Mr DeSantis told the press that “Woke is an existential threat to our society. To say it’s not a big deal, that just shows you don’t understand what a lot of these issues are right now”.

Ms DeSantis has played a large role in her husband’s political life and is now part of the effort to urge suburban women to once again vote for the GOP, Insider noted.

As the first lady of the Sunshine State was mocked as “Walmart Melania”, Twitter users were divided on the moniker.

“Behind every Republican man, there’s a Republican woman selling out her sisterhood,” the account Tea Pain tweeted.

“Stop attacking family members of political candidates. It just shows that you are petty and lack the ability to push back on policy,” Brian Krassenstein wrote. “Whether it’s [calling] Casey DeSantis ‘Walmart Melania’ or questioning Dr Jill Biden’s use of ‘Dr’ your petty name calling and nitpicking is childish and idiotic. Solutions don’t come by name-calling. Solutions come via dialogue. We can all be better.”

“Sorry, Walmart Melania made herself fair game when she put on this jacket,” one Twitter user said.

Pro-Trump commentator Laura Loomer said the governor and his wife are “cheap knockoffs of Melania and Donald Trump”.

“The only problem with calling Casey DeSantis Walmart Melania is that it is an implicit compliment to Melania, implying that she is somehow superior to Casey. And she is not. They are both dreadful enablers who wear crass clothing,” the account of Betty Bowers, a character played by comedian Deven Green, wrote.

“Y’all should really be ashamed of yourselves for stooping so low as to call the *First Lady* of Florida ‘Walmart Melania’ when ‘Kmart Casey’ was sitting right there,” one Twitter user said.

“I don’t find it at all funny or amusing to call Casey DeSantis ‘Walmart Melania’. Seriously, we should be much better than that as American and humans. Walmart didn’t do anything to be compared to that bag of garbage and it deserves better than that,” Tony Posnanski joked.

“Yea calling DeSantis’s wife ‘Walmart Melania’ as an insult is TOTALLY going to crush it with most of of the country who.. *checks notes* loves walmart or at least relies on it,” the account for the social commentary YouTube channel The Quartering added.