DeSantis entered the Republican presidential race with an impressive political operation and widespread popularity in the party after achieving a blowout 2022 re-election win in Florida, which had for decades been one of the most tightly divided states in the nation.
When DeSantis officially launched his White House bid in May, a glitchy Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk became emblematic of a campaign that was often overshadowed by infighting, financial troubles, and a complicated partnership with the super PAC Never Back Down.
He weaved his signature war on “woke” through several policy proposals, including ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government, barring transgender service members from the military, and banning gender-affirming medical care for minors.
After the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, DeSantis mobilized the Florida Department of Emergency Management to organize evacuation flights as the war raged, with those efforts extracting nearly 700 American citizens from the Middle East.
By the end of his run, DeSantis was regularly attacking Trump in his stump speech, chiding the former president for not following through on 2016 campaign promises like building a border wall, for refusing to join primary debates, and for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
After celebrating a second-place finish as a victory, DeSantis opted to first visit South Carolina instead of making the traditional overnight trip for presidential candidates from Des Moines, Iowa, to Manchester, New Hampshire.
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Ooof, that's so... Self-debasing, the word pathetic isn't remotely strong enough. The embarrassment I involuntarily feel for such a fascist piece of alligator shit.
I admit I fell for some of that. Thought he could be a more dangerous version. Didn't realize when he got in front of people he has the charisma of a rock and a brain not much better.
That disney thing made me feel a lot more comfortable. It feels like Trump would have his cult ralley and possibly hurt disney's valuation somehow. Everyone either laughed or tried to get people to look away. Competent fascist, indeed.
We can't keep relying on the fascists being cartoonishly bad politicians. Trump's cheese brain and buffoonishness hurt him, Desantis's completely alien personality hurt him, but these limitations have just been happenstance. The fascist movement is ready and willing and out in the open, and sooner or later they're going to find someone who doesn't have these ancillary flaws. There are plenty of smooth talking sociopaths out there who can feign human emotion and string together complete sentences while being a generic white guy under the age of retirement, we're just lucky they haven't risen to the top yet, because we're kind of squeaking by already.
So, he was able to make Florida pretty awful for non cis het people; he actually cared to forward the culture war and people get hurt in war. I became less afraid of him as a candidate when Disney stripped the power from the board he took over and he very obviously with his dick in a vise opted to tighten the vice.
I'd imagine in a dark and dystopian future, the dictatorial and dysfunctional trump dynasty will simply imprison any challengers to the throne, like their daddy Putin does.
It's an interesting and terrifying thought experiment. Hopefully we're not actually going to run it IRL.
For whatever it's worth, I don't think it would fly in a country as massive and habitually fractious as the US, but I've been wrong about a lot of things in the past --never imagined that an unlettered buffoonish corndog conman like Trump could even come within sniffing distance of the presidency for example-- so who the fuck knows?
I don't have a lot of faith in my fellow Americans. I probably never should have, but hindsight is always 20-20 or whatever.
He hasn't. With a handful of obvious exceptions, the entire Republican leadership has spent the last four years running a clinic in cowardice, pathetic boot-licking and groveling.
He raised his hand during the debate when the moderators asked who on stage would vote for Trump if he was the nominee. Chris Christie mocked him for looking around first before raising his hand.
Sick of the hypocrisy by the politicians. Hedging, walking back statements, playing down etc are all held up as skills and being 'shrewd' or 'having savvy' about the game. To the rest of us, it just reeks of having no spine, no integrity and having none of our interests at heart.
Dude opened up so many "war on" fronts. He really waged a war against WOKENESS as a vague term that nobody could explain what it meant, then attacked major corporations like fucking Disney.
He invested heavily into a weak second place win in Iowa. Sure he got more delegates than Nikki, but only barely. Additionally he didn't win a single county, all but one went to Trump, the last going to Haley.
His prospects in New Hampshire were near zero, leaving an uphill battle leading into Super Tuesday. He'd need to beat Nikki in South Carolina, which wasn't going to happen.
A second place flail wasn't going to work long term and only likely to cause damage. I'm aware he endorsed Trump, but that's just to ensure the position is available in 2028. If Haley wins in a LOOOOOONGSHOT he is done. If Haley loses, he can jump back in. If Trump wins/loses he can jump back in. Technically Trump could lose and come back in 4 years but everyone is just waiting for him to die. Most probably expected it to happen by 2024, but no such luck.
(To clarify, this isn't me wishing Trump dead, he's just an unhealthy old shitbag that father time is likely to get sooner rather than later.)
I think he was probably offered the veep position by the Trump campaign if he dropped out now. Trump wants to wrap up the primaries as soon as possible, so he can start concentrating on attacking Biden, plus the longer the primaries last, the weaker Trump looks for the general election, especially with Haley and DeSantis attacking him for weeks before he wraps up the nomination. So, most likely Trump offered DeSantis the veep position if he dropped out right away, especially since Trump's been hinting for the last few days who his veep choice would be.
Of course, DeSantis accepted, because he doesn't have much choice. His campaign is floundering, his poll numbers in Florida have dropped sharply. and Disney will be investing heavily in an opponent against DeSantis in the next Florida governor election. The veep position would be the best option of the ones he has available.
But, if Trump does make him veep, Trump had better sleep with one eye open. DeSantis is power hungry enough, that Trump should be very careful or he might have a very convenient accident, sort of like a Russian falling out of a window.
He ran out of money prematurely, and the campaign came to a screeching halt. He could have tried to limp along to the primary but he would look very bad doing so and every reporter would mock him, or he drops out early.
