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Too online, too rigid, too weird: why Ron DeSantis failed
The New Statesman ^ | 21 January 2024 | Sohrab Ahmari

Posted on 01/21/2024 7:01:15 PM PST by 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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Society
KEYWORDS: desantis; fakenews
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To: Drew68

Rhonda Santis partnered with the RINO Establishment and anyone with an IQ higher than a bowling ball could see it.


21 posted on 01/22/2024 3:01:50 AM PST by newfreep ("There is no race problem...just a problem race")
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To: definitelynotaliberal

He’s smart enough, he’s sold out enough (back to his Yale days), and he’s ambitious enough. But, he may just not be extroverted enough to step up successfully to the national political arena.

Meanwhile, his wife is the one with the multigenerational Deep State roots. If, as rumored, she’s looking now to run for guv in FL, she may have wanted to stop him from doing more harm to her cause—including via his relationship to Trump.


22 posted on 01/22/2024 3:04:01 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: Drew68
I’ve got an even better post mortem for his campaign:

When I compare Ron DeSantis to all the candidates I’ve seen in national politics over the last 35 years, the one whose personality comes closest to him was Democrat lawyer and loser John Edwards.

23 posted on 01/22/2024 3:08:12 AM PST by Alberta's Child (If something in government doesn’t make sense, you can be sure it makes dollars.)
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To: gbs

“needs to get better advisors,”

I don’t think “advisors” is the right word under the circumstances. That implies that he decided to run first, and then gathered advisors.

My opinion is that he always planned to wait to run after Trump’s next term. I think he was sincere way back when he said he wouldn’t run against Trump. Then “instigators” (not advisors) showed up and plied him with incentives to jump in the race.

He should’ve waited, but now that we have to assume he’s a weak man, and easily manipulated by others. Who needs that?


24 posted on 01/22/2024 4:19:24 AM PST by MayflowerMadam ("A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.")
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To: definitelynotaliberal

De Santis did not fail. He accomplished what he set out to do.

And........ who believes a word about America written by a person named Sohrab Ahmari


25 posted on 01/22/2024 4:40:49 AM PST by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Hamasci de is required in totalhe)
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To: Alberta's Child
When I compare Ron DeSantis to all the candidates I’ve seen in national politics over the last 35 years, the one whose personality comes closest to him was Democrat lawyer and loser John Edwards.

Oh, my goodness! I couldn't quite place it, but you've hit the nail on the head.


26 posted on 01/22/2024 8:31:16 AM PST by definitelynotaliberal (I believe it! He's alive! Sweet Jesus!)
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