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Trump’s 5-Point Plan to DeStroy DeSantis Has Little Chance
Axios reported the hot scoop that Donald Trump doesn’t much care for Ron DeSantis. After endorsing Florida’s two-term governor in 2018, Don’s taken all responsibility for Ron’s landslide re-election — despite Trump’s inability to pull off his own.
The piece includes Trump’s super-secret five-point plan to deep-six Meatball Ron DeSanctimonius once and for all. (If only Trump had a plan to defeat Biden.) Anyway, here’s the strategy:
- DeSantis’ past support for changes to Social Security and Medicare, including votes as a U.S. congressman to raise the eligibility age for Medicare.
- Disloyalty to Trump after he helped DeSantis get elected governor in 2018. Trump also plans to pound DeSantis on likability.
- Trump wants to cast DeSantis as a lackey of former House Speaker Paul Ryan. On Trump’s social-media site, Truth Social, he attacked Ryan this week as a loser who “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher,” and said he should resign or be fired as a Fox Corp. board member.
- DeSantis’ response to COVID is a top Trump target, even though the governor is known for resisting mask mandates. Trump plans to attack DeSantis’ caution in the earliest days of the pandemic — and try to fight the issue to a draw. A March 2020 headline in the Tampa Bay Times said: “DeSantis orders major shutdown of beaches, businesses in Broward, Palm Beach.” (DeSantis pushesbackonthis.)
- DeSantis took heat for muddled comments, in a Fox News interview last week, about whether to maintain financial and military support for Ukraine. Trump plans to portray DeSantis as wishy-washy on the war, while he toes the MAGA line of cutting aid.
Eh, I don’t see it working. Let’s go through them one by one.
1. DeSantis’ past support for changes to Social Security and Medicare.
Reforming Social Security/Medicare is both wildly unpopular and completely necessary. I prefer eliminating both, which is why I’ve never worked in elective politics. Most pols have voted to change the Ponzi schemes, including Ron DeSantis and Joe Biden.
The problem for Trump is that reforming entitlements isn’t key to the DeSantis brand or platform (at least for the time being). Team MAGA can make a little hay on the issue, but pointing to a couple losing votes in the House doesn’t exactly ignite voters’ passion. I wish DeSantis would go scorched-earth on all federal outlays like Ron Swanson on a bender, but no such luck.
2. Disloyalty to Trump after he helped DeSantis get elected governor in 2018. Trump also plans to pound DeSantis on likability.
You want loyalty in Washington, buy a dog. No politician is due loyalty and only the most naive would expect it from a fellow pol. It’s just not a thing.
Some in the Trump orbit even expect voters to be loyal to the guy who lost to Joe-freaking-Biden of all people. This has it precisely backward. It’s the politicians’ job to be loyal to the voter.
Likability is a weird attack from Trump, since his unlikability was key to his 2016 success. Yeah, he can be funny but never sold himself as “nice.” That era’s GOP wanted a fighter eager to beat down his opponents in either party. Today’s GOP is hardly in a friendlier mood.
Kissing babies is out; kicking butts is in. As long as DeSantis keeps opening a can of whoop-ass every other day, the base will find him likable enough.
3. Trump wants to cast DeSantis as a lackey of former House Speaker Paul Ryan. On Trump’s social-media site, Truth Social, he attacked Ryan this week as a loser who “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher,” and said he should resign or be fired as a Fox Corp. board member.
Ask the average GOP voter about Paul Ryan, and they’ll respond, “who?” Political obsessives have their opinion, but the American voter has a very short memory. This highlights a broader problem with Trump’s attacks to date: most focus on his personal historical grievances. Americans care more about what’s happening now. To them.
The 2024 campaign will not center on Paul Ryan’s brief speakership or the last presidential election. Winners focus on the future; losers whine about the past. Also, if 2022 was any indication, serious conservatives need the votes of a squish or two if they want to take the White House. (If Kari Lake had reached out to a tiny fraction of Arizona RINOs, she’d be governor.)
4. DeSantis’ response to COVID is a top Trump target, even though the governor is known for resisting mask mandates. Trump plans to attack DeSantis’ caution in the earliest days of the pandemic — and try to fight the issue to a draw.
Donald Trump presided over the first year of Covid and thus owns a significant chunk of the government’s disastrous policy. He refused to fire Anthony Fauci. He allowed federal agencies to promote mask requirements and shut-down offices. He warp-speeded the vaccine into existence. Most of his fans oppose the vax today, but they can’t blame it on Ron.
DeSantis, on the other hand, became a national name for opposing restrictions as soon as the science proved they were counterproductive. Should have done it from the jump, but he was more proactive in his Covid-regime pushback than Trump, that’s for sure.
5. DeSantis took heat for muddled comments, in a Fox News interview last week, about whether to maintain financial and military support for Ukraine. Trump plans to portray DeSantis as wishy-washy on the war, while he toes the MAGA line of cutting aid.
The frustrating thing about our political reaction to Ukraine is the all-or-nothing categories, both of which are stupid. A person is expected to either 1) promise endless support to Zelensky forever, or 2) think Putin’s cool and all aid should end yesterday. According to polls, the vast majority of Americans are somewhere in between, as they are on most issues. That’s where DeSantis is on Ukraine.
It’s good to support the invadees, for now, but we should have strict accountability on every dime spent and constantly re-evaluate the situation. Not one U.S. soldier should be sent, nor should our more advanced weaponry. Behind the scenes, diplomats should be promoting peace overtures to both sides. “All or nothing” is a prelude to failure.
As such, politicians need to guess where American sentiment will be in November 2024. Support for military aid has dropped from 63% last year to 48% today. This remains a strong plurality, but the trend strongly opposes forever war.
The five points prove that Trump has no problem with DeSantis’s policies, performance, or personality. Instead, they show his fear that the governor has a solid chance of beating him in the GOP primary. That’s it.
And that’s why he’s workshopping dumb nicknames and all-caps-ing on Truth Social into the wee hours. The shtik worked in 2016, but will it work eight years later? I have my doubts.
Published in Elections, Politics
That’s incredible. Trump would be attacking DeSantis for being a conservative. But I wouldn’t be surprised.
The party deserves this for helping tube Trump’s reelection. He would have been a fine president these last two years, better than what we have now, and would be entering lame duck status ready for retirement now.
Also dumb because he would have to resign as governor to even run. Whose name in FL jumps out at you to replace him?
Maybe. When he was still president, Donald Trump said he should get to run for a third term because the press gave him such a hard time he wasn’t able to enjoy the first term.
There are still [redacted]s who say that they will vote for Biden again in 2024 if Trump is the nominee. They deserve nothing but contempt. As far as what the party deserves, I’d say extinction. That slug Hogan is already saying the party has to stop Trump. That sack of used food Ryan says he won’t be on-stage at the convention if Trump is the nominee. How will we ever cope with that?
Remember that it’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black.
A convention bereft of the ennobling presence of Paul Ryan would be but a hollow shell.
Yes, Mike Pence would have personally led the insurrection in 2024 if things had gone differently in 2020.
??? I dunno, maybe that was sarcasm and I missed it?!
Yes it was, just as I assumed Randy’s comment to be.
Trump did actually say that, but no, I don’t think he would have attempted to run for a third term. Maybe Sidney Powell or someone else on his crackpot team of attorneys would have looked for a loophole, but no, the plan would not have come to fruition.
There was no plan, and there could be no attempt because there is no path or mechanism, but I’m glad to hear that you don’t think he would have planned or attempted a structurally and practically impossible run at a third term. One never can tell nowadays I guess.
Donald Trump certainly has a very committed base, but will it be enough to put him back in the White House? He will have to depend upon convincing Independents to return him to the White House. The interesting thing is that both Republicans and Democrats have lost declared registered voters.
Independents may be the new king makers as it appears that the two major parties may not be able to claim a clear majority of voters.
From a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center:
I would like to see some historical data on how those who “identify” as independents have actually voted. My sense is that they are often Democrats in sheep’s clothing, but that’s a guess.
Same as it ever was. The elusive moderate/independent. Also same as it ever was, the right needs to compromise and hide the “crazies” while the left never does.
I want the data that the pollsters can’t collect: how many phone respondents hang up as soon as the canvasser utters the word “poll?”
You can see it in election results all the time. North Dakota as one example, has consistently been voting Republican for president, and has leaned towards Republican governors, but for many years had Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate. There are oodles of elections where the Republicans win some races and Democrats win others. It seems pretty obvious that while there are plenty of people who are committed Democrats and Republicans, there are also a lot of people who are not committed to either party and are voting based on criteria other than party affiliation.
If 33% identify as Democrats and only 29% identify as Republicans, then the country as founded is toast. The left is winning.
The left doesn’t have to hide its “crazies.” That we need to just shows our voters don’t want liberty as much as the left wants security.
I will vote for whomever is the GOP nominee.
That’s a good point, and there are likely enough swing voters to decide some elections. But I don’t think it necessarily accounts for 34% of the electorate.
In blue Massachusetts, for a long time–they voted for Reagan and made a strong showing for Ross Perot–it has been a consistent pattern for voters, a third of whom are registered as independent, to elect Republican governors and Democratic House and Senate representatives and senators. I’ve always theorized that the voters are smart enough to know they need good money managers in the executive office positions, but they want Democrats in the debating society we call Congress. :) :)
When the Republicans can run a strong candidate for the executive branch, they can do well. :) I imagine that’s true in all of the blue states because I’ve often seen the same voting pattern. It might be true nationally now as well–that may be why Trump did as well as he did in 2016. After eight years of Democrats in the White House, the country probably realized we needed someone with a strong sense of the worth of a dollar. :)
Lol. Are you suggesting he won Florida by 20 points on the backs of only the upper class? He’s better than Trump, yet you want to run it back with a political loser.
nothing is ever Trumps fault.
he knows DeSantis is a threat to Trump. DeSantis just won relection by 20 points through strong focused leadership. he didn’t win by 20 by not winning large numbers of working class voters. Trump squeeked by with 46.1% of the vote in 2016 and lost in 2020. he had completely unfair coverage, as every Republican gets now, but he didn’t help himself by bloviating on Twitter at 3am from the crapper. His unhinged nature matters to a lot of people who aren’t base voters. people can hate the independant/moderate/Rhino/pick your adjective, but you still have to win millions of them to win.
My whole life Democrats have been peddling the slogan that Republicans are the party of the rich. Which was always obviously malarkey. You don’t win half the elections in this country if your only constituency is the wealthy. But some Republicans appear to have bought the slogan and reckon only a unicorn like Donald Trump could get working class voters to vote Republican.