Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign seems to be spiraling off a cliff because of afflictions that are common among postmodern Republican politicians: (a) DeSantis can't govern; and (b) He has shown few signs of even being interested in governing, not when there are Nancy Drew books to ban and so many inventive ways to screw up the teaching of "history."
Donald Watkins, longtime Alabama attorney and political observer, writes that DeSantis is making it clear that he is a failed governor in Florida, and that leaves the GOP with a failed president, Donald Trump, to run away with its 2024 nomination. Not that Trump doesn't have warts (did we mention the failed presidency?), but at least he's interesting in a macabre sort of way. It's always entertaining to hear psychoanalysts opine onTrump's shaky mental health, using terms like "controlling narcissist," "hallmarks of a psychopath," "a predator." -- while generally focusing on his tendency to issue threats and use violent rhetoric.
As for Republican voters, I've reached the conclusion they are deathly afraid of being bored. What if they run out of people to hate? What if they run out of people to look down on? Trump becomes a kind of traveling showman/game-show host they need to stay engaged.
Watkins characterized the Trump/MAGA phenomenon brilliantly in a recent post:
The allegiance that MAGA Republicans are conferring upon Donald Trump is a perverse form of the allegiance that Americans of interracial goodwill conferred upon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., after each one of his 29 documented arrests on trumped up criminal charges. The arrests, themselves, are tantamount to badges of honor and street credentials in the respective movements led by each man.
Trump has become the face of the MAGA movement just as Dr. King became the face of the civil rights movement. Trump’s arrests legitimize him in the MAGA movement just as King’s arrests legitimized him within the civil-rights movement. . . .
Trump is a divisive political cult figure, while Dr. King was a unifying humanitarian leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
Trump wants to take this country back to an unspecified time when America was great for one group of its citizens, but horrible for others. Dr. King wanted to take America forward to an America that embraced all of its citizens as equal men and women with full civil and constitutional rights.
As for DeSantis, he is a dullard who is fading into the woodwork of history. Under the headline "Why Ron DeSantis’ GOP Presidential Campaign is Crashing," Watkins writes:
Last Friday, Donald J. Trump, the GOP frontrunner for president, was in Montgomery, Alabama, as the featured speaker at the Alabama Republican Party’s summer dinner. The venue was packed with supporters who waited in long lines to see and hear Trump speak.
While Trump was talking about using money from President Joe Biden's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 to widen Interstate-65 from Huntsville to Mobile, Ron DeSantis was in Tama, Iowa, re-imagining the slavery experience of American slaves of African descent in a way that makes this ugly chapter in American history look beneficial to these slaves.
To be clear, the only beneficiaries of the slavery enterprise in America from 1619 to 1865 were white men.
DeSantis also spent time explaining his aggressive fight against Walt Disney World, Mickey Mouse, and a handful of Florida school children who identify as transgender.
Only a few of DeSantis’ staffers and supporters showed up for his esoteric and boring campaign speech in Tama, Iowa. It was embarrassing.
DeSantis has never offered real solutions to real economic problems facing Floridians. For example, DeSantis has not offered a single practical solution for the millions of Floridians who no longer have homeowners’ insurance in his state because the major insurance companies refuse to sell them this product.
Likewise, DeSantis has taken no action against Florida Power & Light for gouging electric customers with unrelenting rate hikes, or for corrupting the political process in Florida.
Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign is imploding. He is out of touch with the pocketbook issues that threaten the quality of life for ordinary Americans.
This is who Ron DeSantis really is -- a small man, with a small mind, and a small world vision.
On top of that, DeSantis has some curious baggage in his background. Writes Watkins:
Those who knew DeSantis when he was an unmarried teacher claim he was hanging out and drinking with underage female students at the Darlington School in Rome, Georgia. Some, like Donald Trump, have insinuated that DeSantis was “grooming” young girls for his personal enjoyment.
Instead of dealing with real economic issues facing voters, Ron DeSantis acts like he is running to succeed Robert Marvin Shelton as Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, a bankrupted Ku Klux Klan group.
To me, it seems like the voters with whom DeSantis seeks to connect died with Adolf Hitler in a German bunker in 1945.
In fact, Watkins writes, it's hard to figure how DeSantis ever rose to the top of Florida's political food chain:
I am amazed that Florida’s GOP establishment allowed Ron DeSantis to tarnish the state's positive global brand in the futile hope that he could be sworn-in as the president of the United States in January of 2025. It will take decades to repair the reputational damage DeSantis has done to Florida's worldwide, progressive image.
At this juncture, one thing is clear – Ron DeSantis will not be the 47th President of the United States.
After his presidential campaign ends, DeSantis will be free to pursue his warped fascist agenda on a full-time basis as a private citizen.
Goodbye, Ron DeSantis. It's been nice watching you lose!
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