Where Is Ron DeathSantis?

[TurkeysGhost]

I don't mind it, at some point it's going to get to be so excessive that they'll lose a lot of the middle ground vote. Even people that lean slightly right will either sit out of the elections, do a write-in or hold their nose and vote Dem.

The right has a bit of an issue right now. They NEED Trump's base in order to win elections. That's a fact. There's no road to the Presidency on the right that doesn't include the red hats. Anyone else would get primaried for sure, but if they keep going further and further right then reasonable people aren't going to follow. This will all come back to haunt them in the end.

Historically speaking, extreme right wing groups don't go quietly into the good night when the democratic cookie doesn't break their way.

Election rigging backed by political violence and the corruption of government insitutions is our future.

 

[plague311]

Historically speaking, extreme right wing groups don't go quietly into the good night when the democratic cookie doesn't break their way.

Election rigging backed by political violence and the corruption of government insitutions is our future.

Yes, I know. 'Tis the ISF way. All doom and gloom, everyone is going to die, the world is going to start on fire, the right will always win, the 7 layers of hell would be considered a vacation, yada, yada, yada. I know. Can we come up with an acronym for it that you guys can use?

Perhaps you and JoeMorgue could round something up that we could all recognize immediately as you guys saying that our political hopes and dreams are dead and everyone else is too dumb or lazy to recognize it? Just try to make it flashy.

 

[newyorkguy]

You see the results from 2020 when DeSantis became one of the first governors to open back up. New cases immediately rose followed by a big increase in Floridians dying. But as they would say in MAGAland, "So what? People die all the time."

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Yes, I know. 'Tis the ISF way. All doom and gloom, everyone is going to die, the world is going to start on fire, the right will always win, the 7 layers of hell would be considered a vacation, yada, yada, yada. I know. Can we come up with an acronym for it that you guys can use?

Perhaps you and JoeMorgue could round something up that we could all recognize immediately as you guys saying that our political hopes and dreams are dead and everyone else is too dumb or lazy to recognize it? Just try to make it flashy.

I didn't claim they were going to win, only that losing elections won't be the end of it. Things will almost certainly get nastier generally, and more violent specifically, but that doesn't mean it's a hopeless situation.

Being clear-eyed about the problems that lay ahead is probably a necessary element to ensuring that these right wing freaks don't come out on top.

 

[Cain]

DeSantis recently criticized trump’s early handling of the pandemic, saying he now wishes he'd been "more vocal in his complaints." What's his number one 'complaint?'

I still think DeSantis and other vipers present a problem for Trump, as this public spat suggests.

Jonathan Last says that they don't stand a chance, and they're just single-white-femaling Trump (i.e., impersonating him to eventually kill him).

DeSantis is a phony. Trump is authentic.

You’re not supposed to remember this, but DeSantis is a smarty-pants, Ivy League elite lawyer who is playacting as a populist crusader. Trump is the real thing.

...

Trump ran right over the GOP field in 2016 on matters of policy by beating them with attitude and affect. And he’ll do the same to DeSantis.

...

The next leader of the Republican party won’t be a politician who challenges Trump and unseats him. The Republican party is a totalitarian state and in autocracies, you ascend to the throne by being loyal to the boss and positioning yourself to take over when he passes on.

One of the problems for party flak who want to retake the White House is that even if they are capable of out-maneuvering Trump in the primary, the braying buffoon will doom the nominee with ****-talk and threaten a third party run. In this game of chicken, it's rational to board the Trump Train (which cannot veer off course), and hope to control it. Again.

Republicans had a chance of dooming Trump in 2021 by condemning J6. Or maybe they never had a chance.

 

[The Don]

I still think DeSantis and other vipers present a problem for Trump, as this public spat suggests.

Jonathan Last says that they don't stand a chance, and they're just single-white-femaling Trump (i.e., impersonating him to eventually kill him).



One of the problems for party flak who want to retake the White House is that even if they are capable of out-maneuvering Trump in the primary, the braying buffoon will doom the nominee with ****-talk and threaten a third party run. In this game of chicken, it's rational to board the Trump Train (which cannot veer off course), and hope to control it. Again.

Republicans had a chance of dooming Trump in 2021 by condemning J6. Or maybe they never had a chance.

The thing is that the only thing they didn't like about J6 was that it failed....

 

[Cain]

The thing is that the only thing they didn't like about J6 was that it failed....

That's not my reading of the situation. Republican elites, especially those with presidential ambitions, want the party brand to be strong, and they want to get rid of Trump. The trouble is that Trump is synonymous with the party in the minds of so many supporters.

One of the reasons Republicans vying for the 2016 nomination were reluctant to criticize Trump is because they assumed he'd flame out, and they wanted his endorsement/supporters when he'd inevitably leave the race for saying something stupid. Ted Cruz admitted that this was his strategy. Same logic.

I'd make a distinction between such ghouls and (say) the House "Freedom" Caucus, who sincerely supported J6.

 

[newyorkguy]

Republicans in 2016 actually attacked trump relentlessly.

• Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, labeled Mr. Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot” and called him the “ISIL man of the year,” referring to the Islamic State. That was in addition to describing him as a “kook,” “crazy” and a man who was “unfit for office.”
  
• Senator Ted Cruz, the second-to-last man left standing in the ugly 2016 Republican primary race, called Mr. Trump a “pathological liar” who was “utterly amoral,” a “serial philanderer” and a “narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.”
  
• Mick Mulvaney, the former Republican congressman who now serves as the president’s acting chief of staff, in 2016 called him a “terrible human being” who had made “disgusting and indefensible” comments about women.

New York Times link

This is actually a recent article which the Times published under the headline

No One Attacked Trump More in 2016 Than Republicans. It Didn’t Work.

 

[The Don]

That's not my reading of the situation. Republican elites, especially those with presidential ambitions, want the party brand to be strong, and they want to get rid of Trump. The trouble is that Trump is synonymous with the party in the minds of so many supporters.

If that's true then it's not reflected in either their words or their deeds. IMO their failure to criticise or censure President Trump at all isn't an indication that they are holding their noses for the purposes of party unity, it's a clear demonstration of support.

These are skilled political operators who have spent decades in the murky world of Washington politics. If they wanted President Trump to be marginalised in some way then they'd find a way to do it. After the 2020 election they could have properly stuck the knife in and have had 4 years to disassociate the party from his legacy. Instead, they've more closely associated themselves with him.

 

[angrysoba]

If that's true then it's not reflected in either their words or their deeds. IMO their failure to criticise or censure President Trump at all isn't an indication that they are holding their noses for the purposes of party unity, it's a clear demonstration of support.

These are skilled political operators who have spent decades in the murky world of Washington politics. If they wanted President Trump to be marginalised in some way then they'd find a way to do it. After the 2020 election they could have properly stuck the knife in and have had 4 years to disassociate the party from his legacy. Instead, they've more closely associated themselves with him.

I don't know about that. If they were seasoned politicans trying to marginalize Trump, they would have found a way in the 2016 primaries. When the Establishment Republicans effectively lost the primary to Trump, they pretty much assumed along with the rest of the country that the presidency was lost, and that all they had to do was give lip service to him, while working on down-ballot elections for the Senate and House. I think it was their nightmare that they had to put up with whatever crazy thing came out of Trump's mouth for four years. It was too unpredictable a situation for them.

I think Mitch McConnell also wanted him gone after J6, but after having ridden the tiger, they can't just leap off and be malled by the MAGA beast they had been part of creating.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I don't know about that. If they were seasoned politicans trying to marginalize Trump, they would have found a way in the 2016 primaries. When the Establishment Republicans effectively lost the primary to Trump

We are getting into a question of what exact period of time are we talking about, before or after he got a lock on the nomination. With out being specific to what exact period we are talking about this becomes very muddled and people talk past eachother.

 

[The Don]

I think Mitch McConnell also wanted him gone after J6, but after having ridden the tiger, they can't just leap off and be malled by the MAGA beast they had been part of creating.

That may be true but nothing Mitch McConnell has done since January 6 2021 supports that view. Quite the opposite, everything that he's done supports President Trump's ability to run successfully for the 2024 Presidential nomination.

They'd have had the best part of 4 years to re-programme the MAGA crowd. With FOXNews on board that would be a pretty easy task.

 

[Stacyhs]

If they'd wanted Trump gone, they had two perfect opportunities: the impeachments.

 

[Cain]

These are skilled political operators who have spent decades in the murky world of Washington politics. If they wanted President Trump to be marginalised in some way then they'd find a way to do it. After the 2020 election they could have properly stuck the knife in and have had 4 years to disassociate the party from his legacy. Instead, they've more closely associated themselves with him.

I think you're wildly overestimating their powers. Washington is a lot more like Veep than House of Cards. Apparently, DeSantis' critical lockdown comments came on a podcast hosted by a former McConnell staffer. The Trump people do not think this was a coincidence, and see a faction of the party maneuvering to undermine the Braying Buffoon.

If they'd wanted Trump gone, they had two perfect opportunities: the impeachments.

The first impeachment was a no-go; he was their candidate for re-election, and they were in it to win it. The second impeachment, it's easy to imagine they made the calculation that Trump would more or less be done for. That's what Nikki Haley thought. You don't have to kill someone if they cripple themselves (or the opposition does them in). It turns out that this was a miscalculation.

Trump's "genius" is his pig-headed inability to compromise when it comes to his perceived vital interests (attention-whoring). I could see Republicans rationalizing that a Trump victory in 2024 "only" means four more years. And a fascist dictatorship could "only" last as long as he's alive because his children wouldn't be able to keep it goin'. I wouldn't be shocked if Trump has something to the effect of Stalin's remark, "When I die, the imperialists will strangle all of you like a litter of kittens."

But the point is Ted Cruz does not want Donald Trump to be president. Ted Cruz wants Ted Cruz to be president. The other vipers are similarly ambitious.

 

[Stacyhs]

I think you're wildly overestimating their powers. Washington is a lot more like Veep than House of Cards. Apparently, DeSantis' critical lockdown comments came on a podcast hosted by a former McConnell staffer. The Trump people do not think this was a coincidence, and see a faction of the party maneuvering to undermine the Braying Buffoon.



The first impeachment was a no-go; he was their candidate for re-election, and they were in it to win it. The second impeachment, it's easy to imagine they made the calculation that Trump would more or less be done for. That's what Nikki Haley thought. You don't have to kill someone if they cripple themselves (or the opposition does them in). It turns out that this was a miscalculation.

Trump's "genius" is his pig-headed inability to compromise when it comes to his perceived vital interests (attention-whoring). I could see Republicans rationalizing that a Trump victory in 2024 "only" means four more years. And a fascist dictatorship could "only" last as long as he's alive because his children wouldn't be able to keep it goin'. I wouldn't be shocked if Trump has something to the effect of Stalin's remark, "When I die, the imperialists will strangle all of you like a litter of kittens."

But the point is Ted Cruz does not want Donald Trump to be president. Ted Cruz wants Ted Cruz to be president. The other vipers are similarly ambitious.

Ted Cruz is almost as much a narcissist as Trump but he's actually more ambitious. Trump fell into the presidency by accident; Cruz is determined to be president.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

If they'd wanted Trump gone, they had two perfect opportunities: the impeachments.

There are people in the RNC that want Trump gone, but the only real way to do so is to out-Trump Trump. DeSantis is giving this a shot by trying to attack Trump from the right on the issue of Trump's squishiness on covid denialism. DeSantis is out there talking about how the original Trump lockdowns were a mistake, and he's been pandering to anti-vax sentiments for quite some time in stark contrast to Trump's promoting of the vaccine and booster.

I'm not a CHUD whisperer, so I have no idea if this will work. But it seems clear to me that the only way we see Trump getting replaced is by being replaced by someone who is worse, not better, and can more effectively pander to the extremist base.

Personally I think this play by DeSantis will fail and he'll eventually stop the criticism and bend the knee when the MAGA fanatics start treating this criticism of their leader with extreme hostility.

 

[The Don]

There are people in the RNC that want Trump gone, but the only real way to do so is to out-Trump Trump. DeSantis is giving this a shot by trying to attack Trump from the right on the issue of Trump's squishiness on covid denialism. DeSantis is out there talking about how the original Trump lockdowns were a mistake, and he's been pandering to anti-vax sentiments for quite some time in stark contrast to Trump's promoting of the vaccine and booster.

I'm not sure that out-Trumping Trump is an effective way of removing Trump. I mean you might actually remove the man, but you're actually building on his political legacy.

The second impeachment would have been an opportunity to be shot of him. The fact that they supported him 100% shows they have not interest in changing the trajectory of the GOPs flight to the right.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I'm not sure that out-Trumping Trump is an effective way of removing Trump. I mean you might actually remove the man, but you're actually building on his political legacy.

The second impeachment would have been an opportunity to be shot of him. The fact that they supported him 100% shows they have not interest in changing the trajectory of the GOPs flight to the right.

Well, yeah. That's my point. Nobody on the right is interested in unwinding Trump or Trumpism. They had their chance and opted not to do so, and there's no reason to think they wouldn't do the same again.

They may want to get rid of him out of personal ambition, but Trump style politics are clearly the future of the party. There's no going back to neoconservatism or whatever pre-Trump right wing world.

The right in on pace for a big win in the midterms, and unless something miraculous happens, a big win in 2024. Trumpism is here to stay. Whether or not that means Trump at the head of it or some other politically savvy proto-fascist remains to be seen.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

If DeSantis or anyone else wants to defeat Trump to get the MAGA vote, they'll have to start (continue?) attacking Trump's sincerity as the "smartest, bestest man ever". Just pick on every little thing he says and twitch he makes to show he has been co-opted by the libruls. I think they could prove he is a reptilian in disguise if they really tried. There is certainly enough material.

Maybe a Russian troll farm or two could be hired to help.

 

[gnome]

I don't know if I'm being cleverly intuitive or just engaging in wishful thinking, but my gut is telling me that Trump had a personality, history, and nature that was uniquely suited for unifying the malcontents on the right, was running against someone uniquely positioned to rally the same base against, and also had the ability to so easily deflect damage when scandals hit.

This gives me serious doubts that any of the current hopefuls can claim the lion's share of his base and make it work as successfully in 2024. Of course, that doesn't mean the Democrats can't lose. They're very good at losing even when they should be able to run away with it. It does mean a diminished national mandate even if a "Trump-style" candidate does win.