Too online, too rigid, too weird: why Ron DeSantis failed

The New Statesman ^ | 21 January 2024 | Sohrab Ahmari

[definitelynotaliberal]

To a certain type of conservative intellectual, Ron DeSantis looked like the perfect candidate to usher the GOP into a post-Trump era. He had served in the military, held Ivy League degrees, and carried no obvious baggage. He was the popular governor of Florida, a large state with interesting demographics. He’d presciently opposed Covid restrictions early on and put himself on a populist warpath against Disney and other “woke” corporations. He was like Trump — but better, more disciplined, and ideologically purer.

So what caused DeSantis’s presidential bid to unravel, forcing him to drop out of the Republican presidential race on Sunday 21 January? The short answer is that a campaign tailormade for right-wing podcasters and columnists isn’t necessarily one that appeals to a wider electorate. Or put another way, precisely what made DeSantis so alluring to the right’s political and journalistic class turned off the GOP base. The DeSantis campaign was too online, too ideologically rigid, and at times just too weird.

The made-for-social-media quality of the campaign derailed things almost from the get-go in May last year. Instead of launching his bid with a traditional in-person event covered by traditional media, DeSantis turned to the “Spaces” feature of the app formerly known as Twitter. Evangelical Grandma in Iowa, needless to say, doesn’t doom-scroll, let alone know what the hell Spaces is. Adding insult to injury, the platform malfunctioned, delaying the start and barring many from logging on. Ah, that famed technical adroitness of the “based” genius Elon Musk.

The launch event was a conversation between DeSantis, the ostensible man of the moment, and Musk, who dominated much of the airtime. A montage hastily put together by the campaign after the virtual event featured footage of Musk dancing in a tuxedo at some laser show. This, while DeSantis could be heard talking about America’s fentanyl crisis.

It was the most what-the-f**k moment in American electoral history since the late Alaska Senator Mike Gravel released an ad showing him throwing a rock into a pond during the 2008 cycle. But the logic behind it was discernible: for a younger generation of Republican elites, Musk represents a throwback to the heroic age of capitalism, a would-be Silicon Valley Caesar determined to save the American spirit from the woke scolds and censors. By launching his campaign alongside Musk, even playing second fiddle to the Tesla boss, DeSantis tried to associate himself with the same vibe. The trouble is that young conservative intellectuals’ pet issues — social-media censorship and the like — don’t necessarily top ordinary Republicans’ concerns, even if they, too, might grumble about woke.

DeSantis, however, made everything about wokeness. The Sunshine State, he boasted, is where “woke goes to die.” In a June address echoing Winston Churchill, he vowed: “We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in the corporations, we will fight the woke in the halls of Congress.” There wasn’t a single issue that DeSantis didn’t somehow reduce to the problem of wokeness. Asked on Fox News what he would do about Ukraine on Day One, he offered a long disquisition on the spread of wokeness and gender ideology in the military. Asked about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, he blamed — you guessed it — “DEI.”

Which brings us to DeSantis’s decidedly skin-deep populism. Yes, he railed against corporate America’s diversity pieties. Beyond that, however, he was more or less a conventional Heritage Foundation Republican with no vision for reviving manufacturing and working- and middle-class prosperity. Whatever his failures of execution in office, Trump got there by emphasising such themes. DeSantis, by contrast, took no steps to disavow his earlier congressional record as a benefits slasher and privatiser — a failure that Trump-aligned political action committees used to devastating effect against him.

[Jonty30]

He didn’t understand the issues and it showed.

[devere]

Utter nonsense. He was too un-indicted.

[Drew68]

He didn’t understand the issues and it showed.

DeSantis has a better grasp of the issues than anyone running.

The post mortem for his campaign is simple. Voters want to give Trump another shot and there was nothing that DeSantis could've said or done to change this.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Reminded me of Dukakis-stiff.

[gbs]

Who gives a shit??

[Jonty30]

I care. I like DeSantis, but I also think he jumped too soon. If he had spent the next four years preparing, he would have been fine.

[so_real]

I like DeSantis; he made for a great governor. In a nutshell, where the grassroots base is concerned, he had all the right enemies, but not all the right friends. He stabbed Trump in the back on a hot mic. That was the start and end of his downfall from the presidential election. I just hope he can hold on to his governorship at this point.

[Just mythoughts]

Actually. Ron Duh-Saintis, came across as a morally superior punk. He is the epitome of the law fare buz that is presently under way to strip President of all his hard earned accomplishments.

There is nothing ‘conservative’ about using a state legislature to make laws fare to protect one's own salary.. what a joke these Duh-Saintis groupies are to call Duh-Saintis, ‘conservative’.. The man had the state legislature hide his travel and phone records.. that is more like godfather Joey, than acts of a conservative.

[FatherofFive]

Voters want to give Trump another shot and there was nothing that DeSantis could've said or done to change this.

And that basic and obvious truth is why DeSantis never should have entered the race

[HamiltonJay]

All these things are true, but when your primary message is “I’m just like this other guy, you really like and want, but somehow better”, you have lost.

[Bratch]

DeSantis Out

January 21, 2024 | Sundance | 687 Comments

Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the 2024 Republican primary.

The career diminished Florida Governor is trying to save face and has endorsed Donald Trump. 

The announcement comes at 02:20 of the video below. WATCH:

BREAKING NEWS: DeSantis Drops Out Of Presidential Race And Endorses Trump

The next few days will be fraught with demands to unite the clans.  However, please remember the proven and demonstrably accurate axiom:  Never Trust a Never Trumper. 

The Ron DeSantis campaign was built upon a foundation of fraud. Long planned as an effort to destroy the threat that MAGA represents to the Republican apparatus, nothing about the DeSantis campaign was grassroots, authentic, natural or real. 

The Sea Island organized campaign was a specific and detailed approach driven by the professional political class. 

Ron DeSantis was a vessel, a willing vessel, for the deliberate schemes and Machiavellian intents of the worst elements in USA Republican politics.

WE CANNOT UNITE with that group.  Think about it.

Supporters of Ron DeSantis either knew of the Never Trump intents, or they were not smart enough to see the supernova flares of manipulation that were triggered from the outset.  Either way, cunning or stupid, I do not want to camp with them.  It is what it is.

Take the endorsement and carry on.

Ron and Casey will be divorced within two years.

[AlaskaErik]

He turned out to be just another RINO Ivy League lawyer who has been suckling at the government teat ever since graduating university, with absolutely no private sector experience.

[gbs]

I can agree with to soon, needs to get better advisors, every body has misjudged Trumps following

[TTFlyer]

Exactly.

[mbrfl]

That’s the “lesson” the MSM wants people to take away from DeSantis’s failure. The real culprit was that he was too Uniparty. He would not have been running to stop Trump if he weren’t. The voters recognized it and said, no thanks.

[linMcHlp]

Ron DeSantis gambled that he had to take a course close to the gravitational pull of the GOPe, in order to accelerate the spread of awareness of his run, across the country.

But DeSantis paid a price: Being forced, or nudged, to comply with some GOPe demands.

DeSantis is OK; he is a good governor - better than several others.

And he probably has learned where to not repeat some of his mistakes in a future campaign.

[rxh4n1]

“I care. I like DeSantis, but I also think he jumped too soon. If he had spent the next four years preparing, he would have been fine.”

Should have waited until ‘28, gone around the country campaigning for Trump and the lesser Republican candidates.

[Signalman]

“Should have waited until ‘28, gone around the country campaigning for Trump and the lesser Republican candidates.”

Agree 100%.

[Alberta's Child]

DeSantis was everything I would have expected from an Ivy League lawyer and career politician. Nobody outside the Beltway and New York City wants that tiresome crap anymore.