Ron DeSantis was conspicuously silent for a long time while this whole arrest-Trump thing was building. Donald Trump is a Florida resident, so some people were wondering whether DeSantis might want to make noises about protecting a citizen under DeSantis's purview. For the longest time, there wasn't a peep about the matter from the governor's mansion, but then, within the past day or two, DeSantis took a question that gave him an opportunity to speak out about the matter. Without naming Trump, and claiming that very few facts were known, DeSantis said he would not be involving himself in something that he saw as political grandstanding (not his exact words, but that's the spirit of what he said). This left a large contingent of Trump fans unhappy, and there was a groundswell of "Say his name!" demands directed at DeSantis. If DeSantis is indeed planning to run in 2024, I can see how he might be unwilling to say too much right now. Trump has also been lobbing childish insults at DeSantis, which certainly doesn't predispose the Florida governor to rise to Trump's defense. But it's also possible that DeSantis, in being hesitant to defend Trump, may have missed an opportunity to show some backbone as well as some GOP esprit de corps. In fact, a lot of Republicans have been hesitant to rise up and defend Trump, with the notable exception of Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who has thrown his hat in the ring for 2024. In the video below, Styx thinks DeSantis has "failed his first major litmus test":
You'd expect the RINOs not to support Trump given their under-the-table ties to the left. It's possible that DeSantis is doing himself no favors by acting in a seemingly RINO way. Up to now, he's often been called "Trump Lite," but how Trumpian is he if he won't defend the leader of the MAGA movement? I actually agree that this is a missed opportunity for DeSantis: it's a chance for him to burnish his own image, to prove himself the bigger man by not responding to Trump's insults and defending Trump in spite of them.
This all feels like a distraction to me. Shouldn't we be talking about the Biden family being bought by China? Anyway, I read about DeSantis coming down hard on the DA and the politicization of the criminal justice system. He said he didn't know the details of what Trump allegedly did. You can hate what's happening in this case without it being a litmus test on being supportive of Trump.
ReplyDeleteI think the flaccidity of DeSantis's remarks justifies a measure of outrage from the pro-Trump camp, but I can also see it from DeSantis's point of view. Why would he want to defend a man who has spent the past few months insulting him?
ReplyDeleteI think, at this point, DeSantis has proved his merit as a competent governor. Trump's endorsement may have helped him the first time around, but he no longer needs Trump.
My own question is whether DeSantis has a forceful enough personality to push through major reforms as president.