If Trump defeats Biden in 2024, he’ll have Ron DeSantis to thank. Despite his downward slump, it looks as clear as ever that the former Florida governor is going to jump into the presidential fray. He is almost certainly announcing in May when the legislative session wraps up. He may very well have missed his moment, waiting too long to capitalize on the press’s honeymoon phase with him after the GOP’s midterm disappointments.
And if you support former President Trump, then you want DeSantis to jump into this race. His behind the scenes movements have shown him to be a typical hardline, 2020’s conservative. He’s not at all like Mitt Romney, George Bush Sr, or any of the other socially liberal, somewhat moderate country club Republicans of yesteryear.
DeSantis is so fearful and scared and overly calculating, he’s first trying to win the primary by being as extreme as possible. Of course, should he be the nominee, it will all come back to bite him. Let’s start with the extreme 6 week abortion ban. It’s one of the strictest in the nation. And DeSantis certainly didn’t want his signing of the bill to get attention. He signed it at 11:00 at night on a Friday, hoping no one would notice. They did, and now DeSantis is thought of as a radical anti abortion candidate. You may have a different view on the issue, but abortion opposition doesn’t sell to the general electorate. Recent results back that claim up. One of the reasons the GOP barely broke even in the midterms was because of the overturning of Roe V Wade. In Wisconsin, usually a close, purple state, a liberal won a State Supreme Court election by 10 points because she would be able to block her state legislature’s efforts to create a strict abortion ban. It just doesn’t work.
Trump, post overturning, has not sounded particularly conservative on the issue, and he said privately he didn’t know his party would be this extreme. He wants that to seep into general election voters minds.
And then there’s social security, and other healthcare issues. Trump is going hard left on it, attacking DeSantis for cutting social security and wanting to raise the retirement age. A few hardlined conservatives might get annoyed by that, but Trump has enough of a base where his votes aren’t based on his politics, but based on his tenure as president and on his personality.
And finally, Chris Christe has been attacking DeSantis on the Disney stuff, saying the culture war doesn’t really sell. He made an argument saying interfering with corporations is fundamentally not conservative. And Trump has been silent on the whole Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light controversy, while his son has called for the boycott to end, since the company has mostly donated to conseratives.
So Trump gets out of the primary, maybe a bit bruised, but now he’s seen as the moderate, sane Republican in the room. A true political independent. Being seen as level-headed has been a tough reach for Trump, but with the GOP acting as lemmings on the social issues, he’ll win the 5% of voters in the middle who just might feel Trump is middle enough for them to earn their votes.
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