The continuing war on DeSantis – waged by elements of the right
I’ve written before about the campaign to discredit DeSantis waged by Trump and a number of what might be called EverTrumpers or OnlyTrumpers. It augurs an internal fight on the right that could lead to defeat in 2024 even without the help of election fraud on the left.
Now there’s a new and preposterous round, consisting of the claim that George Soros endorsed DeSantis. Kari Lake seems to be instrumental in spreading the rumor, although Soros said nothing of the sort.
MAGA is becoming everything it said it hated. From taking a picture and insinuating wrongdoing from it to saying that Soros "endorsed" DeSantis.
It's "Trump with Jeffrey Epstein" and "David Duke endorsed Trump" but from those who used to oppose such nonsense.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) February 17, 2023
I disagree with the contention that this is “MAGA.” Most Trump supporters are not bashing DeSantis with lies. But there is a small and very vocal core who are, and unfortunately Trump is hardly discouraging them.
My favorite version of this is how Ron DeSantis, one of the founding members of the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, is actually a Jeb Bush style RINO.
I’ve noted a small but vocal (and pushy) group of Only Trump commenters over at Legal Insurrection. I’ve asked them 2X if they will vote or sit out the ’24 general election should Trump not be the Rep nominee. I’ve yet to get a response.
Yeah, when I saw the headline about Soros backing DeSantis, just had to read the story.
Soros actually insulted DeSantis.
There is spin, and then there is stupidity.
This is stupidity.
Personally, I would like to see Trump/DeSantis win election by a landslide
A big F-you to those who disrespected Trump voters.
Then, Trump enjoys redemption for a while, then turns it over to DeSantis.
Somewhat O/T, but Ronald Reagan had a great comeback when some reporter asked him about being endorsed by David Duke: “He endorsed me, I didn’t endorse him.”
Eh. NeverTrumpers and the GOP establishment that condoned and tolerated them opened this door. They set the ground rules. If you didn’t like it then, you’re perfectly entitled to not like it now but these are the rules.
And let’s be clear about the dynamic going on here. While DeSantis is fairly Trumpy in some respects, he’s clearly become the stalking horse for the elements in the GOP and Conservative, Inc. who want to get rid of Trump. And the best way for DeSantis to defuse this situation is to either announce he’s not running or to START ACTUALLY SAYING THINGS to distance himself from people like Mitch McConnell, the Club for Growth, etc.
Mike
There is no popular NeverTrump constituency. The whole phenomenon is confined to Capitol Hill, K Street, and the media. The survey research as of 2019 indicated actual Republican voters were no more dissatisfied with Trump than they had been with George W. Bush in 2004 or Ronald Reagan in 1984 or Richard Nixon in 1972. There is an irreducible segment of soi-disant Republicans (about 9%) of the total who are dissatisfied with the Republican president of the day. Same for all four of them.
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The question at hand is how common are the sectaries for whom it is Trump or no one? Not persuaded they’re all that numerous.
My favorite version of this is how Ron DeSantis, one of the founding members of the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, is actually a Jeb Bush style RINO.
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Is that the party line at Ace of Spades, or just at The Conservative Treehouse?
Art,
Never seen that at Ace of Spades and have never been to Conservative Treehouse but I here that is a thing there. Lots of twitter accounts that are big Trump Stans push this but to be fair a lot of big Trump supporters praise DeSantis also.
There are legit ways for a Trump supporter to go at DeSantis but this isn’t one of them IMO.
Thats very silly, cue graham chapman
Crap like this is pushing me away from Trump. If he’s the nominee I’ll vote for him, but not in the primary if DeSantis is running. It’s always decided by the time this state has it’s primary anyhow.
The more Kari Lake says or tweets, the more convinced I am that Arizona GOP voters picked a lousy candidate to run against god-awful Katie Hobbs.
“There is no popular NeverTrump constituency.”
There’s never been a popular constituency for a lot of things that nevertheless wind up happening.
Mike
Neo: “ It augers an internal fight on the right that could lead to defeat in 2024…”
I think “augers” is (ahem) screwy. Should be “augurs”?
Owen:
Thanks, will fix.
So are lies told about DeSantis by non-Democrats oke dokey?
I’ll be honest, and real life as well as some personal spills have left me incredibly jaded, untrusting, and paranoid about politics. This does nothing to help and I am disappointed at much of how Trump has acted. That said, I will not entirely discount all the accusations against DeSantis. Not because I necessarily believe them, but because it would not be the first time we have been betrayed on a massive scale.
But I don’t think that is too likely to be the case here, and in any case what DeSantis has done gives me hope and interest in seeing more. It is certainly more than enough to warrant a certain amount of consideration as we go forward.
om:
Of course not. But they are standard and expected, and they’re not own goals.
If Trump wins the nomination, he sure as hell won’t choose Pence again. Kari Lake may be angling to be chosen as Trump’s VP. If that was her motivation for leaping before she looked, it is her first misstep of which I’m aware. That said, DeSantis’ biggest doners political views are more aligned with Soros’ views than the political positions that DeSantis has taken and it’s the height of political gullibility to imagine that donors donate millions to a politician with whom they disagree. Currently, I take that as a yellow flag. For me, the jury is still out on DeSantis.
Conservative folks have gotta abide by the Republicans’ 11th Commandment.
My heart is pro-Trump. My brain is saying DeSantis. Either way, it only does conservatives harm to be attacking either of them.
Just more left aka rino ‘divide and conquer’, it won’t end, best to recognize and ignore, imo.
Until DeSantis comes out for/against the Ukraine War, I’ll think it’s plausible that DeSantis is part of the GOPe. IMO, the thing that sank Walker in 2016 was his total ignorance of foreign affairs. He was in his mid-40’s and had no clue what he wanted to do as President. DeSantis needs to show a few of his cards.
Who knew that Roosia still had a say in GOP politics. They didn’t in 2016 or 2020 but Vlad needs all the help he can get now a days.
Most Trump voters are tuned out and living their lives. This tempest is among the hard core politics watchers. I know several Trump voters who are unaware he is criticizing DeSantis, and who like DeSantis. When they start paying attention Trump will take a serious hit.
IMO so many total disasters are qued up that nothing can be forecast now.
The only big sure thing is that the Boomers are aging out. Ron DeSantis, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, Elon Musk, etc. are the future.
The explosion of Substack and a new press typified by Bari Weiss and her Free Press will be covering proposed new directions accurately. New twitter is great. I bought an Occupy Mars baseball cap to support Musk.
For Yarvin fans, he has a new free piece on his Gray Mirror. He makes an interesting point about our involvement in Ukraine, comparing it to the Chinese involving themselves heavily in Canada, taking it over and pumping in high tech weapons to their new Canadian puppet government.
Academia and the Federal Government are the new Planter Class. The Planter Class lived on the stolen labor of their slaves and were helplessly in debt. Academia is living on the stolen future labor of their students via student loans, and the Federal Government is living on stolen future taxes via incredible Federal Debt. The Planters wound up Gone With The Wind.
Until DeSantis comes out for/against the Ukraine War, I’ll think it’s plausible that DeSantis is part of the GOPe.
Snort.
IMO, the thing that sank Walker in 2016 was his total ignorance of foreign affairs. He was in his mid-40’s and had no clue what he wanted to do as President
He had an ample store of ideas. Regrettably, he listened to his donors, who insisted he neglect immigration enforcement.
If Trump wins the nomination, he sure as hell won’t choose Pence again.
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Pence takes some unfair criticism. However, he has a history of caving in to committees of corporation executives. (Asa Hutchinson has been the exemplar of the type). We benefit from Republican pols willing to tell corporations executives to pound sand, and Pence ain’t the guy. If I’m not mistaken, both Kristi Noem and Nikki Haley have an unfortunate history in this regard.
Except the chinese are neck deep in ukraine as well.
Pence lied omitted and exaggerated in his memoir he enabled fauci and birx to ruin this country and this fraud in 2020 to take power and we see the results
The dems will have plenty of criticisms when the time comes. The rule now should be for the republicans to engage in no circular firing squad behavior. I’ve voted twice for Trump, but if he starts that garbage, I’m done with him.
Once again it appears the republicans do not need demonkrats to lose; they do this just fine all by themselves.
Combine this with the MSM and social media supporting whatever life (or is it lifeless) form (comatose, senile, crustacean , sulphur based, etc. ) the demokrats nominate and the propensity for many voters to mentally detach their real world , daily life experience from the policies imposed upon them by the ruling elites they vote for, and bingo, our next president could be:
Gavin Newsom
Joke Senile Bidet
Stacey Abrams
John Fetterman (lucid or comatose)
Hillary Clinton
Michele -it’s-been-a-struggle-Obama
just to name a few.
If push really comes to shove, the dems can once again resort to the “suspension” of vote counting AFTER it has been determined (should be about 10PM of election night) which are the “key” states and how many votes need to be “adjusted” to ensure their candidate crosses the finish line first.
I realize that it was just a coincidence that in the last presidential election, vote counting was suspended ONLY in those states that would determine the outcome of the entire election.
But maybe it just could – just maybe – happen again.
Stranger things have happened you know.
NY Post has an article on DeSantis this morning with this:
On a Wednesday morning, the 46th governor of Florida is acting as navigator for the state trooper driving the narrow streets of DeSantis’ Gulf Coast hometown — looking for the the Huettig Electric storefront where he worked, installing electrical wiring for commercial businesses, while in high school.
This guy is real. Using the terminology of the Strauss Howe Generational Theory he will lead the country out of the Crisis into the next High.
People keep making reference to Pence and I think that explains a lot, even if indirectly. For a lot of those of us who were nervous or on the fence about Trump, Pence generally seemed to be a welcome balance if the ticket. Seemingly a reliable conservative republican while Trump was an ambitious political venturer. Accomplished in politics while Trump was an outsider. Faithful maritally while Trump was famously not. And so on. I think the consensus among many was that he was a good choice, and the two men seemed to work well.
Warning signs were there for those who know where to look, though even then many did not know what to make of it. And the trust put on him to head COVID response was obviously misplaced. But it was still not quite another level about the election, and then January 6th.
Conservatives have been used to being let down by Republicans. But rarely on this scale. And the fact that there are a few parallels in DeSantis’s career with Pence’s (not many and mostly relatively superficial but they are there) is not doing much to quiet tensions. Though Pence never had a reputation as a conservative warrior like DeSantis has.
Still, I am not sure what to make of all this.
I agree that Pence gave evangelicals along with other conservatives confidence to support President Trump.
I think Pence could have sent the electors back to the states, given the historical precedents. I don’t fault him for not doing it, as it would have created a firestorm– maybe even a civil war.
It’s why we need an outsider as President. Even the most principled congressman becomes infected with “collegiality.” That’s just a term used by the most cunning to make their victims feel better.
Trump’s mistake was thinking a big rally could affect/coerce Pence into changing his mind last minute, if that’s what his thinking was (and I don’t mean storming the Capitol– blame there goes to the Ray Epps crowd.)
There may be a bigger reason Trump needs to be the nominee– to stave off an indictment/trial by the Biden/Obama cabal. Sending Trump to jail as a private citizen is one thing, jailing the opposition party Presidential candidate might be too much, even for the corrupt, evil jackals in Washington.
Still, I am not sure what to make of all this.
I’m not sure what to make of Trump’s latest 1 a.m. mockery of DeSantis either: https://nypost.com/2023/02/18/trump-denies-calling-desantis-meatball-ron-in-1am-post/
Trump looks to be, at this point, going full Teddy Roosevelt/Bull Moose.
TR’s ego saddled the country with 8 years of the never to be sufficiently damned Wilson.
Hopefully Trump’s ego doesn’t do the same.
PA+Cat, The NY Post article you linked used a NY Times story as the source. Here’s what the NY Times article said:
“Since November, despite the criticism he faced at the time, Mr. Trump has periodically hit out at his potential rival, albeit to a relatively small audience. He posted his most recent innuendo about the governor on Truth Social, where he has just under five million followers. And he has insulted Mr. DeSantis in casual conversations, describing him as “Meatball Ron,” an apparent dig at his appearance, or “Shutdown Ron,” a reference to restrictions the governor put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.”
Why should anyone believe the NY Times? Trump responded to this by posting on TruthSocial that he would never call DeSantis “Meatball Ron”, which the NY Post reported. It did allow Trump to call DeSantis “Meatball Ron” while denying he would ever call him “Meatball Ron”, so there is that.
And if he did call DeSantis “Meatball” in private– by an unnamed source (and the story doesn’t even claim that) “Meatball Ron” would most likely be an allusion to “Meatball” from All in the Family, not a dig on his appearance.
This is the fake news after all. I learned early on to ignore any media report about what Trump did or said. Invariably it turned out to be completely false, or distorted beyond recognition.
It was ‘Meathead’ on All In The Family so that excuse doesn’t work and the ‘Shutdown Ron’ may be the all time ‘pot calling the kettle black’.
‘Shutdown Don’ would be far more accurate if we are going to play these childish games.
“But maybe it just could – just maybe – happen again.”
Don’t think it’ll come to that since they’ve refined their “methodology”, as shown in 2022, to flooding the zone with mail-in ballots, and if that’s not sufficient, then canceling significant numbers of GOP ballots—nipping them in the bud, as it were—as was recently demonstrated so successfully in AZ.
(We still can’t be exactly sure what happened in Georgia, but we CAN have a pretty good idea….)
“The rule now should be for the republicans to engage in no circular firing squad behavior.”
And that’s what got us George W. Bush and Presidential candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney. If Republicans want to be the majority party in the country, they’ve got to act like it. Brainless rubberstamping and following the leader is how the Democrats ended up with Biden and Kamala. And yeah, they won an election…but do you think it is ultimately going to work out well for them?
@ Stubbs & MBunge > “The rule now should be for the republicans to engage in no circular firing squad behavior.”
I agree with both sides of the argument.
In the primary, candidates should bring up any valid question about their opponents’ qualifications and past records, preferably respectfully, and announcing beforehand that regardless of any considerations presented, all of the GOP field is superior to all of the Democrat field.
However, Trump is gonna Trump, and pot-boiling is his game, and if the rest of the candidates can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen.
Their test is to point our why they would be a better President that The Donald without dissing his core supporters.
@ Brian E > “There may be a bigger reason Trump needs to be the nominee– to stave off an indictment/trial by the Biden/Obama cabal. Sending Trump to jail as a private citizen is one thing, jailing the opposition party Presidential candidate might be too much, even for the corrupt, evil jackals in Washington.”
A number of pundits have made that observation, and I agree with it.
However, I’m not putting any money on how low the Left will take the corruption bar.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with Trump campaigning vigorously for the election, because every natural-born American citizen over the age of 35 has that right.
Also, Trump really, really wants to win back his rightful second term.
Also, he likes pulling the media’s chain.
Also, he keeps the Democrats’ liabilities in the news.
Also, he points out problems with the other candidates that need to be addressed before they (possibly) become the nominee (note that this is a subject the Democrats need to work on).
Also, he gets a real kick out of the positive vibes at his rallies, so why not let the rock star do what all the other superannuated rock stars do?
Bunge:
“That’s how we got” …..
The Spanish Inquisition.
Once again your analysis of recent (40+ years) US history is unique in your own special way.
I voted for Trump twice. This anti-DeSantis nonsense has made Trump dead to me.
Trump is a loser—2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Now he is spoiling it for everyone.
Quite a mess. By the time my primary rolls around I hope it’s sorted out.
its more about the issues, reindustrialization a more focused foreign policy, so far trump is batting maybe 300 on that score
mccain had not impressed me in the 2008 primaries, romney gave off a bad odor, Thompson seemed promising of course he was considered too soporific, from the people who would swoon on Obama of course Rudy had the worst crew since the Andrea Dorea, Mccain had decided to tank the election, see the jones memo, whose implementation had been handed to schmidt and wallace, some people saw what was at stake, of course you know how she was regarded,
I’m disappointed in Trump’s attacks on DeSantis. I’d still very happily vote for Trump over anyone the D party could conceivably nominate in this lifetime, but on the whole I’d be happier with DeSantis. I like governors with solid principles combined with an evident ability to put an agenda into action, even when facing all kinds of insane headwinds. At one time I quite liked Scott Walker for the same reason, but DeSantis has a lot more popular appeal, I think, than Walker did–despite the unhinged nonsense about DeSantis being a racist, bigoted homophobic authoritarian bully and so on.
The last thing I’d criticize him for is COVID closures. Florida got over that nonsense faster than everyone else, including my own state, Texas, which didn’t do too badly outside the “blueberries in the tomato soup.”