It’s been another zany week in American politics. Once more, Ron DeSantis, he who would be president, he who accuses Donald Trump (rightfully so) of being part of a “culture of losing” has failed to go on record saying that Trump lost the 2020 election. That has been the elephant in the room for some time now and it’s not getting any smaller. It’s also not going away. At some point, DeSantis is going to have to give a definitive answer to this very simple question.
And beyond that, we have, yet once again, Marjorie Taylor Greene, filing articles of impeachment, “with the greatest of solemn-ne-tebby.” She denies being a white supremacist, which is like Hostess denying it sells Twinkies. If she’s got a better name for it, she needs to share that with us.
Also, her depiction of Jamaal Bowman as the scary black man is just beyond words. The first part of this clip by Steve Schmidt focuses solely on DeSantis and lasts about six minutes. If you want to stop there, that’s fine, but to get the full flavor of how nuts things are right now, watch MTG do her thing.
Personally, I don’t care a jot about DeSantis’s go go boots or the pudding fable. That is meaningless trivia. But his trashing the economy of his own state, while aspiring to handle the nation’s economy, is what I find impossible to comprehend. It would be like the Governor of Nevada throwing a wrench into the gaming and entertainment industries, while simultaneously trying to convince Big Money that s/he was the person to move into the White House. It wouldn’t fly for five minutes. How DeSantis cannot see that is perhaps something that will be revealed as he formally announces his candidacy and the ball gets rolling.
Steve Schmidt is right that politics is a brutal business. DeSantis has been able to dodge the media to a large extent so far but all that ends once he formally announces. He will find himself a part of the same system and machine as all candidates who have arrived at these gates before him.
DeSantis is running on a platform of “Make America Florida” which was somewhat comical when it started out, but has only become dreary and tasteless as DeSantis has continued in his quest for the nomination. The other 49 states are simply not dying to make their state Florida, Ron, we hate to break it to you. So where is this particular fantasy of his, and his campaign in general, going? The Triad:
Look: I think New Jersey is awesome. Best state in the Union. I could talk to you for hours about how wonderful New Jersey is and how much you would love living here. But if I were running for president would I try telling voters from the other 49 states that I was going to turn where they live into Dirty Jersey?
No. Effing. Way.
All of which is to say that this is one more data point suggesting that DeSantis doesn’t understand how to right his ship.
DeSantis made some smart moves early in buying out portions of Conservatism Inc. from underneath Trump. But since then, he’s been nothing but strategic mistakes:
- Waited too long to declare.
- Made himself look weak with Trump’s indictment.
- Passed wildly unpopular (even with Republicans) abortion and gun legislation.
So his decline isn’t the result of a flub or a couple bad breaks. He’s declining because Republican voters are getting know him and they don’t love what they see.
It’s possible DeSantis rebounds. But it’s equally possible that he finds a floor and just sits there. Or that his numbers crater. Unlikely though it may be, he could completely implode and his support could transfer to someone else.
The most interesting question about the DeSantis campaign is whether or not he engages in a direct confrontation with Trump.
The second most interesting question is whether or not conservative elites will be willing to abandon him for another Not Trump, or if they stick with him to the end.
Question One: If DeSantis does engage directly with Trump, Trump will eat him alive. Trump is the crazier of the two. Also, and this is important in any fight, Trump has nothing to lose. He’s in what is almost assuredly the last major public event of his life and he’s running for president again with investigations and trials exploding all around him, like fireworks on the 4th of July. Trump melts down daily on Truth Social, frequently in screaming all caps. There is no way that milquetoast DeSantis is going to beat Trump in any kind of a match of wits. The takedown of DeSantis is liable to be quick and ugly.
Question Two: All bets are off. When DeSantis formally gets in the game and needs to confront Trump, and his own record, it’s very likely that all he will do is show what a weak candidate he is. Whether that ends up empowering Trump or transferring support to another Not Trump candidate is anybody’s guess. Maybe Glenn Youngkin will pull off a major whammy here.
The only real question at this point, is how pyrotechnic is this going to be? Is DeSantis going to flame out dramatically, or wimp into the wings after a few weeks? And how does he handle things when Trump’s legal problems exacerbate, as they assuredly will?
Stay tuned.
Right wingers fleeing the rest of the country and flocking to the ‘Red’ deep south just makes the other states more liable to stay, or turn, blue.
Good riddance.
I have moved from Blue Washington to Red North Carolina and am voting to change NC.
Unfortunately they’re also flocking to places like MT. They call MT the last best place but it really isn’t and since these idiots are flocking here it will be much, much, worse soon. I hope they stay in western MT which has already become such a polluted shit hole. They really can’t destroy that which has already been trashed.
Oh well, hopefully the fly fishing will last my lifetime. It damned sure won’t outlast it.
William, you left Washington (I’m assuming State) to move to the south?
We’ll keep a light on for ya.
Welcome William to the southern part of heaven. The only reason NC is considered a purple state is due to the gerrymandering the state and Supreme Court has allowed. We almost elected the first black senator, Harvey Gant, years ago. Jesse Helms blocked that one with nonstop fear based ads. Chapel Hill elected a black mayor, endorsed by Dean Smith, long before you saw any elected anywhere by a white majority vote. I find it amusing that so many white people, living in Northern states, believe the entire South is more racist than where they live. Here the black population is somewhere around 30%, with many interracial couples, including my own. I lived in New England, the northwest, Florida, and California. Some of those places you won’t find many black folks. Easy to talk race relations when you have no black folks around. Dr. King feared for his life, & was hit in the head with a rock or brick, in Chicago. Black folks that went north found the same racism anytime they wanted upward mobility. The truth is a lot of smug people, who want to believe they aren’t racist, will tense up when they see a black man on the street, especially if they aren’t dressed like a lawyer in court. We also have the most interesting coast on the eastern seaboard. We have the most and highest mountains east of the Mississippi. We haven’t been the target of all the weather disasters that have ravaged the other areas of the country. Be sure to tell your friends it sucks. We don’t want to become another California. That being said…welcome.
I can tell you that MT is as racist as MS. Of course there aren’t just a ton of African Americans here so the racism is aimed at our First People and Hispanics…oh, and the Jews–they make sure they let us know that regularly.
WHAT? Hostess sells Twinklies?? From whence this solemn-it-neeby info cometh?
spike…it’s a beautiful state…but those winters…brrrr. I’m sure you speak the truth about being Jewish in a state full of gun toten ranchers and hunters….