If DeSantis is frustrated, angry and wondering how it all went wrong, he just has to look in the mirror. He let Karl Rove and the Trump hating Bush family persuade him to challenge Trump for the nomination and to speak ill of Trump. DeSantis was the successful Republican governor of a well managed state. If he remained in Florida, tolerated Trump’s eccentrics, there is little doubt he would have been the VP candidate in 2024 and probably elected President in 2028. Instead his political career is now largely ruined.
You nailed it. I believe that the specter of Kari Lake allowed the Bushes to gain DeSantis's ear. Up to that point, he had various consultant scum whispering in his ear not to wait until 2028, but he looked around at the likes of Nimrata and Obama's fat slob girlfriend Christie, and saw no one who would get any momentum out of 2024 and no one on the horizon in the aftermath of the election. He could just continue being America's best governor and build his political capital.
But along came this loud and attractive Kari Lake who looked a sure thing to win in Arizona—okay, she did win, but was cheated—and that would make her formidable in '28. Suddenly, waiting didn't seem like such a good idea and those whispers got louder, stronger and now were heard clearly by DeSantis and, of course, his wife who clearly heard the whispers from the start. By the time, Lake was stopped in Arizona, it was too late. The Bushes saw their opening and pounced. DeSantis will never be the designated GOPe loser that Jeb was prepared to be and that Nimrata and the NJ Blimp are, but the Bush crowd knows how to neutralize good candidates and really knows how to get the money flying around from GOPe donors to GOPe consultants through the RNC so they all get their beaks wet. $150 million for Jeb to get three delegates in 2016 was perfection for the GOPe parasite class and they saw in DeSantis another bonanza plus eliminating this upstart conservative before he could go any further. It's a shame.