DeSantis' Fatal Flaw

How Did DeSantis Go From Trump's Heir Apparent to Never-Trumper?

Polls now show Trump beating Biden in a 2024 rematch. A recent Fox News survey released on Wednesday showed Trump beating not only Biden, but also Vice President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and even retiring Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) in hypothetical matchups. But part-time Florida Governor and full-time Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis disagrees.

On Sunday DeSantis, who trails Trump by an astonishing 49 percentage points in the national Republican primary, told Jake Tapper on CNN that he (DeSantis) “wouldn’t be running unless [he] thought the Democrats would beat Trump if [Trump] were the nominee.” In other words, DeSantis is running because only he can beat Biden in the general election.

No doubt DeSantis believes this—that he is a superior candidate to Trump. Unfortunately for DeSantis, Republican voters overwhelmingly disagree. It’s been more than 6 months since DeSantis officially announced his 2024 Presidential bid and he is currently polling at an abysmal 13% support. Donald Trump has a commanding 62% support. Worse for DeSantis, his own support has only shrunk since announcing his candidacy. Meanwhile, Trump’s has expanded.

In light of this, it has become increasingly pathetic watching the DeSantis campaign and even DeSantis himself resort to launching increasingly desperate attacks against Trump in some delusional effort to win the nomination.

In the same interview with Jake Tapper on Sunday, Governor DeSantis attributed Trump’s recent poll numbers showing him defeating Biden in 2024 to “[Democrats] going very easy on [Trump] right now.”

It’s hard to imagine a more asinine statement. Democrats have indicted Trump 4 times on 91 felony counts. No Presidential candidate—or even American—has been more attacked than Trump. This highlights the fundamental flaw with DeSantis.

The problem for the DeSantis campaign and even DeSantis himself is that they are all seemingly delusional; completely incapable of distinguishing between their own dreams and reality, between what is true and what they wish were true.

DeSantis, who today dismisses polls showing Trump beating Biden by saying “[Democrats] are going easy on [Trump],” has previously claimed that he thinks Trump’s “chance of getting elected after being convicted of a felony is as close to zero as you can get.”

While DeSantis has claimed that he doesn’t believe that Trump should have run again in the first place, the reality is that most Republican voters believe the exact opposite: that it is DeSantis who should never have run in the first place.

For most Republicans, the Ron DeSantis campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is akin to the Colin Kaepernick campaign for an NFL QB job. Both the aspiring GOP Presidential candidate and aspiring franchise QB are trying to force their “services” on those who don’t appear to desire them.

So too does DeSantis’ reaction to his overwhelming rejection resemble that of the spurned former QB Kaepernick. Both are incapable of accepting the reality that perhaps someone else is currently better qualified for the job; or at least is preferred for the job over them.

What makes the DeSantis case the more bizarre is his youth. While Kaepernick’s return to the NFL was understandably urgent due to the foe that is age in athletics, DeSantis faced no such obstacle. He could have perhaps maneuvered to be Trump’s VP pick or otherwise run for President in 2028. DeSantis had been viewed by many as Trump’s heir apparent prior to making a risky move to challenge Trump, whose past support was arguably responsible for ensuring DeSantis’ narrow Gubernatorial victory in 2018.

DeSantis’ crude miscalculation that 2024 was his window to run may cost him dearly in the future, given his ruthless turn to bludgeon Trump at his own political expense. Only time will tell if DeSantis can emerge from this ordeal with political capital in tact, or otherwise will be dismissed by Republican voters as the man who failed to take out the proverbial King.

DeSantis, of course, claims that he is the only one who can win a general election but this first would require him to actually win the nomination. This was always a near-impossible task given Trump’s entrenched and loyal base of support—something, which DeSantis himself has never had.

In another egregious miscalculation, DeSantis seems not to have understood that he has been the beneficiary of MAGA support; that is to say a majority of his supporters were Trump supporters first rather than DeSantis supporters.

If DeSantis had any hope of wresting the nomination away from Trump, that hope has been all but extinguished by his truly mind boggling decision to attack Trump and thus ensure that those he desperately needed to persuade to abandon Trump would not.

Fair or not, it matters little that Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis; both because this is entirely consistent with the Trump brand and thus expected and because DeSantis’ own decision to react in kind has only served to eliminate the one strength Desantis had—namely, that he was somehow “above” Trump’s bullying style of politics. He was Trump-nice.

When Trump first began calling DeSantis “DeSanctimonious” after DeSantis announced his candidacy, even many Trump supporters reacted with disapproval. MAGA may not have been enthused by the DeSantis challenge but many viewed the attack against DeSantis as yet-unwarranted.

Whatever slim chance DeSantis may have had at winning the nomination hinged on his ability to exercise restraint and discipline—not to respond to Trump’s attacks in kind; both to de-escalate and avoid potential rift between himself and MAGA voters and to prove himself to be a “mature” alternative to Trump.

Back in March, DeSantis appeared to employ such a strategy, responding, for example, in a Piers Morgan interview by saying, “I don’t know how to spell the sanctimonious one. I don’t really know what it means, but I kinda like it, it’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels.” DeSantis’ job was to remain likable and back in March he made it hard not to like him.

But since then, DeSantis has made the fatal mistake of positioning himself as Trump’s enemy and vice versa, rather than a temporary adversary—his attacks indistinguishable from those of the Lincoln Project and other Never-Trumpers.

During a recent tv interview, DeSantis claimed that Trump failed to build the wall “because he got distracted when he got into office.” As I write in my recently published book, America’s Last Stand:

“It was Republicans who repeatedly obstructed the implementation of key Trump campaign promises—like Trump’s pledge to build a wall at the southern border. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, a slew of congressional Republicans announced their opposition to the construction, citing the estimated $12 billion to $15 billion price tag as too expensive. Many of these same Republicans, who screamed fiscal irresponsibility when it came to securing the US border, enthusiastically approved sending $113 billion to Ukraine—more than seven times the amount estimated to fund the construction of the wall.”

More importantly, when Trump entered office the entire Deep State was engaged in a covert coup known as Trump-Russia collusion to sabotage the Trump presidency. It was unprecedented and those responsible for this treason have yet to answer for their crimes. But according to DeSantis, “Trump got distracted.”

It is this flippant dismissal of some of the most serious Democrat offenses in American history that wholly disqualifies DeSantis from earning the GOP nomination for president in the eyes of a majority of Trump supporters.

DeSantis and his campaign have settled on a purely offensive strategy in their desperate effort to damage Trump and chip away at his insurmountable lead. Consequently, DeSantis is incapable of acknowledging anything good that Trump has accomplished or even to recognize any of the historic and heinous crimes committed by Democrats against Trump.

The Trump-Russia collusion Democrat-led coup, the baseless Quid Pro Quo impeachment of Trump, the lingering and increasingly believable stolen election claims of 2020, the incredulous circumstances surrounding the J6 “insurrection” and relentless persecution of Trump and his family are not irrelevant events from the past, which should be ignored as DeSantis would suggest, but remain the most powerful, important, and unresolved issues; issues of visceral importance to a majority of Republican voters.

These aforementioned Democrat and Deep State actions all have the effect of elevating Trump in the eyes of voters. One cannot discuss or condemn these actions without also painting Trump as a great victim of abuse and even unintentionally making the case for his re-election. It is because these important issues all help Trump that DeSantis refuses to address them.

In circumventing their discussion, DeSantis appears weak, selfish, and even comes across as hopeful that these unfair attacks on Trump might in some way benefit his own campaign.

Another problem with the DeSantis campaign is that their entire strategy is based nearly entirely upon unprovable claims—hypotheticals. For example, DeSantis likes to claim he would have fired Fauci if he had been President. DeSantis, of course, praised Fauci repeatedly as he locked down Florida in the early days of the pandemic.

DeSantis didn’t call for Fauci’s firing at any point in 2020; only after he decided to run for President against Trump.

DeSantis similarly attacks Trump for failing to drain the swamp, promising that he will drain it if he is elected President. As I also point out in my book:

“The new “conservative” never-Trumpers, would now oppose a second Trump term because Trump somehow failed to clean out the very forces of corruption, which were only made known because they came out of the shadows to destroy the Trump presidency.”

Were it not for Trump exposing it, the swamp would never have been identified and recognized as the existential threat that it is.

In the end, the DeSantis campaign is remarkably tone deaf. His most vocal supporters and media influencers only magnify DeSantis’ perception as a deeply unlikable individual, who hates Donald Trump.

His campaign has resorted to circulating “fake news” about Donald Trump in their desperation to pull together some semblance of support going into the Iowa caucuses. Most recently the campaign has circulated a clip of Trump on stage asking, “How stupid are the people of Iowa?” It’s deceptive — without context and presented as if it was said today.

In reality the clip is from 2015 and Trump was referring to a story shared by Dr. Ben Carson about a time Dr. Carson claims to have tried to stab a man but the knife hit the man’s belt buckle and broke. Dr. Carson was a heavyweight contender for the GOP nomination at the time going into Iowa and Trump was asking, “How stupid are you if you believe that story?”

Dr. Carson, of course, has endorsed Donald Trump in the 2024 primary.

Sadly, it appears DeSantis is living in an insulated bubble, surrounded by very poor strategists who are more interested in bludgeoning Trump than actually getting DeSantis elected.

His influencers represent a tiny minority of Americans but pretend to represent the view of the majority. These are the people shaping Ron’s worldview and campaign and projecting his “image.” None are living in reality. DeSantis thinks he’s winning when he’s losing. The DeSantis campaign encourages Ron’s worst choices. It’s sad to see. They do not have Ron’s best interest at heart. He’ll be lucky to win a local mayoral race in Florida in the future.