Why Trump Should Fear DeSantis (or Someone Like Him)
"In no sane world and by no sound reading did Youngkin run without or away from Trump, though that’s one of the spins being applied to his election in a state that President Biden won by roughly 10 percentage points just a year ago. Youngkin simply chose Trump in spirit over Trump in the flesh, a Trump Lite tack sure to be mimicked by Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms and beyond.Political observers who say that Youngkin was a Never Trumper — proving the viability of that movement — are deluding themselves. He was a Stealth Trumper and Sorta Trumper who took pains not to offend or alienate Forever Trumpers.
I promise you that Ron DeSantis took note of how Youngkin used it. I promise you that every Republican governor, senator and House member who is up for re-election next year in a purple state or district paid heed.
They are testing the same proposition, which is that you needn’t choose between Trump sycophancy and Trump apostasy. There’s a halfway posture, a middle ground, and it can look to voters not like moral cowardice but like political prudence.
Trump allowed it. The former president was uncharacteristically even-tempered and restrained. Instead of taking offense at the distance that Youngkin kept from him, instead of taking the bait when journalists pointed that out, he professed to be unbothered. He claimed amity and mutual respect between the two of them.Don’t interpret Trump’s absence from Republicans’ campaigns with an absence from their calculations. Don’t overlook the homage to Trump in DeSantis’s flamboyant us-versus-them, own-the-libs theatrics: offering cash bonuses to unvaccinated police officers who relocate to Florida from blue cities or states, challenging cruise lines’ insistence that passengers be vaccinated. Trump has educated Republicans, and one of the lessons is to be more like him."