RADIO: Trump, DeSantis And The Nomination On Chicago’s Morning Answer

Yesterday morning, I was on with Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on 560 AM The Morning Answer in Chicago talking about the GOP presidential field and specifically the problems Ron DeSantis is having in holding onto momentum and/or the second-place spot in the Republican race.

What I said on the show is what I’ve written, which is that it isn’t really that DeSantis is doing anything wrong in the Republican primary race; he’s just up against a rough set of circumstances. He’s presenting himself as essentially Trump 2.0, a candidate with a record of doing a lot of the things Trump talked about doing, but with an efficiency and no-drama style that makes things a whole lot smoother and less chaotic.

And perhaps paradoxically, these four idiotic indictments, surrounding things which are either abject non-crimes or so attenuated as to criminal conduct particularly in light of far worse abuses clearly demonstrated by Democrat presidential nominees who ran against Trump, have scuttled the market for a Trump 2.0.

You’d think that the indictments would make for an easier transition to Trump 2.0; the argument would then be that the path of least resistance for the populist conservative movement which pre-existed Trump (it actually goes back to Ronald Reagan) is to find somebody who would be skillful in implementing the kinds of reforms Trump promised but was largely blocked from delivering. And, based on his record, that’s DeSantis.

Except the public’s reaction to those indictments, at least on the Republican side, is that they prove how utterly corrupt the Democrats and the Left are, that there is no possibility of a more efficient and smoother implementation of the MAGA agenda given that corruption and the ruthlessness of the Deep State, and that Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him and it would be morally wrong to abandon him in the face of these indictments.

There is character and moral value in that position, though it might not be very practical. As I said during the interview, I’m not making any assumptions at this point. A lot can go wrong with Trump between now and the thick of the GOP primaries, not to mention on the Democrat side. It’s worth it for DeSantis to keep his campaign going just in case.

But so far it’s definitely not looking like the moment is his.