The Washington Post brings us the latest from Florida:
Ron DeSantis is blowing it. Initially, his pitch was simple: I'm an anti-woke conservative but I'm not crazy like Donald Trump.
But that's evolved considerably over the past few months. DeSantis was doing fine as long as he attacked the soft underbelly of liberal sex, gender, and race politics: trans kids in sports; queer theory in AP classes; teaching gay acceptance to third graders; puberty blockers for adolescents; and so forth. These are all things that produce a fair bit of angst among not just MAGA conservatives, but also moderates and independents.
But banning discussion of gender identity completely? Taking over a public university because he didn't like its curriculum? Banning abortion at six weeks? Going to war with Disney as an act of state-sponsored revenge? Claiming that the Federal Reserve is trying to mount an economic coup using digital currency?
Some of these seem like transparent pandering. Some seem like dangerous extremism. Some are flat-out conspiracy theory lunacy. And some, like the Disney war, are scaring the business wing of the Republican Party, which tolerates the GOP's culture war agenda only as long as they're left out of it.
DeSantis is acting like the United States is just an extension of the most conservative parts of Florida. It's not, and DeSantis has put himself into a pickle. He's obviously too weak and insecure to deny anything to the MAGA cesspool, and this is ruining his chances of appealing to anyone else. He needed to appear strong enough to control the MAGA beast, not become its kept man.
I guess this is what happens when you're such a toxic asshole that no competent, smart PR/Marketing/Campaign people wanna work for you. Or maybe he just doesn't listen. But either way, his strategy has been pretty baffling.
It would be better if DeSantis was a panderer; the dangerous thing is that he appears to be sincere and serious about all this stupid shit. The good news is that if you define a fascist leader as a charismatic authoritarian, DeSantis doesn't qualify (and not because he isn't an authoritarian).
I wonder if he really has some personal issues tied up in this. His homophobic obsessions are pretty over the top -- beyond just pandering to the right.
I wonder if he really has some personal issues tied up in this. His homophobic obsessions are pretty over the top -- beyond just pandering to the right. (Plus those white boots!)
What plays with crabby old people in Florida HOA's isn't a national campaign strategy.
While he's trying to out MAGA the MAGATTS, FL congressmen are endorsing Trump.
DeSantis doesn't seem to be doing this merely to pander to the right wing. He just can't stop himself from acting like a vindictive bully whether it helps him or not. His one apparent belief is that anyone who displeases DeSantis, or fails to be sufficiently deferential to him, must be pursued without rest and punished without mercy.
In this respect he is much like DJT himself. But for all of Trump's nasty bluster he seems to have fun with his schtick. For some Trump has an almost boyish - badboyish - charm.
DeSantis otoh comes off as utterly humorless. He has the affect of a backup hitman or the VP everyone knows has come to the branch office to fire people. I don't think this will play well away from the Villages.
Trump is essentially a clown. It's not so much a role he plays. It comes naturally to him, and it's the essence of his appeal. Even his most vocal opponents tend to smile when they say, What an idiot!
DeSantis has none of that appeal. He has negative charisma. He creeps people out. His act is closing before it even opens. I realize there's a long campaign ahead, anything can happen and all that, but I think he's toast.
No one else in the party has Trump's appeal either. They hate him but they'll miss him when he's gone.
Trump's only real skill is carnival barker. He can draw a crowd like few others.
Trump giving a speech gives me the same feeling that I had decades ago when I was flipping through channels on TV and happened to catch Jimmy Bakker preaching. It took about one minute before I said, "Who the hell would fall for this guy?" Yet millions of people did. Just like Trump.
Tee hee, a play from the t-Rump play book.
Personally, I think that DeSantis' fight with Disney was the true tipping point.
I mean, what was he thinking? Disney World is what most Republicans wish the whole world were like. And he's gonna put a prison next to it?
Unbelievable.
So Trump it’s gonna be.
And what happens when Trump is convicted of his crimes?
It's extremely unlikely that Trump will face trial before the election.
He wins the Republican nomination, then loses to Joe Biden, or any Democrat who can fog a mirror, by 11 million votes or more in the general election. Even the undemocratic Electoral College won’t save his bacon. There are too damn many bigoted old white folks in the US, but not enough to elect TFG. He lost the popular vote to Senator/Secretary Clinton by over two million, to Biden by over seven million. Kevin can plot the linear trend here. Being under indictment, or convicted, is not going to help him.
There are too damn many bigoted old white folks in the US, but not enough to elect TFG.
Respectively, this is crazy talk! The Republican nominee—yes, including Donald Trump—will possess a popular vote floor of no less than 47% of the two party vote.
I think Biden is the "all things equal" smart bet to win the next election. But look at his approval numbers: around 39%. What do they look like if 2024 is characterized by the swiftly rising unemployment associated with a recession? Shit, that's what.
Again, my money's on Joe to win four more years, but the structural realities of our closely divided electorate and the possible trajectory of the economy strongly suggest that, at this juncture, any Republican nominee—Trump, Pence, Haley, Scott, whoever—has a perfectly plausible shot at winning the general election.
I think the floor for tfg is lowering. For one, his inconsistent pandemic policies killed off some of his supporters (and innocents also, unfortunately). Some who previously voted for him have gotten tired of his schtick. He’s even less hinged than in 2020 (‘Retribution’ as a platform?!?!). The Democrats will remind voters every day of the millions of jobs lost during his presidency, whether that’s fair or not.
jharp probably has it right....to which one has to say...."What a weird country the United States is!"
Technically, Mr Trump can serve from prison...but do you want him in a Super Max for his safety...or a more white collar laid back prison? How is his Secret Service protection rotated in and out?
I know the above is crazy talk...but the question was asked, I'm trying to give an honest, (tongue in cheek? or straight up answer?) response.
Were he in for State Charges he could not Pardon himself....do the crime, do your time....lol
Best Wishes, Traveller
On the 8th day, God created .... OMG! ... an IDIOT!
God, to the Book of Genesis scribes: "Get me rewrite! Here's the new version, fellas: 'God created the heaven and the earth in SIX days, then rested the SEVENTH.' On the 8th, I went on vacation -- hey, I earned it. And no, not Florida. I've never been to that God-forsaken place. Can't you tell?"
I don't think this is the case at all. This is about him attempting to win the nomination. It definitely doesn't hurt him there, and might help him. Trump's indictment(s) seem like they might seal the deal for Trump's nomination, though...
However, if DeSantis wins the nomination, none of this will matter in the general.
So I don't think these things that Kevin somehow thinks are the proverbial straws matter at all, unless they impact his chances of getting the Republican nomination.
+1
100%
It's as if Kevin's been living in a different country the last seven years.
DeSantis has been saying he wants to make the United States into Florida. Which should horrify anybody who's ever read any of the unending "Florida Man" stories.
I've never understood this early hype for DeSantis. Many politicians have been
the next great thing as long as they stay local then wilt under the lights of a
national campaign. Remember Chris Christie?
"DeSantis is acting like the United States is just an extension of the most conservative parts of Florida."
Florida is not even an extension of the most conservative parts of Florida. DeSantis is a MAGA Pete Wilson. I hope Florida reacts like California did.
That pitch was always doomed, though. Like, making that pitch to the Republican Primary electorate would get the response "what did you just say about Trump, you piece of shit? You think he's crazy? Fuck you. Get away from us before we hang you from a tree, you traitor.
The constituency for "I love what Trump will sign into law but hate what he posts on Twitter" has always been tiny. It's preferences get amplified because they occupy places of cultural and political power, like "being in the Senate" or "being a contributing editor for the National Review" but they are actually a very small slice of the Republican Party.
No, DeSantis' only chance was only ever going to be to out-Trump Trump; "hey, I believe in what Trump wants, but with respect to the Leader, I can deliver it much better! Look what I've accomplished in Florida!"
Also, with respect, Kevin, you keep painting this as DeSantis as being too weak and insecure to deny the MAGAts anything. You ever think that maybe, just maybe, DeSantis is doing this shit because he really believes in it?
I realize that political labels can mean different things to different people. And maybe that why I would’ve phrased this passage differently:
“DeSantis was doing fine as long as he attacked the soft underbelly of LIBERAL sex, gender, and race politics: trans kids in sports; queer theory in AP classes; teaching gay acceptance to third graders; puberty blockers for adolescents; and so forth. These are all things that enjoy fairly broad support among not just MAGA conservatives, but also among moderates and independents.”
I capitalized the word “liberal” in that first sentence because I would change it. Perhaps it’s because of my fairly recent experiences in grad school, but it’s very clear to me that we need more than that one word (liberal) to describe the Left.
My own grad school experience indicates that the rumors are largely true: conservative ideas are more or less banished from the post baccalaureate experience. But, here’s the really amazing thing: there aren’t all that many signs of Liberalism either. My own experience of graduate education was one where Kendi’s version of anti racism reigns largely unchallenged, identity politics are the only politics, and ideas are subordinate to lived experience. Don’t even get me started on diversity statements, positionality, or DEI.
So it was clear to me, as a self identified liberal, that we need a different word to describe the vast majority of my grad school peers. I typically go with Leftists. And I see them (not Liberals) as the driving force behind the issues that Desantis is attacking. So, my own version of the above paragraph:
DeSantis was doing fine as long as he attacked the soft underbelly of Leftist sex, gender, and race politics: trans kids in sports; queer theory in AP classes; teaching gay acceptance to third graders; puberty blockers for adolescents; and so forth. These are all things that enjoy fairly broad support among not just MAGA conservatives, but also among moderates, independents, and plenty of Liberals who are concerned about Leftist excesses and intolerance.
'Ivory tower'?
So your experience with grad school was that you were being experienced to things that are true and correct. Sounds like you went to a good school.
It didn't teach you not to capitalize things that aren't proper nouns, though, so maybe it wasn't THAT good.
Kendi’s version of anti racism asserts that past discrimination must be met with present and future discrimination (and he has also called, in writing, for what would clearly be an unconstitutional government agency to enforce the edicts of anti racism).
Identify politics, as I understand them, tend to emphasize the tribal and the divisive over the universal.
And the subordination of ideas to identity is simply narrow minded in a manner that I consider self evident (the veracity, or lack thereof, of our ideas is not ultimately determined by our immutable traits).
But are these policies and ideas that you support? If so, we are very much in disagreement.
I personally do not support any kind of discrimination at all.
And I seek commonalities, rather than divisions, between the many different ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic, political, and cultural groups in our diverse society.
I also value good ideas regardless of the identity of the person who thinks them.
And all of this, apparently, sets me in opposition to Leftists (and, as already stated, to most of my grad school peers).
That is, for me personally, a sad state of affairs. But I fear it could be even worse for our country. If republicans succeed in conflating Liberals with the Leftist ideas I have described above, the Democrats are likely looking at some painful election losses.
Hmm. I didn't see any of that in grad school. Or afterwards. Of course, I was in a STEM program in grad school, and have been a professor in a biochemistry program for 36 years. We have liberals, moderates and conservatives. Even a couple of faculty who voted for Trump. Turns out, none of that matters in STEM research and teaching at universities.
Maybe if you crawled out of your solipsistic cocoon, you'd see that most of what actually goes on in most graduate programs is unaffected by the liberal-conservative dialectic.
His issue is the area that's getting attention, not the area that's not getting attention, and that area is being used to paint the whole of education in an absurd light, and no help at all is being provided the coterie of academics who are just as invested in throwing gas on the fire as the wingnuts they're attracting.
I believe this might elucidate your own observations some.
Social Justice Fundamentalism is, strictly speaking, neither Marxist nor Liberal. In fact, it has virtually nothing to say about the economy at all. Corporate capitalism loves it.
https://twitter.com/waitbutwhy/status/1643290296304783361
That link does indeed support my own observations, as in this example:
“SJF [Social Justice Fundamentalism] is pretty open about its revolutionary goals to dismantle liberalism, but its activists use vague language that appeals to the liberal progressive inside the house, like "diversity" / "inclusion" / "anti-racism," and makes them think SJF is in line with their values.”
This is exactly my experience. And, in fact, many of the people here posting negative responses to my initial comment appear to have fallen for the con. They may still believe that they and the Leftists (or the SJW) are allies. Of course, some of them may also be Leftists themselves.
And none of that is unusual. I run into this problem all the time. Fellow liberals either genuinely don’t realize the extent of the threat from the illiberal left, and/or they don’t want to hear about problems on “our” side.
But I’ve had Leftism pushed so aggressively in my face over the last few years of grad school that it’s no longer a problem I can ignore.
And if the Liberal DEMs fail to call out the problem with Leftists, we’re providing dangerous authoritarians like trump and DeSantis with an opening.
No discussion of the upcoming election and its dynamics is complete without a recognition of this Liberal/Leftist divide.
This is absolutely right.
If no effort is made to address this distinction all we'll hear about will be conflating Democrats with the leftist academic wingnuts who we'll waste a year being forced to answer for as if they were setting our agenda, when their whole effort is to provide an agenda for violent conflict.
That they're usually clueless about what they're doing isn't meaningful, they have little capacity for context.
What got DeSantis' prospects to rapidly decline was his showing of a fragile ego that triggers him into doing stupid, punitive shit that is short-sighted and always results in blowback.
He's not a leader; he's a wanna-be high school bully, but because his constitution is weak inside, he's reflecting just how fake he really is.
Also, how dumb is it to pick a fight with a company that fills his state with tons of tax revenues? To spite your eye because it itches, is just dumb.
DeSantis = a charisma black hole.
The obvious path for DeSantis was to complete this term as governor, then announce he was running for president in January '27 as the natural inheritor of the MAGA legacy. He could do that whether Biden or Trump won next year.
By running in '24, he will be trying to succeed to the MAGA throne while the incumbent declines to get off it. So what's his pitch? "I'm the new Trump" doesn't work, because Republicans like the original one better. "I'm different from Trump" only appeals to a minority of the right, and allows Trump to attack him as the creature of the old Republican establishment. Consequently it's hard to see any consistent message he can sell to win the primary.
Really good analysis. Thanks.
He may be just floating a trial balloon here and not really in the game.
Which leaves an interesting question if Trump bails on 2024 once he's gotten enough donations to support his desired lifestyle. Everyone else has already been soundly rejected by primary voters. Super weak bench in a split party.
He also needs to think about the criminal cases against him, so he cannot just "go home". Being president would be a good defence, otherwise he will need a deal with the candidate to get a pardon and help in state cases for his support, and needs a candidate that has a chance of winning.
You can’t win the White House without first winning the nomination. I think it is far from obvious he is in the catbird seat for the latter: Trump is ahead in the polling of Republican primary voters. But I think RDS certainly could win a general election if we’re in a recession next year.
So far this year, Republicans are targeting Disney and Budweiser. What's next, one of those liberal apple pies?
If Bud Light really wants to appeal to a younger crowd they should just start advertising it with a pot leaf.
Cherry.
Because they're grown in Michigan.
Everyone he meets with to get an endorsement immediately after endorses Trump.
I don't think they care about any of the stuff you list. What seems to be turning them off is that DeSantis is a shitty, miserable excuse for a human being who hates interacting with people. I recall reading 6 months or so back that this was what would do him in.
And here it is!
OK, but TFG is a shitty, miserable excuse for a human being, too, yet he is the choice of the shitty, miserable excuse for a political party known as the GOP. I guess the difference is, in personal interactions, TFG makes other shitty, miserable people feel good about themselves.
"He's obviously too weak and insecure to deny anything to the MAGA cesspool .."
Ron DeSantis or Kevin McCarthy?
Why not both?
I meant to address this yesterday, but didn't get the chance:
"But that's evolved considerably over the past few months. DeSantis was doing fine as long as he attacked the soft underbelly of liberal sex, gender, and race politics: trans kids in sports; queer theory in AP classes; teaching gay acceptance to third graders; puberty blockers for adolescents; and so forth. These are all things that produce a fair bit of angst among not just MAGA conservatives, but also moderates and independents."
I admit, there are some issues our country is a bit squishy about, and some issues in this laundry list will have some resonance. But buried in there was "teaching gay acceptance to third graders."
Not teaching about gay sex to third graders, which I think almost everyone would agree isn't appropriate. But gay acceptance. And that's one I won't budge on, and that's one of the reasons even the charitable interpretation of the "Don't Say Gay" bill was bad. In this day and age, you can't erase gay people from culture.
Some of those third graders will have gay parents. Those gay parents will show up at events. I live in one of the reddest areas, and we have it. You can't have a country with gay marriage and gay parents and gay adoption and not let gay people be mentioned in elementary school. Gaydom does not equal sexualization, and if a story with a mom and a dad is OK for kids, then a story with two moms or two dads is also fair game. That's just the way it goes.
Now, maybe you'd argue that it's fine to read about gay people in an elementary class, but they shouldn't teach "gay acceptance". What happens when the kids with bigoted parents start teasing and bullying the kid with gay parents? The school can't allow that to happen -- they have a duty to protect the kid with gay parents. So at that point, they have to enforce some form of gay acceptance.
The right's efforts to blur gay acceptance into larger issues about parental control and sex ed should not go unchallenged. Because there are a lot of kids and families who will be harmed if we treat families with gay people any differently than families with straight people.
End of soapbox. (And this is why I very much resist many of the "well maybe the Left has gone too far" arguments, because sure, while that happens, there's always someone trying to slip in a bit of straight up bigotry. You are allowed to be as bigoted as you want in the privacy of your own home, but when you come to a public school, you have to respect ALL of the students. No exceptions.)
I should add the rest of the laundry list of that soft underbelly of liberal politics isn't particularly compelling, either.
Trans kids in sports? It's a complicated issue, and one I largely stay out of, because I think people who actually care about those sports should work out the fairness implications of that. But if that's the the "social problem" driving your vote, or if it even makes your top 20, I think your priorities are out of whack.
Queer theory in AP? Depends on the AP class, I guess. I don't have a problem if they choose not to teach it, but I also am not that bothered by it.. First, how many AP classes even teach it? And how much do they cover it? And if you're taking an AP class, you're supposed to have college level instruction, which would involve being exposed to a LOT of different theories, whether you agree with them or not. That's college-level education. But whatever. Ban it if you like. There's a lot of grumbling about the liberal indoctrination of our schools, but I think it's pretty disconnected from AP coursework.
Puberty blockers for trans kids? Now, this one's actually controversial right now, and affects (very small numbers of) real people in much deeper ways than the other silly symbolic issues you brought up. BUT -- if an adolescent and HIS PARENTS OR GUARDIANS really feel that a child should have puberty blockers, should our government really be telling them no? Unless it's widely agreed to be a harmful practice (and it isn't) this does not seem like something governments should interfere with. Isn't that the heart of the Roe debate? Do we really want government meddling in our most intimate personal decisions? Yeah, conservatives will make hay over this, but even if I thought that giving puberty blockers to adolescents was bad, I can't say I could support efforts to take those decisions out of families' hands.
So in this laundry list of supposedly cherry picked items where the left is weak, you've got one issue (gay acceptance) that it would be offensive not to support, a couple fairly trivial nothingburgers, and one genuinely controversial item that I still think most people would agree government should stay out of regardless of your feelings about it. I would hope conservatives could come up with better arguments than these, but maybe that's why Fox does so much lying?
I think what will happen in the next few weeks is a group of financers, political leaders and media people within Conservative INC. who were pushing DeSantis to begin with, will sit down with him and explain the hard facts of political life that boils down to this: he's not ready, it's not his time and he needs to wait his turn. I do believe he's term limited so in 2027 he can spend the time he needs out of office building up the infrastructure for a credible run for the White House especially with Trump finally out of the way and learn from the mistakes he's making now trying to be Trump's mini-me. It's either that or he'll destroy himself politically with a futile run in 2024. They will tell him: "Don't be the next Scott Walker." Maybe he'll listen to that. If not, he's doomed.
A governor like DeSantis is always a local phenomena, someone who got where he was entirely by the luck of no one else being around who was quite as craven, or quite as pleasant-appearing.
Outside his pond he'll just shrivel up in the sun.
Pingback: Baerbock geht wegen schlechter Mathenoten im Kulturkrieg in Yale in Rente - Vermischtes 24.04.2023 - Deliberation Daily