Ron DeSantis, the anti-Dale Carnegie, just figured out a way to alienate an important GOP voting block, non other than MAGA. He was being interviewed by a media outlet in Florida and he one-upped Hillary Clinton, of all people. You remember “basket of deplorables?” Dump that as a descriptor, the new hot buzz word is “listless vessels.” Remember it. You’re going to hear a lot about it as this explodes later on today. Click into this piece to watch the video.
MAGA is fuming after Desantis’s latest interview, where he said they were “listless vessels who are supposed to follow whatever comes down the pike on Truth Social every morning.” Trump demands he apologize. https://t.co/Mj4JHAnCgb
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 19, 2023
Now you don’t bad mouth MAGA without the Mango Messiah becoming muy mad. This is what that looks like.
There you have it, the edict from on high, straight from Marmalade Mt. Olympus. Their gawd has spoken.
I like “the pressure of polling in third place.” Only one poll showed that Vivek Ramaswany was marginally ahead, by one point, and that’s well within the margin of statistical error. But evidently that’s the poll that Trump has decided to make the law of the land and so therefore, it is. In MAGA land, in any event.
And you’ve heard about the epic gaffe wherein the DeSantis debate memo got leaked. My God. Even right-wing media is howling about that and former Republicans, the Never Trump crowd, are aghast. This is from Charlie Sykes’ Friday newsletter.
My Colleague Tim Miller quite reasonably calls this “One of the most WTF leaks in memory. Makes your candidate seem like a pathetic baby and neutralizes potential attacks. Baffling.”
“This is not normal,” he says. “The whole thing just reeks of desperation.” (Trust me, we’re going to be talking about it on today’s Bulwark Podcast.)
National Review’s Noah Rothman is also baffled: “I don’t understand why DeSantis is in the race at this point if he thinks he can win the nomination by playing blocking tackle for the frontrunner. Just stop wasting everyone’s time and money.”
And I regret to tell you that even as blind squirrels eventually find the nut, the thoroughly deplorable Elise Stefanik had a good point, when she called the memo “absolute malpractice.”
“As a former debate prepper, the first and most obvious rule of debate prep is don’t leak the debate prep memo,” Stefanik wrote while sharing the story from the New York Times. . . .
**
Exit take: Trump’s not showing up in Milwaukee next week. Last night he bleated:
There’s not much more to add at this point. I thoroughly agree, why is DeSantis in the race if all he’s going to do is “play blocking tackle for the frontrunner.” If it gets any crazier than that, I most certainly have never seen it. And if Trump’s plans to “praise Trump” were in order to keep/gain the MAGA vote, I guarantee “listless vessels” just quashed that.
This man has no business in politics. Finish out your term as governor, Ron, and then go raise alligators or something. This is not your game. You suck at it, bigly. Yugely, in fact.
Ron DeSantis, the anti-Dale Carnegie.
‘How To Lose Friends And Not Influence Anyone At All’ tipped to be his next book title.
Likelihood of any town anywhere having a library named after De Santis? Zero.
I see you
my sister is a lesbian first response ER nurse in Dallas
retired Navy Captain
enough said
DeSantis probably gave a lot of thought to that remark. Follow me on this: DeSantis knows how stupid or willfully ignorant most MAGAs are. “Listless Vessels?” He probably reasoned that even for those MAGAs who might know what a vessel is listless is a word that’s not in their vocabulary. And they aren’t the types to go “consultin some fancy-schmancy diskshunairee.” So, Ron figures he could maybe score some cheap points with non-MAGA Gopers and Independents by doing a milder version of Hillary Clinton. What he didn’t count on is that even if Trump couldn’t recall what listless means (quite possible) someone around him did know and once explained to him Trump would of course tee off on Ron.
One has to start wondering what kind of gear is in the DeSantis closet? He does seem to crave punishment, and maybe Casey enjoys setting him up so she can break out the BDSM gear and administer some. Hey. I don’t judge. I once dated (briefly) someone into that stuff but being a dom for her seemed like too much work and it wasn’t appealing to me. But I met some interesting folks at some purely vanilla social gatherings and so I say whatever consenting adults choose to do in private, however unconventional is their own business. But one shouldn’t use a Presidential campaign as part of the “play.”
Bring out the gimp!!! Now where did we put that rubber ball mouth strap?