If DeSantis, or others like him, are the future of the Republican party, then God help us. The system churns out candidates like DeSantis as a matter of routine, and always has. Every one of them has a public face that hides who they are and who they work for. DeSantis is just as dependent on his donors as any other establishment Republican, and he’s just as beholden to them. If he’s “standing up to the establishment”, its because they’ve allowed him to.
We’d been waiting for the system to produce a true leader, for years, and it never happened. And now we’re supposed to believe that the system finally worked and produced a truly independent leader in Ron DeSantis?, a candidate who has somehow figured out how to be independent of the people who allow him to exist, politically? DeSantis has figured out a way to get big donor money and still do whatever he wants? It’s ludicrous on its face. This is why Trump is truly so unique and why so many of us give him leeway on mistakes he may make from time to time. It’s because he’s fundamentally different from the DeSantis’s of the world. He has the freedom, and ability, to act with a degree of independence that DeSantis never will. He’s of a different species. You can’t expect an antelope to behave like a lion. It’s not in its nature.
We’re not always going to have Trump leading the party. Who will emerge after a second Trump term? I don’t know. But if the answer is a return to another establishment candidate, whether it be DeSantis or someone else, then the Trump revolution will have been for naught.
We’ll cross that bridge in the future, right now worrying about a Republican Presidential Nominee in 2028 can only cause more infighting.
I’m not a DeSantis supporter BTW, he’d have to show great improvement as national candidate for me to vote for him in a primary.
If he slugs his way through 2028 primary, wins it, and is facing Newsom in the general.
I’ll vote for DeSantis faster than you can say “President Trump.”
I’m not confident that DeSantis would be a good President, but Newsom must never become President.