As much as I would like to say that Florida’s Flop Gov, Ron DeSantis politically died needlessly, like the mythical Icarus, flying too close to the sun, and letting it heat melt the wax holding his feathers in place. I can’t.
Because he didn’t. He actually died in the worthy cause of showing the world something I’ve written about before, and I feel even more strongly about today than I ever did before. There is no Trumpism without Trump. Full stop. As we say in Chicago, f*chin’ fuggedaboudit!
Here’s wat I’m talking about. Forget about all of the buffoonery, racism, and overt stupidity we were treated to every single time Pissantis opened his filthy sewer hole on the trail. Go all the way back to the beginning.
What was DeSantis’s earliest, strongest selling point for being a presidential candidate on the GOP side? He was the successful, especially after using a tame lap dog Florida legislative super majority to pass every far right wingnut theory that came to his head, and winning his reelection by almost 20 points. He was the one who could deliver on conservative principles without all the tomfoolery of the Trombies.
And. It. Worked. After the debacle of the Traitor Tot inspired Big Steal court challenges, and the J6 bloodbath, Trump’s popularity ratings were in the toilet. And after the 2022 Red Puddle, DeSantis actually led Trump in several national polls outside the margin of error. In a couple of cases, it wasn’t even close.
Which led to a massive fundraising success. By the time he made his disastrous campaign kickoff on the racist app formerly known as Twitter, DeSantis had somewhere between a $130-150 million war chest. And these guys don’t just throw money around. They don’t want you to throw away that deposit bottle, because they have uses for that dime. And that doesn’t even include the tens of millions he had in his personal war chest from his 2022 reelection campaign. The moneyed GOP they had their boy.
Again, for the moment, forget the fact that Ron DeathSantis was arguably one of the worst GOP presidential candidates in electoral history. That doesn’t have to matter, especially in the GOP. In politics, enough money and proper handling can make an imbecile look like a Rhoades scholar. Just look at George W Bush in 2000.
But DeSantis didn’t have proper handling and packaging. Used to getting everything his own way in Florida, Pissantis surrounded himself with slavish sycophants in his campaign, and at that point there was little that the big money boys could do about it, their checks had already cleared. But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, for one simple reason.
Forget about Nikki Haley for a moment, I’ll deal with her in my next article. Both DeSantis and Haley were running as the only sensible alternative to the toxic brand. Haley was trying to put together a coalition of disaffected Democrats and Independents, as well as soft GOP voters who had fled the fold. She never seriously played for a chunk of the vaunted Trump base. DeSantis tried the same thing, but also tried to siphon off some soft Trump voters who may have been disaffected by his legal troubles and nonsense. Which won’t work, for reasons of simple math.
As Gene Wilder said in Mel Brooks’ classic The Producers, Zero Mostel, upon learning that he had conned rich little old ladies of 345% of the profits of the play they were producing, Mostel asked Wilder, How many percent of a play is there? To which Wilder replied, Mac, you can only sell 100% of anything. And that’s the math that kills the GOP. Because let’s say that the GOP as a oarty has 48% of the vote, the same as the Democrats. But 32-35% of those are die hard Trump supporters. And you can’t beat Trump in the primaries if you can only get 20-25% of the vote!
Former GOP master strategist and Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson summed the whole thing up perfectly when he said on MSNBC, DeSantis ran on the idea of being Trump without all the guilt. What he didn’t realize is that a true Trump supporter wants all the calories, all the cholesterol, all the fat, all the carbohydrates, and all the alcohol. That’s what makes the feast.
And that’s why there is no Trumpism without Trump. Of ever there were two candidates that left alone were capable of taking Trump deep into the primaries, it was DeSantis and Haley. And Trump has dispatched both of them summarily simply because 32% is larger than 18%. And Trump’s 32% is literally the Trump card.
I’ll close with this. If you want more proof that there is no Trumpism without Trump just look at the surrogates His Lowness has had on the road for him in New Hampshire. Elise Stefonik, Machine Gun Marjie, Bratty Matty Gaetz, and SC turncoat Tim Scott. But notive that none of them a[[ear on stage alone, they’re all the warm up act for Trump at the rallies. This is like having Pee Wee Herman as the warm up act for The Scorpions.
Once and for all, nobody does Trump like Trump. We’ve seen it in the 2024 GOP presidential primaries, and we saw it in 2018, 2020, and 2022 when an entire roster of GOP candidates tried to be Trumpie than Trump. And went down in flames. Once Trump is gone, his vaunted 32% will melt back under their rocks again. Because they’re all just one trick ponies.
I think you for the privilege of your time.
“…Because they’re all just one trick ponies.”
In a really absurd rodeo.