Disloyalty or Pathos

The DeSantis dilemma.

By
116
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis walks across the stage during a commercial break in the NewsNation Republican Presidential Primary Debate at the University of Alabama Moody Music Hall on December 6, 2023 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In an edition of this newsletter last month, Ron DeSantis got a visit from the Ghost of Campaign Future. Today, he’s getting one from the Ghost of Campaign Present.

If you were the governor of Florida, how would you go about rebuilding your stature within the Republican Party?

“I’d do everything I could to win the Iowa caucus,” you might say, but DeSantis has tried that. For all of his effort, he trails by more than 30 points and stands a real chance of finishing third. Some of the people hired to knock doors for him in the state have reportedly confided to voters that they’re actually supporting Donald Trump. According to the New York Times, DeSantis’ own pollster has told confidants the governor’s inner circle has reached the stage of his 2024 campaign where they’re simply trying to “make the patient comfortable.”

Any chance of avoiding an electoral debacle this cycle has vanished. And so DeSantis and his advisers have a coldly rational decision to make: What can they do in 2024 to maximally rehabilitate his reputation among right-wing voters?

This content is available exclusively to Dispatch members
Try a membership for full access to every newsletter and all of The Dispatch. Support quality, fact-based journalism.
Start Your Free Trial
Already a paid member? Sign In
116
By
Comments (116)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    ReneFerrerJr

    Excellent analysis, sir. Thank you.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Donald E. L. Johnson, Florida

    The best thing Ron DeSantis can do for his reputation is to use the rest of his term as governor of Florida to show that he is one of the smartest and wisest governors in the country.

    That will position him to join a big time Florida law firm that will pay him millions to bring in clients and recruit first class lawyers for the firm. He should emulate Jim Thompson who went from being a strong Illinois governor to being the state's emeritus governor and president of a prestigious law firm.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    Mandy B.

    "... and Trump will demand a profuse show of loyalty anyway before restoring DeSantis’ status as a Republican in good standing."

    I think I'm going to be sick.

    Who CARES what the Stop Actual Democracy Creep demands, wants, likes, prefers, wishes for? Let him rot below.

    Who CARES what a man that should be in jail for crimes against his country etc. etc. etc.? LET HIM ROT.

    Collapse
  4. Dougrhon

    His only path forward is to drop the phony populism, get back to being a strong effective governor and hope the Trump fever breaks at some point over the next four years. And also that the country is still standing.

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Soniak21

    Someone recently said DeSantis was running an "if you build it, they will come" campaign: He was persuaded (or persuaded himself) that none of these Catch-22s mattered, because Trump would be toast if the voters were just given a viable alternative—and he was going to be that guy.

    This was in the midst of one of Trump's periodic mini-slumps, when pundits start speculating that R voters are finally giving up the Trump Kool-Aid... but it never actually happens. I guess it was right after Trump's noxious MAGA candidates cost the Rs their "red tsunami" in 2022.

    DeSantis was banking that he'd never have to address the contradictions of spurning Trump, because voters were done with Trump anyway and hungry for a competent populist alternative without all the baggage. I kind of believed it myself. As a sports fan, I knew (or thought I knew...) that there's no substitute for winning—and nothing that stinks like losing. Fans will put up with all sorts of dysfunction and bad behavior from their teams/players if they WIN. But even nice guys don't get a pass if they lose.

    I thought the stink of 2022 would make Trump a loser, which is antithetical to his brand. I thought that might be the one thing capable of penetrating the Trump Cult's delusions—because no one wants to lose. After three straight disappointing elections, I thought, voters were ready to quietly disembark the Trump Train, provided they had a viable alternative. DeSantis evidently thought so too.

    I guess what neither of us counted on was the Trumpian jiu-jitsu of absolutely insisting you're a winner, even when the vote count says otherwise (never mind the polls...). "The election was rigged." "The justice system has been weaponized." When you're Trump, you don't just accept such things—you FIGHT! And the voters eat it up. It's the magical Trumpian alchemy that turns losing into winning. It's the mind-bending fairy-dust that causes Trumpers to scorn pre-Trump conservatives, insisting they did nothing but lose... when their own electoral record shows exactly one win (against a historically unappealing opponent with a popular-vote loss).

    That was the problem with the "if you build it, they will come" campaign. The path to displacing Trump *looked* wide open for a competent populist candidate. But whether by anyone's design or not (and I'm not really giving Trump that much credit for strategery) it was a trap. A debasing, humiliating trap tailor-made to show that usurpers to Trump's throne will pay the price.

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Charley Warns

    Consider how MAGA immediately turned on Sessions, Pence, and Barr for their disloyalty as Nick cites this from Michael Wood: “There is only so much tap dancing you can do on MAGA and Trump. It’s either the full Liz [Cheney] or the full Newsmax and everyone has to choose eventually.”

    Imagine doing that after Trump insulted his wife. "We’ve all seen the photo of Ted Cruz grimacing while phone-banking for the Trump-Pence ticket after the primary in 2016."

    How can anyone support a guy who's asking the Georgia Secretary of State to manufacture just enough votes to put him into the lead? It's just pathetic!

    "All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we won the state. And flipping the state is a great testament to our country because, you know, this is just it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it."

    Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    BloggerBarbie

    I would gain some respect for DeSantis if he stopped pandering to populists, told Trump and his supporters exactly what they can go do with themselves, and launched a campaign to rescue the GOP from these yahoos. If he wants to get out of the "pathetic" column, he needs to show some spine and fight for what's right instead of what's politically convenient for him.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Mandy B.

      Agreed -- but the point is that it isn't even politically convenient. It's a political quagmire and he's up to his neck in it.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        BloggerBarbie

        I suspect all of them think there's some kind of normal politics to be played, and they can horsetrade for votes. Nick's right, of course, that it's actually a quagmire because the Trumpies don't actually care about democracy, let alone the politics that make it work. But I suspect they all THINK there's political convenience in bowing down to Big Orange, and that they'll get all his voters if, say, something unfortunate were to happen to him. Like jail. But his followers aren't partisans. His followers are fanboyz. If he weren't in the election, they'd just stay home and watch re-runs of The Apprentice to their heart's content.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          Mandy B.

          I find them hard to understand at all, to be honest. And I live next door to them!

          Collapse
  8. Dnels

    DeSantis will forever live with the regrets of this campaign. What if he had gone strong on Trump in Nov during the post-election hype, hitting him hard on holding highly classified docs on a stage and in a bathroom, saying he should be indicted, not elected. It would have been hard, but there may have been a MAGA lane there, really selling the "Trump but competent" line. Maybe if Trump was caught flat-footed, spinning from getting dragged over all the losers he pushed through the primaries, he could have looked Alpha enough to gain the upper hand, especially after Trumps pathetic rambling announcement. We'll never know, but it sure couldn't have been worse that this path turned out for him.

    Collapse
  9. RaoD

    Trump winning the general election is what we need as a nation. Not because I’m a Trump supporter— far from it. I believe the problem we have is not Trump, but two failed/decaying parties feeding off of each other. Trump is a parasite that’s feeding off this decay. Remember that we wouldn’t be talking much about Trump if we have a strong Democratic candidate that’s leading in the polls. Of these two parties, Democratic Party has at its core some competent people that want to win elections (As a conservative it’s difficult to admit this but it’s true). Trump’s victory against Biden will show them how low they have fallen. Hopefully that will lead to change.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      I Am the Eggman

      That's a little like arguing that an all-out nuclear war actually would be a good thing because hopefully it would teach us the errors of our ways.

      Collapse
      1. RaoD

        This is a false equivalence for two reasons. Trump’s presidency will likely be bad but not nuclear disaster bad. I believe our institutions are strong enough to hold firm against some of his tendencies.

        Second if Trump is in fact as bad as you say then why are Democrats nominating Biden? They are taking a chance.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          I Am the Eggman

          It's not an equivalence at all, it's a satirical analogy. Do you understand the difference?

          The Democrats are tolerating the idea of nominating Biden, despite his weaknesses, because history shows that there is a huge advantage to running for office as an incumbent. The risk of re-nominating Biden is less than the risk of nominating someone else who isn't currently President. This is well-known, so the fact that you need to ask doesn't speak well for your awareness of the world around you.

          Collapse
          1. RaoD

            Okay then. No worries. Biden being the best possible Democratic nominee will soundly defeat Trump. Democracy will be saved.

            Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      David Chen

      America has had a good run. Its aboot time Canada had their time in the sun eh?

      Collapse
  10. Avatar photo
    Xsearnold

    "For one thing, he wouldn’t be governor of Florida today if not for Trump’s endorsement in 2018."

    I find this dubious. Although this was highly touted as DeSantis' reason for prevailing in the primary, the fact that he led his closest challenger (the "establishment" candidate, Adam Putnam) by nearly 20 points suggests to me that he would have won even without Trump's endorsement. He also very narrowly won the election in 2018, and I sincerely doubt Trump's endorsement put him over the edge against Gillum.

    Collapse
Load More