February 8, 2023

By Bill Berkowitz

In the quest to rid America of the stench of Donald Trump, the mainstream media might go out of their way to brand Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis “a breath of fresh air” or “a centrist.” But DeSantis, who is building his brand around defending the confederacy, denying history, attacking LGBTQ+ communities, and creating straw issues — so called wokeism and critical race theory — is anything but a centrist.  

As The New York Times’ Frank Bruni noted in his December 1 piece titled “Ron DeSantis Is an Optical Illusion,” DeSantis is “sensible and centrist,” as Elon Musk characterized him on Twitter, “only by the warped yardsticks of Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake and the like. But those yardsticks will be used frequently as various Republicans join the 2024 fray. And therein lies real danger.”

Trump was so off the grid and created so much mayhem with his political shenanigans that it might take generations to course correct. For Republican leaders, funders, and opinion makers, Ron DeSantis might just be the right guy for a course correction.

After all, as several other Republican Party candidates before him (think Michele Bachman, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, and Ben Carson) DeSantis has apparently heard the call from God to run for the presidency. Bruni references , “a campaign ad, … that explicitly identifie[d] [him] as someone created and commanded by God to pursue the precise political agenda that you’re pursuing.”

As Bruni noted, “Trump’s challengers” will have a low bar to step over. They will “be defined in relation to him, casting them in a deceptively flattering light. They’ll be deemed steady because he’s not, on the ball because he’s out to lunch, enlightened because they don’t sup with Holocaust deniers. They’ll be realists to his fantasist, institutionalists to his nihilist, preservationists to his arsonist.”

Jim Geraghty, the senior political correspondent for the conservative journal National Review, wrote in a recent essay in The Washington Post that praised DeSantis: “Plenty of Americans across the partisan divide would have good reason to root for him,”

While he hasn’t yet declared his candidacy for the presidency, DeSantis appears to be gearing up for a campaign.

On an almost daily basis, DeSantis is putting forth policies that demonstrate his culture warrior credentials, declaring that Florida is “where woke goes to die.”

Over the past few months he created a new state office devoted to election crimes when there is scant evidence of any need for it; fought with Disney over its opposition to his “Don’t Say Gay” law; sent two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard; banned the College Board’s Advanced Placement courses in African American studies for high school students; and, pushed through a gerrymandering process that robbed African Americans of congressional representation.

More recently, DeSantis declared war on the state’s public colleges and universities and faculty.

As the New York Times’ Stephanie Saul, Patricia Mazzei and Trip Gabriel recently reported DeSantis “took his most aggressive swing yet at the education establishment, announcing a proposed overhaul of the state’s higher education system that would eliminate what he called ‘ideological conformity.’ If enacted, courses in Western civilization would be mandated, diversity and equity programs would be eliminated, and the protections of tenure would be reduced.”

Trump isn’t having any of DeSantis as the newly anointed champion of the Republican Party: "The real Ron is a RINO GLOBALIST, who closed quickly down Florida and even its beaches. Loved the Vaccines and wasted big money on 'Testing.' How quickly people forget!," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Earlier, Trump labeled DeSantis as “very disloyal” for even thinking about opposing him.

Thus far DeSantis hasn’t directly fired back at Trump.  Stephen Lawson, a political strategist who worked for DeSantis in 2018, told The Hill that DeSantis is smart not to engage. "Nobody has done more to hurt Donald Trump than himself and I think Gov. DeSantis is absolutely taking the right tact here, by completely ignoring Trump and letting him throw boomerangs," Lawson told The Hill. 

According to a recent Nate Cohen analysis of DeSantis vs. Trump 2024 election poll results, “DeSantis is viewed favorably among those who want Trump to run in 2024 and nearly as favorably among those who do not want Trump to run in all polls…This further illustrates the threat that DeSantis poses to Trump from inside Trump’s coalition.”

Given these poll results, DeSantis may be wise in continuing to build his “Trumpist” credentials while avoiding (for the time being) direct confrontation and the risk of alienating Trump’s loyal base. Why not hold off a bit to see whether the ex-President’s legal troubles derail his candidacy? Why not stay (supposedly) outside the scrum as long as possible while other candidates square off with each other and Trump?