The End of the DeSantis Bubble: Two apathetically frustrated GOP candidates at the Tip of the Sprouting Ballot
The relationship between the former allies has deteriorated so much in the two days before an important election that there are going to be competing events. Unlike other potential 2024 contenders, DeSantis has not declined to run against Trump in a primary, much to Trump’s ire. CNN reported that the concession would undermine his efforts to keep the focus on his reelection race rather than what may lie ahead. DeSantis and his campaign have declined to publicly discuss his plans for after the midterm, but in a recent debate, he wouldn’t respond when asked if he intends to serve a four-year term if reelected.
The former president will welcome supporters in Miami, the third stop in a four-city tour that has effectively made Trump a leading player in his party’s fight for control of Congress. Meanwhile, the Florida governor is headlining his own events in three counties on the state’s opposite coast – Hillsborough, Sarasota and Lee – steering far clear of Trump as he seeks to close out his bid for a second term.
“We have two very stubborn, very type-A politicians in Florida that are at the tip of the spear for the GOP,” said one Republican official who asked not to be named. “They both command attention but they both have their own political operations and that’s what you’re seeing. It is already hard to talk about.
On the campaign trail, DeSantis does not talk about Trump, but his remarks are littered with mentions of President Joe Biden in preparation for a presidential campaign against the incumbent Democrat.
A clip of Megyn Kelly Predicting GOP Voters would be in Trumps camp if she were president was shared by Trump. CNN reported Friday that Trump could launch his next presidential bid as soon as this month.
During this time, Trump has been relatively absent from the national scene, which has resulted in the inflated DeSantis bubble. DeSantis has not yet had to contend with Trump’s peculiar media power, his ability to create noise and spectacle and soak up every moment of media attention. He’s not been on the other side of the Trump attack. Sure, DeSantis may find a way to win in a head-to-head fight with Trump – but it is just as easy to imagine him instantly wilting in Trump’s presence, as all the other Republican presidential candidates did in the 2016 primaries.
DeSantis described himself as a fighter who stood up against medical experts and criticism during the pandemic to reopen the state and ban coronavirus vaccine mandates, echoing a sentiment in a campaign ad in which DeSantis suggests he was created by God to fight for Florida.
The Florida governor got the most applause when he explained how he arranged for Florida to send 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, which has faced intense scrutiny and legal challenges.
In the meantime, DeSantis’ political operation has proved it can raise money and he will build out an even more impressive operation. The reelection effort brought in an estimated $200 million between his two political committees, shattering national records for a gubernatorial campaign, according to state campaign finance reports. As of November 3, those committees had $66 million in unspent cash. CNN previously reported that DeSantis’ political team has explored how to transfer the unused money into a federal committee that could support a presidential campaign. Sources confirmed that the plan still exists.
CNN reported that the pre-election travel of Trump is motivated by his desire to launch a third campaign for the White House. During a visit to Iowa on Thursday, Trump told voters to be ready for his return as a presidential candidate. The Senate race between Republican Mehmet Oz and a Democrat John Fetterman is in Pennsylvania, and the former president will be in Ohio on election day for the Republican race against Democrat Tim Ryan.
The rally will be held in Miami-Dade County, which is believed to be the location of the first GOP victory in two decades. Investments by Republicans to make inroads in the area’s Hispanic neighborhoods have paid off in recent elections, and the party is seeing a wave of enthusiasm that is turning the state a deeper shade of red. Republicans will hold an advantage in voter registration on Election Day for the first time in Florida’s modern political history.
According to an announcement from the Save America PAC, President Trump made Florida into aMAGA stronghold and delivered a historic red wave in the 2018 mid-terms. “Thanks to President Trump, Florida is no longer a purple state; it’s an America First Red State.”
The person said that Biden turned into something worse than gold after touching it. A lot of people believe that the country has seen its best days, and that is frustrating. They think we are on the wrong track. I think Florida has the perfect recipe for other states to follow.
Glenn Beck, the right-wing talk radio host, was half-joking when he made this suggestion the day after Tuesday’s elections, but he voiced a longing that a number of Republicans had after the midterms: a hope to linger with the visions of a red tsunami that wiped out Democratic power across the country. The reality – that the party had an unusually poor showing in a midterm that many expected would be a historic blowout – felt too sour to linger on.
Amid growing chatter about his political future and in the face of recent outbursts directed his way from an increasingly agitated Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rarely engaged in the speculation or mudslinging. He insisted a statement victory in his bid for a second term needed to precede any discussion of 2024.
Now, it’s possible that while a violent insurrection could not break the base’s loyalty to Trump, an uninterrupted losing streak could. The right-wing media, as well as the Republican elites, have supported the candidacy of Ron DeSantis, making him the best candidate for the party’s nomination. Trump, however, has an exceptional track record against such odds. Which means that the dream of a DeSantis victory in 2024 may prove just as elusive and illusory as Tuesday’s red wave.
But if DeSantis runs in 2024, he’ll need to show the red meat-loving GOP base that he can punch back against Trump. And if the past is any guide, he’ll need to do that soon. If he wants evidence of the perils of holding back against Trump, he need look no further than his fellow Floridian, Sen. Marco Rubio.
He has married that political style with a strongman persona. He has targeted those who opposed his policies as governor. He has sent police to round up voters with felony convictions who, confused by the state’s efforts to strip their voting rights after voters reinstated them a few years ago, mistakenly voted in recent elections. He has bent the Florida legislature to his will, whipping up support for anti-gay laws, a new redistricting map and punitive legislation targeting Disney after the company criticized the state’s infamous “don’t say gay” bill.
Meanwhile, unlike the national party, the Democratic Party in Florida is in tatters, struggling to field and support candidates and to organize and mobilize voters. There is a specific mix of Latino voters in Florida who are weighted heavily toward immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela, which is different than most other states.
Donald Trump is a Florida resident. The Dump Trump crowd, though bigger at the moment than at perhaps any time since 2016, does not seem to fully understand how deep and unquestioning the cult of personality around Trump still is within parts of the party.
Two years ago the party failed to pass a policy platform and issued a statement of loyalty to Trump. When party elites inched away from Trump after his election loss and the insurrection that followed, they did not manage to bring the party with them. Instead, the majority of Republicans in the House voted to overturn the election and the vast majority of Republican voters clung to the belief that the 2020 election was stolen.
Duncan told CNN that there was no way to deny that Trump had been fired. “The search committee has brought a few names to the top of the list and Ron DeSantis is one of them. I think Ron DeSantis is being rewarded for a new thought process with Republicans.
But later in 2022, Griffin touted DeSantis’ “tremendous record” in an interview with Politico and suggested he would back the Florida governor in the GOP primary for president.
“Build anticipation,” one longtime Republican fundraiser with knowledge of DeSantis’ operation said. I think he controls the time frame. Everyone anticipates things. and you want to move quickly, he calls the shots now.”
The legislative session will be “as red meat as you can possibly imagine,” a GOP consultant said. Whatever he proposes, they will pass it.
The Republican fundraiser said that “anything ‘woke’ they can find to kill within their path, they’re going to do that” and predicted that financial institutions, in particular, would be a DeSantis target this spring.
“If in fact you go into a presidential primary with Donald Trump and think you’re going to kick his ass, you got another thing coming,” one Republican consultant in Florida told CNN.
I don’t know if he’s running. Trump thinks that if he runs, he will hurt himself very badly. I don’t believe he would make a mistake. I think the base would not approve of it and I can tell you some things about him that won’t be very flattering.
Trump said he received more votes than Florida congressman Ron DeSantis in 2020. Presidential races usually have much higher turnout than midterms and Trump’s margin of victory over Biden was about 3 points.
The Dean Obeidallah Show on CNN – A Lifetime with a Man: The Case of the Ex-President of the U.S. Senate
Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” You can follow Dean Obeidallah at Masto.ai. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
Lake was the failed GOP Arizona gubernatorial candidate and she said she pity the “fool” who runs against Trump.
In a memorable scene from the film, ahead of an imminent fight with Rocky Balboa, Clubber Lang is asked by a reporter whether he hates the eponymous boxing legend, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone.
For instance, the ex-president honed in on one of the strongest areas of the DeSantis record for many conservative voters – his frequent fight against federal Covid-19 restrictions and recommendations. The president accused the DeSantis team of trying to rewrite history over his record. “There are Republican governors that did not close their states,” Trump told reporters. Florida was closed for a long period of time.
In response to a rapidlyspreading Pandemic in March 2020 the governor of Florida ordered bars and nightclubs to close and asked people to follow CDC guidelines about gatherings on beaches of no more than 10 people.
But his recent remarks and pronouncements have veered sharply away from sensible, government-imposed Covid-19 protections in what appears to be a desperate bid to appeal to the GOP’s Covid-denying base voters ahead of an anticipated presidential run.
DeSantis has urged or endorsed proposals touching every facet of the culture wars: restricting abortion, allowing concealed firearms in public without training and universal school choice. There are bills targeting drag shows, liberal protections and so-called “woke”-banking.
Do or Die: Why Donald Trump can’t win in 2020 when he’s a fighter jet, even after he drops out of the race
Any potential run inevitably means a face-off with Trump, who is the only Republican to have formally announced in the race. “Rocky III” marked the 40th anniversary of its release last year, but the 2024 GOP nominating campaign might be Rocky vs. Clubber Lang all over again.
If he wants to win in 2020, he cannot keep ducking Trump’s barbs. Even though the fighter lost his title early in the film to Clubber Lang, he still prevailed in the end.
While the former President isn’t exactly an obscure figure in the race for the Republican nomination, he has been in a bit of trouble recently, with surveys showing a lot of people in his party who would prefer someone else be the GOP nominee.
Initially, he did not attack Trump directly. That changed when Rubio faced a “do or die” moment, finding himself in third place behind Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the delegate count, with little time to make up ground ahead of a March 2016 primary in his home state of Florida.
That’s when Rubio finally took the gloves off, calling Trump “an embarrassment” and a demagogue. It was too late for him as he dropped out of the race the next day, after losing the Florida GOP primary.
When fired upon, you fire back with overwhelming force, says the governor, wearing a flight suit and in the cockpit of a fighter jet. He continued: “No 2, never back down from a fight.”
Perhaps the Harvard law graduate and ex-federal prosecutor is waiting to see if Trump will be indicted so he doesn’t have to meet him in the field of battle. The District Attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, told a judge last week that she was near a decision in her investigation of the efforts by Trump and his allies to meddle in the 2020 election there.
The trove of classified documents at Mar-A-Lago that might be used to charge Trump are just part of Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack. Even if Trump were to be indicted he could still run for president, but it would most likely ruin his chances of being the next president.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/29/opinions/trump-ron-desantis-rocky-iii-obeidallah/index.html
How did Donald Trump come to New Hampshire after winning the 2020 presidential election? A disturbing read of a man who stole the last election and his attempt to steal the presidency
You have to fight for it. There could come a time when GOP voters view DeSantis’ refusal to defend himself and punch back as a sign of weakness.
If he is silent in the face of Trump, the people will ask themselves, “If he is no coward, why won’t he fight?”
There was also something jarring about a former president who tried to steal the last election – and incited an insurrection to try to cling to power – campaigning and being embraced by supporters as if nothing happened.
There is also a clear sense that Trump believes he is owed the Republican nomination and feels that certain sections of his party are not sufficiently grateful for his turbulent one-term presidency.
Trump’s musings about loyalty also recall his attack on evangelical leaders earlier this month, whom he said showed “disloyalty” by refusing to support his 2024 bid so far despite his delivery of a generational conservative Supreme Court majority. The comments were a reminder of Trump’s transactional view of politics – and also that a man who dumped aides, staff and Cabinet members at a fearsome clip in office often tends to view loyalty as a purely one-way allegiance.
He gives a mundane speech when he comes to New Hampshire. The response we have received is, he read his teleprompter, he stuck to the talking points, he went away,” Sununu told Bash. I believe that a lot of people saw that energy when he was there, but he isn’t doing that now. I think it was a little disappointing for some people. He will be a candidate, but he is also going to have to earn it. And that’s New Hampshire.”
Trump is not yet ready to acknowledge the reality, judging by his comments about other people. He went to visit an ice cream parlor in South Carolina because of his interest in retail politics and contact with voters.
Trump appeared Saturday to understand that his two years of fury over the 2020 election, which he still falsely says was stolen from him, may have turned off voters in 2022, when many of the election-denying candidates he promoted in swing states lost – potentially costing the GOP the Senate.
“This campaign will be about the future. This campaign is going to be about issues. Trump spoke at a small event in the South Carolina State House on Saturday and said that he would ensure that Biden did not get four more years.
He still has his standard rhetoric. He hosted a rally on Sunday evening for his favorite failed election-denying candidates, including Kari Lake who still believes she won in November. The former president, who is facing criminal investigations by the Justice Dept and a district attorney in Georgia, took aim at institutions that are revealing the true course of events in 2020.
Trump signaled that he would use his campaign and potential second presidency to try to thwart Justice Department efforts to enforce accountability over his election-stealing activity.
We are going to stop the weaponsization of the justice system. There’s never been a justice system like this. It’s all an investigation, according to Trump. He felt that his resistance to such probes was more proof of the quality that the Republicans embraced in 2016 and helped propel him to the White House.
“There’s only one president who has ever challenged the entire establishment in Washington, and with your vote next year, we will do it again and I will do it again,” he said Saturday.
The political persona of him has been built around protecting the freedoms. The financial blueprint this year was renamed the “Framework for Freedom” and he dubbed his spending plan the “Freedom First Budget”. He pitched the tourism slogan “Vacation to Freedom” during the pandemic and “Freedom over Faucism” is a frequent applause line in his speeches. On election night last fall, he stood victorious behind a podium adorned with a sign: “Freedom Lives Here.”
The power grab by the Florida legislature was taken to task by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.
“I’m a principled free-market conservative,” said Sununu, who is also weighing a bid for president. Some people out there think that the government should penalize your business because they disagree with you politically, that is not very conservative.
The cure for the disease that DeSantis and his supporters favor is intrusive legislation to muzzle the opposite set of views. State-ordered legal bans based on viewpoint – whether ideas on critical race theory, books depicting LGBTQ families or diversity programs – strike at the heart of what the First Amendment protects. Such bans also, ironically, tend to elevate the ideas being cast off limits. A backlash against Ron DeSantis is fueling a feeling of intimidation and muzzling of Florida librarians, teachers, professors and students.
Progressive leaders need to draw the line at approaches that seek to silence criticism, including through demonization and stigmatization that make the cost of raising questions too high. Conservatives need to reject an approach that meets informal chilling of speech with out-and-out government censorship. Florida education officials should educate and incentivize college administrators, principals and teachers on how to maintain a classroom open to all ideas, rather than responding to the exclusion of views they like with laws prohibiting those they don’t.
The Florida governor spoke at a National Conservatism Conference last year and said that capitalism isn’t the same as free enterprise. I think that free enterprise is the best economic system, but that is not the sole way to end it.
A Libertarian Look at DeSantis: The Challenge of Trump’s Presidency in the Florida Governor’s Correspondence
“Being perceived as racially insensitive is not a good place for him to be in the long term,” a Republican supporter of DeSantis said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about an area of rising worry.
The supporter pointed directly to the fight over an Advanced Placement course on African American studies and DeSantis’ quarrel with the College Board, saying the governor could alienate some voters who would otherwise be supportive.
Voters in the Republicans have yet to meet many potential candidates for their party nomination. Meanwhile, outside groups such as the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity have signaled they intend to get involved in the primary.
Frayda Levin, a member of the Club for Growth’s board of directors, said there is great interest in DeSantis but she is increasingly concerned that he has become “too heavy-handed” in his pursuit of hot-button social issues. There are six Republicans invited to a Club for Growth donor summit in Florida, which is further from Trump, which is how the conservatism organization distances itself. Former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are also invited.
“I’m a genuine libertarian; I’m kind of a live-and-let-live kind of girl,” Levin told CNN. She does not object to candidates holding personal beliefs on social issues, but she does not agree with them putting the power of his state behind his socially conservative views.
“DeSantis is always talking about he was not demanding that businesses do things, but he was telling the cruise lines what they had to do,” former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a fellow Republican, said of DeSantis last year. Hogan has remained critical of the Florida governor as he weighs entering the mix for the Republican nomination.
Meanwhile, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, another potential GOP contender, has also compared her Covid19 record against DeSantis in ways that suggest Florida was too hands-on – for ideologically disparate reasons. Noem said Friday that it was her state that had set an example of freedom by not shutting down. Early in the P.C., there were closed schools, bars, and theme parks in Florida which is also known as a Citadel of Freedom.
Is Gov. DeSantis pursuing the principle of free speech an issue of concern for future university presidents? An opinion piece by Christopher Rufo
But his approach has often included more government programs (creating an office to pursue voter fraud and a new program to conduct missions to surveil, house and transport migrants from border states to Democratic jurisdictions), more regulation (dictating bank lending practices) or flexing government power in unprecedented manners (ousting an elected state prosecutor).
DeSantis’ allies have pushed back against the growing chatter. Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contended on Twitter recently that the governor was using his power as an elected leader – a job he was reelected to with a historical 19-point victory in November.
Rufo was appointed by the governor to the board of New College, a small liberal arts school he wants to change to become a more conservative university.
“The complaint about using ‘state power,’ meaning constitutionally-mandated democratic governance, to correct the ideological corruption of public universities, i.e., state institutions funded by taxpayers, is ridiculous,” Rufo tweeted. The people can’t regulate the state.
“I don’t appreciate Gov. DeSantis going after Disney’s tax status,” Griffin said at the time. “It can be portrayed or feel or look like retaliation. And I believe that the people who serve our nation need to rise above these moments in time in their conduct and behavior.”
There is a 1947 legal precedent forbidding men from pretending to be women. He would like to challenge the Supreme Court decision on libel, narrowing the scope of press freedom.
To escape this battle of assaults on speech, leadership is required. University presidents need to ensure that all viewpoints receive a fair hearing on the school’s campus. They also need to resist intrusive legislation that micromanages curriculum and undercuts academic freedom.
There is a battle for control over the public discourse that should worry anyone who cares about free speech. The left is too quick to want to silence those who offend or threaten them. The right is going a step further by legitimizing the power of the government to exclude books, ideas and viewpoints. Although both progressive and conservative ideas are casualties of this battle, the principle of free speech is the most important one.
Indeed, in pushing back against what he decries as wokeness run amok, DeSantis has embraced the very tactics he once decried, putting the weight of government power behind efforts to repress viewpoints that offend him and his supporters.
Critique of the New College of Florida Against Donald DeSantis: Black Minority Discrimination and the Assassination of George Floyd
The new visibility and appreciation of transgender and non-binary identities and rights has raised important questions about pronouns, bathrooms, sports and the autonomy of adolescents. The assassination of George Floyd in 2020 spurred colleges and companies to take steps to eliminate racism in their institutions. These are positive developments, vital to bringing about a more inclusive and equal society.
In some cases, though, efforts to promote equity cross over into censoriousness. Just last week Roald Dahl’s publisher announced plans to scrub beloved works like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda” of references that could be construed as offensive to the overweight, wig-wearers or people with horse-like features. In 2015, a student performance of “The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler (now known as V) was cancelled on the basis that the play itself was transphobic because the script failed to acknowledge that not all women have vaginas.
Some curricula and programs offer simplistic, monolithic or flat-out illiberal ideas about racial issues, dismissing challenging questions or alternative perspectives as rooted in racism, reeking of undeserved privilege or otherwise beyond the pale.
Professor Charles Negy was fired at the University of Central Florida in 2020 after he expressed his opinion about black privilege in a social media post. An arbiter ordered him to be reinstalled after finding no just cause for the university’s determination. The incident seemed to form part of a broader pattern at the University.
College Board educators insist that they were not consciously bowing to DeSantis’ pressure when they eliminated edgier topics from the AP African American History curriculum. But the mechanisms of censorship are insidious – threats and intimidation cause people to shift their views, choose their words and stay away from certain topics without even recognizing that they are doing so.
Students and faculty at the New College of Florida are planning to demonstrate during a board of trustees meeting Tuesday after Gov. Ron DeSantis launched a conservative takeover of the small public liberal arts college.
In January, DeSantis replaced six of the 13 members on the college’s board of trustees with conservative allies, including Christopher Rufo, who has fueled the fight against critical race theory. The new board forced out the college’s president and appointed DeSantis ally Richard Corcoran as interim president. A base salary of $700k will be earned by Corcoran.
The New College of Florida inSarasota has seen a decline of students and is focused too much on diversity and inclusion.
Leffler said that New College of Florida has always been a school that encourages free academic thought. Lawmakers are trying to take away the freedom students have by telling them what they can and cannot study.
The bill, which was filed by a Republican lawmaker last week, would give the boards of trustees the power to review faculty tenure, and defund diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Rufo praised the bill, saying it restores the principles of colorblind equality in higher education. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the conservative Manhattan Institute.
Some students and advocates believe that Ron DeSantis wants to be president in 2024 so he wants to change Florida’s colleges and universities to his liking.
People pursuing graduate degrees might opt for schools in other states that support academic freedom, Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, told CNN earlier this month.
“The consequences for students are enormous,” Mulvey said. They are denied the chance to learn and grow and students are denied the chance to hear important perspectives. That’s the real tragedy.”
DeSantis’ Memories and His Journeys with the Scotsman David Parini: A Portrait of a Hard-Focused, Polish-American
Editor’s Note: Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College. He wrote a memoir about his time in the Scottish Highlands of Scotland with the author of “Borges and Me”. His views are not reflected in this commentary. Read more opinion articles on CNN.
That is not likely. Only fans or parties actively looking for someone to back in 2024 will read the book, and within a few months unsold copies will lie on the remainder tables, rubbing shoulders with Mike Pompeo’s new memoir, “Never Give an Inch,” or past examples of campaign self-advertisements such as “A Call to Service” by John Kerry, “A Time for Truth” by Ted Cruz or even Trump’s “Crippled America.”
I have read many of these books and they aren’t very good. Nevertheless, DeSantis takes the usual dullness to a fresh level, redefining what cliched writing can sound like. It’s one thing to offer the public a bit of wooden prose, but DeSantis gives us an entire lumber yard.
And we can be sure the governor read the book and approved of its contents before publication. So we must assume the ideas (and “ideals”) in this book, such as they are, belong to him.
As one might expect, the book runs through the life and times of a young man from Pennsylvania and Ohio, talking about hard work, baseball and his parents’ roots in Pennsylvania and Ohio. They were Italian-Americans, although they have not shown interest in helping recentlyarrived migrants on their American journey; he famously flew two planeloads, mainly comprised of Venezuela immigrants, from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022. I fear that he wouldn’t speak good for him because he would play politics with the lives of the poor, and he performed with glee throughout the media cycle.
But this hard-heartedness is a core part and parcel of the narrative, which offers a litany of resentfulness. During his time at Yale, DeSantis had never seen a limousine and was not a limousine liberal. The students who were most strident in their leftism were the ones from the most privileged background. He experienced “unbridled leftism” on campus, and this pushed him far to the right, where he has remained.
Everywhere in the book, one senses his rage against political correctness. He rails, on nearly every page, about “the woke agenda” that he sees permeating almost every level of life in America.
The likes of Anthony Fauci, who is seen as the public enemy #1, are led by a dire phalanx of “woke” fanatics. He devotes a whole chapter of this book to railing against Dr. Fauci and people who used the powers of the federal government to implement “heavy-handed public health ‘interventions’” during the Covid-19 pandemic. These measures did little, in the governor’s opinion, to slow the course of the disease — rather, they “destroyed livelihoods, hurt children, and harmed overall public health.”
Again and again, DeSantis shows little interest in the First Amendment — except when his own free speech is concerned. He didn’t know that Thomas Jefferson said the freedom of the press is a must in order to have liberty. Jefferson understood that we each have a right, even a patriotic duty, to speak without permission from the authorities.
Instead, DeSantis rails against the “legacy media” — by which he means The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and so forth. They are the guard of the country’s failed ruling class and have run interference for elites who share their vision and smeared those who oppose it. (I suspect he would, no doubt, wish to exempt Rupert Murdoch’s media empire from this judgment.)
“I’m going on offense,” DeSantis told the audience at the conservative Club for Growth event at The Breakers Palm Beach resort. Some of these Republicans allow the media to define the terms of the debate and they sit back like potted plants. They let the left define the terms of debate. They take all this incoming, because they’re not making anything happen. And I said, ‘That’s not what we’re doing.’”
Trump served up his familiar brew of fury, falsehoods and dishonest braggadocio at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, billing himself as the only man who could save the planet from World War III, girding his adoring supporters for their “final battle” against communists, globalists and the “Deep State,” and declaring: “I am your retribution.”
We will expose and deal with the RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) because we will beat the Democrats. We will evict Joe Biden from the White House and we will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all,” Trump told the crowd at a Maryland convention center outside Washington on Saturday.
A four-year analysis shows that there wasn’t much of a drama or palace intrigue in the administration, and that the punch-by-punch speaking style of DeSantis is more methodical than Trump’s. You saw a lot of precision execution. Day after day after day. We beat the left days after days after days because of that.
Trump laid out his case in recent days, but there were other possible alternatives. Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has already launched a campaign, and ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who may do so, both braved the lions’ den at CPAC, and both launched veiled attacks on their former boss.
Haley said that if you are tired of losing, put your trust in a new generation.
Pompeo, who, like his former Cabinet colleague got a fairly tepid reception on the ex-president’s turf, stacked his speech with plausible deniability to avoid taking on Trump directly. When he said we can’t become the left, he was referring to the Democrats who have egos that refuse to acknowledge reality.
Another potential Republican candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, was on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday and attacked Trump’s fearsome culture war talk.
“Wherever you’re looking at the leader of our country, you don’t want him to be engaged in a personal vendetta. He talks about personal vendettas when he talks of vengeance, and that’s not good for America. It doesn’t make sense for our party.
If Hogan bowed out, it could show that the Republican nomination race is not the same as the anti-Trump one that propelled him to power. If the Florida governor decides to get into the race, it would be a good chance of a long and bitter nomination race between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
“Right now, you have Trump and DeSantis at the top of the field soaking up all the oxygen, getting all the attention, and then a whole lot of the rest of us in single digits. Hogan told CBS News that the more of them there are, the less chance you have for someone to rise up.
Laying out his top priorities for a second term and a potential platform for a presidential run, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered a State of the State speech Tuesday that conspicuously avoided much of the divisive rhetoric that has fueled his political ascent but nevertheless signaled another round of cultural wars is coming in the weeks ahead.
The overwhelming victory of the Republican in the November election was avindication of his first term agenda and mandate to “shoot for the stars” and “swing for the fences” in the coming year. He encouraged lawmakers to “ignore all the background noise” as they tackle a lengthy list of priorities that are sure to enrage Democrats but animate future Republican primary voters.
“We find ourselves in Florida on the front lines in the battle for freedom,” he said. “Together, we have made Florida the nation’s most desired destination and we have produced historic results. But now’s not the time to rest on our laurels.”
The remarks laid the groundwork for what is expected to be a breathless sprint by the GOP-controlled legislature to rack up policy wins that could form a platform to launch DeSantis’ highly anticipated bid for the White House.
Legislation was filed moments before the start of the speech to ban abortion after six weeks, but only if there is rape and incest, and to make it illegal to send abortion medications through the mail. His speech did not contain any specifics, but he nodded in support to the efforts to protect life. His administration has taken steps to ban treatments for people who are same-sex.
“Our schools must deliver a good education, not a political indoctrination,” DeSantis said. It is sad we have to say this but our children are not used to science experimentation and must not be used to money being made off of it.
The proposals are intended for classrooms. In a bill addressing K-12 schools, teachers cannot be told they must use a student’s preferred name and pronouns and discussing gender identity and sexual orientation and gender identity would be prohibited topics until high school. On college campuses, gender studies would be banned, as would diversity and equity programs, and hiring decisions will fall into the hands of board members largely appointed by DeSantis.
DeSantis’ Out-of-State Travels and the Republican-Government Causal Dynamics in the upcoming Session
His out-of-state travel has also picked up. The next couple months will be spent on the road promoting his book “The Courage to Be Free.” DeSantis is on his way to the early nominating states of Iowa and Nevada this weekend before he goes to Alabama on Thursday.
DeSantis’ agenda is expected to face little resistance in the Republican-led legislature, where lawmakers have repeatedly succumbed to political pressure from the popular governor in the past and appear closely aligned heading into the upcoming session.