Florida, let's talk about DeSantis.
DeSantis used the term "monkey it up" when referring to Gillum implementing socialist policies. Google suggest's it's not a common phrase (See 1).
I proceeded to perform a custom search for the term and restricted it to web posts made prior to the FL Primary Election (See 2). The phrase "Monkey it up" has no results (though we are all familiar with phrases like "Don't ____ it up" with the blank being things like mess, screw, F***, etc).
The most similar term is “Monkey Up,” which was listed as an idiom in an obscure 2015 Dictionary, and means "To make one angry" (See 3). It then occurred to me that maybe "monkey" is a common term to demean socialism, and people a lot of people don't know this? I found that there is early 1900's literature that mentions both monkeys and socialism... (See 4) However this pamphlet says that to be above monkeys, SOCIALISM IS THE ANSWER! However, it is common knowledge that Blacks/African Americans have been historically compared to monkeys as an insult (See 5 and 6). I'd like to think this "monkey business" from DeSantis throws a "monkey wrench" in his bid for Governor. If this research doesn't "make a monkey out of" Desantis, well, "I'll be a monkey's uncle!" This last paragraph is just me being a "cheeky monkey" who is "monkeying around". Except I'm using actually established monkey idioms, and trying to have "more fun than a barrel of monkeys". These idioms are a "Monkey See, Monkey Do" thing, completely unoriginal, and copied from ABC. (see 7).
You're welcome to say DeSantis wasn't being a racist... However, one should recognize that if nothing else, a lot of people interpreted this as racism, and there's a pretty solid reasoning as to why. (1) https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%22monkey%20it%20up%22,%22watch%20out%20now%22 (2) https://www.google.com/search?q=monkey+it+up+phrase&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1000%2Ccd_max%3A8%2F24%2F2018&tbm= (3) https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/put+a+person%27s+monkey+up (4) A pamphlet by William Thurston Brown in 1910 https://archive.org/details/socialism_and_primitive_christianity_william_thurston_brown (5) 2008 Article from Stanford https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2008/pr-eber-021308.html (6) If you want your stomach to turn: https://www.historyonthenet.com/authentichistory/diversity/african/3-coon/6-monkey/ (7) http://www.abc.net.au/education/learn-english/learn-english-7-monkey-idioms-used-in-english/8837458
