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Greetings, Fellow “Listless Vessels”
I think the “listless vessels” quote is going to hurt:
DESANTIS: Ultimately, a movement can’t be about the personality of one individual. The movement has got to be about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people, and that has to be based in principle, because if that’s not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels that are just supposed to follow whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that’s not going to be a durable movement [emphasis added]
If Trump support was truly only a cult of personality then the comment would have some merit. But this is DeSantis’ Hillary “basketful of deplorables” moment. I am not going to retread all the arguments I have laid out to support Donald Trump for 2024, but none of them are based on personal devotion to the man.
And who is guilty of “listless devotion” in the Republican party? Is it Trump supporters, or the pols and consultants wanting to return to the good old days of playing the folks by promising and not delivering? Churn out the texts and emails to collect donations, but never pushing the Overton Window back toward constitutional government?
Published in General
From the outside, it looks like the Governor’s campaign is going down in fiery flames. Too bad. I hoped he had a political future, but he looks like another Scott Walker, who just vanished from the national scene.
Does it make sense to ask why we should be listlessly devoted to the GOP? Except for Trump and Reagan, it seemed to me that the GOP continually sold us out.
Vivek nails it. But he has little chance.
https://x.com/vivekgramaswamy/status/1692961285267214455?s=61&t=GhQMhuKuXj-TjIfKhOBVUQ
re Trump and DeSantis, I had been thinking in terms of a business analogy: it is sometimes the case that one individual does a great job in starting a company and running it initially, but he isn’t the right person to take it to the next level, where different skills may be required.
So I was thinking that maybe Trump, with his very intuitive intelligence, was effective at identifying many of the things that were wrong and needed to be changed…and in some cases, taking the initial steps toward getting the changes made…..while DeSantis, with his more structured mind, was the guy to scale the changes up.
But these comments by DeS aren’t really consistent with my analogy….basically, the prospective new CEO is saying not only that the Founder isn’t the right guy to to take it to the next level, but that all or most of his supporters were just affected by the Founder’s charisma. Which negates any sense of policy continuity.
Well, now I think I’ve changed to actively dislike DeSanctis. He sure parses his words to paint a whole lot of people with a very broad and foul brush. He repeatedly picks out a “reported” but hypothetical minority of a minority “there are people — uh, there are some people” — and holds them up as all, or as the average, Trump supporters.
As I mentioned before, Sundance at CTH has always been skeptical of DeSantis. Well, maybe hostile toward DeSantis is a more accurate account.
I have been reading him for a few years . He is like a conspiracy with time show’s to be true .
I don’t always agree with him but respect him and trust him . Can’t think of a time he has been proven to be just wrong .
Same here. I’m suspicious of anyone who just dismisses him.
Sundance is pretty credible. For example, he’s the one who said Twitter could not make money but had to be supported with outside money. Musk is weakly trying to make it profitable, but he’s keeping it afloat with his own money now.
I think I view DeSantis differently than most. I suspect he really does not expect to win POTUS this time around. I suspect he is prepping for the next time.
Well, hope I don’t get everyone too riled up, but I read it differently.
“If” we are all listless vessels . . .
To me he’s saying we’re not, at least he hopes not. But is it really just another case of “Let’s find something DeSantis (or who else it might be that’s not Trump) says that we can jump on and prove he’s terrible and Trump is just so wonderful?”
Don’t forget, if he’s the nominee I’ll vote for him a third time, but he’s gonna lose this one big time.
Sounds kinda like “malaise,” doesn’t it?
Right, because no one ever uses something Trump says to prove he’s terrible. . .
DeSantis shouldn’t fall for the “cult of personality” trope.
He’s saying if we support Trump then we are intellectually listless followers.
There were a few times when I got angry with a certain involuntarily departed member of Ricochet for calling Trump supporters a cult of personality. Then I noticed that now and then there were Trump supporters here on Ricochet who were trying to prove him right. It wasn’t right to put all Trump supporters in that basket, or to reduce the entire Trump phenomenon to that, but the cultish elements would show up now and then. I don’t remember the exact conversations or who. Its better not to remember such details when it’s possible not to. If it shows up again, maybe I could point it out. Or maybe people can figure it out for themselves.
It’s the cult of leading in the direction I and others want to go . It’s the cult of knowing Trump can’t be bought but almost all others can because they need their money , Trump does not. It’s the cult of supporting a free agent in a gaggle of owned candidates .
You may be correct ( I suspect you are ), but it is still awfully early. I am in the minority on Ricochet, but I think if Trump is the GOP nominee it will lead to 4 years of unified Democrat rule at the federal level.
I think when he started his campaign he clearly expected to win. Not sure he still does.
Whoever NewKid he hired to manage his campaign now has him sounding like a whiny 15 year old. Do these people not read what they are supposed to say before they say it?
You know, I’ve got to say that I took the word “liar” out of my first comment. But he is. And he has a tell. Look at his face. Watch his eyes. See when he blinks. He always nervously blinks a split second before he says something that he doesn’t believe. Every time he blinks, he is deciding to lie the next few words. You can read him.
He blinks only moderately all the way through the part starting, at oh, say, 3:00. This has been well rehearsed and he feels comfortable with it.
Then watch his eyes when he answers this Question at 3:18
Watch at 3:42 when he’s saying “ready on day one”. He doesn’t believe it. It’s a lie, it’s an obfuscation. He has no plan.
He is completely truthful at 4:37 when he says “they’re gonna eat you up”. Yeah, he is confident that that is true, he believes they’ll eat up any president including him.
Look at how confident and truthful he is at 5:37 when he says, “They’re supposed to be answering to the president but they really have a mind of their own.” He doesn’t blink. He knows it’s true.
He starts blinking again at 5:45 when he starts talking about his idea of “re-constitutionalizing the federal government.”
He is saying parsed answers and he is uncomfortable with this, but he parses his answers because he has no actual answer. He’s bluffing.
I’m not saying he wouldn’t be a great president 10 or 20 years ago perhaps, maybe better than Bush, certainly better than 0bama, but not today.
Gotta say, ‘listless vessels’ and ‘basket of deplorables’ are weird Frankenphrases devoid of wit and music.
Say what you will about Trump’s insults, they were made by a human for humans.
Fair comment. But I am not sure that his now saying, “IF! I said, IF!” is going to help. He has been looking for ways (for some time now) to side-swipe Trump without leaving paint transfer. It started with the Bragg indictment which he belatedly criticized but added that he didn’t know anything about paying hush money to a stripper. So he wants to play this game. I get it. I understand it. At some level everyone who thinks they can be president is a megalomanic, including Trump. It’s a bloodsport. He just isn’t going to get away without paint transfer on this side swipe.
I like this guy . . .
I’m fine with the comment. I think it’s accurate and that there are valid assertions with what he states.
Conervatives like Chip Roy, Thomas Massie and members of the Freedom Caucus have been stalwarts fighting the Left and the Deep State while weak sauce members like Elise Stefanik avoid that critical wrath of Trump’s base because she backed him.
Trump followed McConnel’s & Ryan’s lead a lot more than he did the Freedom Caucus while there. Get got rolled – often.
I’m not gonna persuade you guys, you’re not gonna persuade me. That’s fine.
It’s not the general observation that’s wrong — that a movement needs to be based on principle not personality — it is the suggestion of the “truth” of a personality cult. To be honest, every successful political campaign involves voters vesting an individual with the hopes for their well-being. So DeSantis’ real pitch is to exchange a “personality cult” favoring Trump, for a “personality cult” favoring him. But he isn’t giving us a straight forward pitch to do so. And under the particular circumstances of this election cycle it is (IMO) imprudent to do so.
I agree with this. The movement and principles are from the Freedom Caucus, which predates Trump’s run for president by half a decade. DeSantis was part of that and he is correct in that a broader movement will have more impact than a Trump fan club. I think the analogy is Barack Obama. He was popular leader, but behind the scenes he drive a lot of policy and put people in place that would follow his principles. Barack so embedded his movement into government and culture, that 7 years later we still think he is in charge. I want that kind of movement on the Right.
One of the problems of having a movement based on personality than principles, is that is very hard for other politicians to join along. The don’t know what to say from day-to-day and end up getting washed out. I think Trump is better about putting out policy statements now, but he is not good about following them. If he attacks Gov. Kim Reynolds are others supposed to attack her too? She is the best GOP governor in the country and unprincipled Trump’s attack ties all other politicians into knots. If an enduring movement depends on getting most politicians to row in the same direction, it really does need to be based on principles.
Can’t disagree, except to ask why don’t you think Trumpism is not based on principles? Yes, there are attacks by Trump on other politicians. Whether they are ill-advised or justified I don’t always know. But that doesn’t mean (IMO) that there are no principles behind Trumpism.
I’d rather think of myself as a deplorable than a listless vessel. However, that doesn’t have much to do with whether it was a dumb statement or not.
I’m curious as to who was interviewing him and how he was sucked into saying something like that. He probably shouldn’t even be discussing the subject. I’m very pro-DeSantis and that hasn’t changed, but maybe he still has a few things to learn about dealing with the media. Trump talks trash about the people who work for him, and DeSantis now talks trash about the Trump base. Neither is a good look. They should be saving their trash talk for the corrupt administrative state.
I appreciated DeSantis’s point about the misuse of the RINO slur. The last year or so its been obvious that just as the left drained the word racist of its original meaning by applying it to just about everyone they don’t like so have some vocal Trump backers drained the word RINO of its original meaning. Now it just means someone Trump doesn’t happen to like today.