Ron DeSantis is a Candidate Who Serves no Purpose
Ron DeSantis’ presidential candidacy is one curious affair.
From the first murmurings that he was considering a run for president in 2024, it was hard to understand the rationale. Apparently, DeSantis must have believed there was a serious vulnerability in Trump’s base of support that he could somehow exploit.
So far, his calculations have proved to be utterly flawed.
In fact, according to RealClear Politics, in a period spanning March 8-25, Trump polled an average of +8% in eight different polls. Since DeSantis announced, Trump’s lead has swelled to +34%. Yes, part of the surge is a backlash to Biden’s weaponizing of the criminal justice system, but it can be argued that another large chunk involves voters who heard Ron’s schtick but just aren’t buying what he’s selling.
A Candidate Without a Purpose
My colleague, Scott McKay, gives an excellent explanation of the fundamental flaw in the DeSantis campaign. Simply put, McKay says, DeSantis isn’t Trump. I agree, but the problem may run deeper. DeSantis seems like a candidate without a purpose. Even when he is on point and presenting his material with his version of passion, as was the case at the Blaze Media Summit, the general reaction is “meh.”
DeSantis faces the same issue as the other Republican candidates in 2024, namely, figuring out a way to repackage ideas that were pioneered by Donald Trump in a way that makes them sound fresh. It’s like buying a Chinese Zoyte Porsche Macan knockoff instead of the original. You’re left feeling shortchanged and hollow. When DeSantis talks about the importance of being tough on China, voters remember Trump’s tariffs and hard-fought negotiations with Xi Jinping.
As DeSantis rails against the Deep State bureaucracy, he must know the issue was a cornerstone of Trump’s 2016 campaign, and if he didn’t completely fix it, at least he tore the curtain back and exposed its dark underbelly. How can anyone argue with a straight face that Trump failed on illegal immigration when he moved heaven and earth to build the wall and pioneered the ground-breaking “stay in Mexico” policy?
DeSantis has tested the waters on a number of issues, attacking Trump on the Covid lockdowns and “turning the country over to Fauci.” Yet, those who remember the sequence of events that transpired when Covid first appeared, recognize the lethality of the virus was not yet established when Trump ordered the lockdown. If he had defied the “experts” like Fauci and Birx, he would have been eviscerated in the media and blamed for every single Covid death on a daily basis. What makes that argument even less compelling is that DeSantis, facing the same kind of pressure in Florida, complied with the directive and locked the state down in April 2020.
Forced to walk the thin line between attacking Trump without alienating his supporters, DeSantis is left with the awkward choice of parroting Trump’s policies or focusing on marginal issues like the bizarre claim that Trump is pro LGBTQIA+. Meanwhile, Trump continues to hammer away daily with direct hit broadsides, mocking DeSantis for disloyalty, lack of personality and a desire to cut Social Security. Yeah, a lot of Trump’s attacks are head scratching spaghetti thrown against the wall, but some of it is sticking. Perhaps worst of all, DeSantis serves as a Trump fanboy dupe in an endless series of ads on Truth Social, where DeSantis praises Trump while enthusiastically declaring his support for MAGA.
Even DeSantis’ 2028 Prospects Have Dimmed Considerably
Somewhere in the back of his mind, if not openly discussed, I’m certain DeSantis believed the worst-case scenario was a loss to Trump in 2024 and then a reemergence in 2028 as the front runner, but even that strategy is in serious jeopardy. While DeSantis spoke well at Blaze, the best performance at the event belonged to Vivek Ramaswamy, as it usually does.
Ramaswamy has a number of inherent advantages over DeSantis. He’s smarter, younger, richer, far more personable, and he hasn’t pissed off Trump. In fact, Trump has complimented Ramaswamy several times during the campaign, and according to sources, Trump said, “I’m not going to attack Vivek.”
However, Ramaswamy’s main appeal is that he doesn’t try to co-opt issues Trump owns. At its core, his campaign is more philosophical than issue oriented. When pressed, he will address policy with persuasive Trumpian-style responses, but he really shines when he begins to riff on the state of modern culture, specifically the hopelessness that permeates through the Gen Z and Millennial generations.
For example, when asked during his Blaze interview with Tucker Carlson if January 6th was an “insurrection,” Ramaswamy focused on the reasons why people would walk to the capitol and start a riot. He believes that when people aren’t heard, they scream, and when their screams aren’t heard, they start breaking things. Ramaswamy said that the health of a democracy can be measured by the number of people who feel comfortable expressing their private views in public.
That’s some deep and heady stuff.
Ramaswamy has hit a nerve with younger Republican voters because he frames his policy ideas for today in the context of how they will affect our country going forward. He speaks to the spirit of America and the root causes of our collective malaise and sense of hopelessness. This keeps him on a path where he can speak freely while largely avoiding confrontations with Trump, who at 77, doesn’t share the same time horizon.
Like Trump, DeSantis also focuses on America’s immediate, most pressing issues, but Vivek is talking about the future of America two decades from now. This approach may not be enough to win in 2024, but it is certainly an intriguing slant on 2028 when Millennials and Gen Z will begin to dominate the political landscape.
Which leaves Ron DeSantis as a candidate who essentially serves no purpose. He has the unpleasant distinction of playing Arlen Specter to Bob Dole in 1996. It is growing increasingly unlikely his Trump knockoff campaign will succeed in 2024, and as he alienates Trump supporters while Ramaswamy woos them, his path to the nomination in 2028 has become anything but certain.
Ron DeSantis made a horrible miscalculation when he decided to throw his hat into the ring. He is on a fast track to political oblivion, relevant to neither the present nor the future.
