You have to have a solid base in confidence, or at least a powerful belief in yourself, to run for office.
I wouldn’t want to do it.
But the self-confidence of Donald Trump (at least if we are to take him at his word) is so epic that he never bothered with the usual protestations of caution or, God forbid, humility.
I recall, way back at the beginning of his astonishing march to the presidency in 2016, during the Iowa caucuses (which he lost, by the way, to Ted Cruz), when Trump announced that his supporters were so devoted to him that: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?… It’s, like, incredible.”
And it really was incredible. A century or two of political wisdom would suggest that you don’t brag about how much your supporters love you. You humbly express gratitude for their support and promise that you will try not to let them down. Right? But for Trump in 2016, his arrogance sold.
In 2020, he never stopped bragging, but his luck ran out. The last few thousand of his most fervent admirers paid a terrible price for following his instructions to march from a Fascist-style blood rally to the Capitol and overturn the results of an election that he had lost to more conventionally humble-seeming Joe Biden.
Right now, his 2016 brag about his hold over his fans is being put to a powerful test. Will they all stick with him for one more try in 2024?
At the moment, the indications aren’t looking too solid for Trump. His unprecedented decision to announce preemptively in 2022 his planned 2024 comeback has met mixed reactions, and his poll numbers are actually falling. Those of his likely chief rival for the 2024 Republican nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are rising.
If Trump thought his indecorously early announcement that he would deign to be the Republican nominee again in 2024 would warn off all competitors, it isn’t working. And the latest polls (to which we shouldn’t pay too much attention two years out) show Trump highly vulnerable, at least to DeSantis (who, unlike Trump, hasn’t announced his candidacy yet).
If two polls that came out of the field most recently are any indication, Trump and DeSantis are neck-and-neck, which suggests that DeSantis is the rising star and Trump the falling star, although the two poll results were so unalike as to raise obvious questions.
A Morning Consult poll, graded a “B” by the political numbers-obsessed crew at fivethirtyeight.com showed Trump leading DeSantis 49-31 percent. But a B-plus-rated Suffolk University poll for USA Today had DeSantis leading Trump by 56-33, although the sample size was significantly smaller. Those results are summarized here.
I know it’s too early for all but the truly-obsessed to poll watch. And I don’t even know which of those two frontrunners I would prefer to see get the Republican nomination, because my gut tells me DeSantis would be the stronger general election candidate.
I’ll try not to write about this again until next year. But, after all, that’s only two weeks away.
In those polls, DeSantis represents the “not Trump” vote. I see it more as a sign of Trump vulnerability, but not necessarily a sign that DeSantis is a real frontrunner. And, in 2006 polling & pundits expected 2008 to be Giuliani v Clinton…
DeSantis is already tied with Biden in the polls and he hasn’t even declared yet.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3757697-biden-desantis-tied-in-hypothetical-matchup-poll/
Neither has Biden.
And if/when he declares, the American electorate can take full measure of what a loathsome authoritarian he is.
I wonder if we can have a good faith debate about DeSantis’ actual policies.
Policy Priority 1: Own the Libs.
Policy Priority 2: Own the Libs.
Policy Priority 3: Own the Libs.
Policy Priority 4: Own the Libs.
In the DeSantis world the only way to achieve freedom is to limit someone else’s freedom whether through Choice or GLBT or any other issue that bumps against his world view.
60b In Hurricane Ian damages and he has investigate Fauci as a priority. His act will quickly fizzle outside FL.
That is not an answer or an argument, that is pure hyperbole.
But I will credit DeSantis with some of the most flexible political Jujitsu ever seen:
He goes to Texas and through lies and deception fills up a plane with Venezuelan migrants, only to leave them on the tarmac 2000 miles away.
The Jujitsu?
These migrants are trying to escape from an oppressive Communist dictatorship, hopefully starting a new life in a new country.
Sound familiar? Maybe 60 years ago when Cuban migrants DID THE EXACT SAME THING in Florida?
And where did the DeSantis 2022 red wave come from? Very forgetful Cubans in South Florida.
Were there any serious debates in the Florida gubernatorial election?
It’s not clear DeSantis can have a good faith discussion of his policy positions. For instance, he was for vaccines before he was against them. Will that change again? Maybe not even DeSantis knows?
Which policies did you have in mind?
Revoking a tax break that has been in place for 55 years because the company receiving them disagrees with his policies?
Regulating what professors at state colleges and universities may teach about race and gender?
Creating a special election police force that is deployed only in non-white communities?
Probably not, because his policies are not promulgated in good faith…they are adopted largely because they reflect and amplify the most extreme “conservative” claptrap possible.
That’s his “brand”!
DeSantis is essentially going to run on his successful policies in Florida, principally, keeping the schools and businesses open during the pandemic without the dire consequences that the “experts” predicted. Consequently, their economy isn’t in need of rebuilding and their kids don’t have two years of education to catch up on. In other words, Washington was and has been wrong on most things and Florida survived and thrived by going their own way. A success story that most other potential candidates can’t match.
The most honest answer so far
How about this one?
DeSantis vs. Walz:
COVID deaths per 100,000 people:
DeSantis: 387
Walz: 251
Current unemployment rate:
DeSantis: 2.6%
Walz: 2.3%
How about math scores for grades 4 and 8 in both 2019 and 2022?
Minnesota tops Florida in all 4 comparisons.
If you like DeSantis policies, you’ll like Walz even more: Better COVID death management, faster economic recovery, better pre and post COVID educational results.
Gee is that why they are bailing out the insurance industry? https://floridapolitics.com/archives/575858-lawmakers-move-forward-with-bill-to-hike-citizens-rates-expand-reinsurance-bailout/
Not everyone in Florida survived. Even taking account factors like age, Florida’s hospitalization and death rates from Covid were higher than they were in better governed states.
Why not? Are his stated polices good faith or political statements to rouse the base as they say? Are folks going to debate in good faith, or more political biased warfare?
That would assume the DeSanitas’ policies themselves were in good faith.
If his recent actions in Florida are an indication of anything but situational politics, he’s got an electoral death wish at the national level.
Which “policies” would those be? His policies that target the LGBTQ – especially trans – adults and children under the guise of “protecting the children?” Or we could talk about his “anti-woke” agenda … which is nothing more than a license to discriminate. We could discuss how he’s actively changing what pieces of American history can be taught in schools. There’s the stunt he pulled having people of color arrested for illegally voting (after they were previously told they could vote). His “war” on Disney was particularly entertaining to watch from afar. FL had more COVID deaths per capita than any other state. He’s done nothing to reign in the home owner’s insurance industry. Oh and let’s not forget illegally using funds to engage in human trafficking in another state.
The answer to my question is obviously no, there cannot be a good faith discussion here about DeSantis. Hardly anybody here actually knows anything about Desantis policies, you all mostly know what major media have told you about those policies.
For the record, I think his evolving covid policies are based on facts, having an actual scientific discussion about best practices, while the majority of states keep acting like there will be NO discussion about the Covid response, get your jabs.
The “don’t say gay” bill was a lot like “safe and effective”, an incantation to get people to react a certain way, when in fact the bill simply prevents teachers from talking to kids about sex and gender before the fourth grade, which seems to me entirely reasonable.
Disparage him about the election all you like, he didn’t need to cheat, he spoke truth about covid and woke trans and gender indoctrination policies and media censorship, like Republicans generally should have, and he rolled, while most Republican had a message like they were arguing against Jimmy Carter, inflation! Crime! Inflation! Crime! and did not do as well as they could have, despite three million more people voting for Republicans than Democrats.
“Hardly anybody here actually knows anything about Desantis policies, you all mostly know what major media have told you about those policies.”
Thank G*d we have you to bring us the truth!
“The answer to my question is obviously no, there cannot be a good faith discussion here about DeSantis.”
Primarily because any factual data that shows DeSantis as being more bluster than actual results sends DeSantis supporters running for the hills.
“Governor DeSantis, we know Tim Walz, Tim Walz is a friend of ours, and you sir, are no Tim Walz”
And that is a good faith discussion, based on actual numbers, that should provide the basis for a further good faith discussion that DeSantis boosters do not want to have here.
Sorry situation reminds me of Slap Shot, when each villain was more villain-y than the one before him. By the end, the final villain could pluck out your eye with the blade of his stick.
DeSantis is the devil, of course — the final heavy, red necktie, red horns, forked red tail. He checks all the boxes: racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, entitled Caucasian male glutton, zenophobe, anti-science, anti-courtesy, anti-indoctrination indoctrinator, post-fact, barrel-chested bully begging you to punch that superior smirk off his face.
Today would just be another bitter cold, icy and dark December day, if it not for the final report from the January 6th committee.
As it is, I am gleefully looking forward to the shredding of the veil of innocence and the beginning of the criminalization of American fascism applied without so much as a hair’s breadth of distance between incriminating facts, witnesses accounts and victims’ testimony–
HE’S TOAST.
The remaining sickos and sycophants will peter out in due time, once the grifter is humiliated, exposed, tried and convicted.
Let our great nation shed it’s shame with A BIG HELPING OF JUSTICE for the hateful dividers, thieves and liars that were set loose upon our institutions.
Re Trump’s comment about not losing a vote by shooting someone on 5th Ave. If the “victim” of his shooting had been the spouse of a MAGA supporter, the survivor likely would have assumed said victim must have had it coming.
Another political poll article to be followed by another article about the electoral college. To be followed by…..
The ‘bottom line’ is that they both operate within the conspiracy and fear mongering modes. The majority of voters do not subscribe to either of those Republican defaults.
It’s like what they say, history goes in cycles. First in farce than in tragedy. It is a fact that Donald Trump was deeply and profoundly incompetent, With his con man’s shallowness, he simply lacked the organizational skills needed to effectively mount a coup d’etat. That was reassurning in a way. Through all the sturm and the drang following the election of 2020, never for a moment did I doubt that Mr. Trump would be escorted out of town on inauguration day. I make so such assumptions about Governor DeSantis. The governor is good at what he does, and what he wants to do is frightening.
And…
Just try to imagine the culture war nuclear event if the 2024 Presidential contest is:
DeSantis Vs. Buttigieg
Poor Mayor Pete will go on and on about good government and DeSantis and his fellow travellers will unleash the most negative campaign in history. And I do include 2016 and 2020. And if Pete should win, repeat the 2008 R outrage over a black President times 2.
I really don’t get the Buttigieg excitement. Seems like a Beto candidate – trying to take too big a step, too soon.
One would think Secretary Buttigieg is a candidate drawn to Republican specifications: a military veteran with private sector experience, as well as a devoted husband and father.
Who has failed miserably in his current job. I guess being the mayor of a small town just didn’t prepare him for the big leagues.
Since when do Republicans think failure disqualifies a person from serving in the government? Shoot, I thought failure and bigotry were the two main requirements.
Still trying to recollect Elaine Chao’s primary accomplishment as Secretary of Transportation.
To call Buttigieg a miserable failure without delineating any of his miserable failures is less than useful.
Here is an example of a fact based comment for reference:
DeSantis vs. Walz:
COVID deaths per 100,000 people:
DeSantis: 387
Walz: 251
Current unemployment rate:
DeSantis: 2.6%
Walz: 2.3%
How about math scores for grades 4 and 8 in both 2019 and 2022?
Minnesota tops Florida in all 4 comparisons.
And a Rhodes Scholar.
Right, he’s well-educated and, as I understand it, cultured and well-read.
He would be a total wash-out as a Republican.
Trump is not confident, he is deeply insecure. He’s also a narcissist & psychopath, therefore delusional w grandiose & all powerful illusions. He has long held the believe that if you repeat something often enough people will believe it. (Well at least the ignorant, gullible & vulnerable will.) He has spent his lifetime lying, grifting, manipulating & threatening others. This mode has also helped him escape serious consequences (mostly legal). Never confuse these traits w intelligence! DeSantis is not a rising star, he’s a clone of Trump. But he wb much, much, much worse because he’s younger, healthier, hungrier & wb around longer. He will take greater risks & push things further. He has a God Complex; he thinks he is God!! And his wife is profoundly greedy and like him wants complete power & authority & control of the $$$$ & the masses. Neither sb seriously considered for the highest position in the country!!!! Both ignore & break laws regularly. Both lack empathy for others (a strong indicator of psychopathy). I will never understand the sheep or lemming mentality – following blindly. We all have choices to make every single day. Make far wiser choices, America. Don’t just fall into line & follow the crowd. Or heed the planned, purposeful propaganda sites’ dangerous rhetoric. If you can’t do it for yourselves: do it for your kids & grandkids. Because the white nationalism/fascism being forced on us incessantly by today’s R will destroy our democracy and our country. It started World Wars I & II-! And the world swore–after millions of deaths & unimaginable horrors & insurmountable losses & grief–that WE WOULD NEVER FORGET. And never go there again:(
No mention of Cruz, I think a number of Trumpers (christian nationalists) will go for him. So 2-3 Ivy League for the “populist” GOP.
I think there’s bipartisan consensus on your last point.
My question though, is will the GOP base go for anyone who bent the knee to Trump after running against him in 2020? Feels like Pence, Rubio & Cruz have proven they don’t have the mojo. I’d expect the base to look elsewhere.
Only a Republican can say with pride that nearing 85,000 dead from Covid are not “dire consequences.”