The historical quote I’d most like to hear DeSantis The Barbarian cite: “If nominate, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve.”
Why DeSantis Should Not Run in 2024
Last week at American Greatness, Brandon Weichert explained why, in his estimation, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis should run for president in 2024. His main argument is that DeSantis is excellent in every way—and I agree.But I reach the opposite conclusion from Weichert. Here is why DeSantis should not run in 2024.
Among many DeSantis boosters, there is an undercurrent of nervous dissatisfaction with Donald Trump. Weichert avoids a direct comparison, but his view is nonetheless clear when he says, for example, that DeSantis is the pinnacle of professionalism and “will not rage tweet his rivals.” At the very bottom of that is an error many still cling to: If we could find someone who does what Trump does but is nicer and more professional about it, then maybe that someone would have an easier time in Washington.
Not going to happen.
I hate to break it to my friends on this side of the aisle, but the total, mind-exploding, apocalyptic hatred of Trump never had and still has nothing whatever to do with Trump’s “rage tweets.” It has everything to do with his actions in office: He fights the established, corrupt-uniparty way of doing things. He makes it clear that a peaceful and prosperous nation is good for everyone except professional politicians.
If you replace Trump with someone who takes his same anti-establishment tack, that someone will get the same Orange Man Bad treatment, just in a different flavor. Maybe they won’t go after DeSantis for tweets, but it will be something else. One way or another, they’ll make him out to be the second coming of Adolf Hitler. And then, four years from now, the media will have you saying “OK, we need a new DeSantis—someone who has the same policy views but is just a little less controversial.”
For heavens’ sake, stop! Stop playing their game. Stop trying to find a candidate America and Washington both like, because it’s not just undesirable—it’s impossible.
If you think that by switching to DeSantis you’ll get the best features of Trump without the drawbacks, you’re just playing into the Left’s hands. You may think this is clever tactical maneuvering. In reality, you’re reading the part of “Fourth Plebeian” in Shakespeare’s Roman forum scene: “Caesar’s better parts shall be crown’d in Brutus!” In case you haven’t read the play, this genius logical fallacy doesn’t work too well for the plebeians—or for Brutus.
This is not the only time for DeSantis to run. We’ll need him in 2028 and beyond. And in the meantime, Florida needs him now. In the battle for American liberty, states are the only real counterbalance against federal power. If you remove DeSantis, the only genuinely pro-freedom governor, from that office now, you’ll have killed two birds with one stone—for the Left.
A perceptive, insightful article overall, and I particularly enjoyed Gelernter’s grateful appreciation regarding what Trump really represented to his supporters, and why he mattered. Nonetheless, I do have a quibble or two, especially the penultimate ‘graph.
Only the political class is afraid of Trump and his mean tweets. Voters will back him in the next cycle as never before, even beyond 2020 election levels. We understand this is a showdown, and it has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats: This is people versus government. This is America versus politics. Don’t lose sight of that. And don’t try to out-clever the professional political manipulators. You already know who they fear the most: Trump terrifies them. The thought of Trump being president again scares them silly. That alone should tell you who our best candidate is.
Would that it were so. Alas, I still discern no sign whatever that they’re “scared silly” of anybody. They despise Trump, as they despise MAGA Americans, certainly. But seriously, now—”terrified”? Nope, just can’t see it. They managed to hogtie Trump handily enough the first time out, and from where I sit they seem to expect no more difficulty than they had then—not with Trump, not with DeSantis, not with anybody else you could name. Could be they’re mistaken about that; their arrogance might easily be luring them into the type of Pride that usually Goeth Before a very bad Fall, which is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
As you all know by now, I very much hope that DeSantis holds fast in Florida. As I told the redoubtable Christina Pushaw in our recent email exchange, we need him much more there rather than besieged in the White House, victimized by the selfsame Power that did for Trump.
As Gelernter so astutely puts it, this is now people versus government. In such a struggle, the sovereign States will necessarily have a vital role, being the obvious governing entity around which any Resistance movement will assemble, as our Founders intended and foresaw. DeSantis can be a key player in that conflict, whatever shape it eventually assumes, and can accomplish so much more there than he could as just another figurehead POTUS fronting for the real Power behind the throne.
I DO very much hope that both Trump and DeSantis are smart enough to see through the recent efforts to sow discord and division betwixt the two of them, another manipulation launched by the Men Behind The Curtain for their own quite obvious purposes.
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I think you’re on the money here. We’ve already learned that one guy isn’t enough. But if we have enough strong governors nullifying federal laws and otherwise holding fast to the constitution and common sense, maybe we break apart enough that the whole thing gets reformed.
“But if we have enough strong governors…”
The very definition of the heart of the problem. We need a strong group unafraid of the FBI, unafraid to close the FBI offices in their state for starters. Just remember that DeSantis has allowed the federal governments corrupt enforcement arm of jackbooted thugs free reign in the state of Florida. For all the talk, nothing has been done to thwart the feds operating withing the state of Florida. Nothing, not a word against the deep state republicans. Pay attention to what they don’t do…