Tim Pool on DeSantis's refusal to be No. 2

Ron DeSantis has apparently come out and said he has no intention of being "a No. 2 guy," i.e., he won't play second fiddle to Donald Trump. It's the top spot for Ron or nothing. Tim Pool chews this over while elaborating on his own view that DeSantis, despite being an awesome governor for Florida, has proved to be an awful, uncharismatic campaigner who has made crucial errors in PR strategy, one error being the unethical use of Deepfake technology to strike a blow against Trump—an error that Pool finds unforgivable. Pool, a bit like me, sounds much more partial to Vivek Ramaswamy, who is clear, cogent, and charismatic.

I think DeSantis's best hope is to drop out and wait for 2028. He'll still be young and intellectually vigorous, Trump will no longer be in the picture, and maybe a lot of the GOP names we're seeing now will have faded into the background by then. Yes, it may be premature to write DeSantis off when the campaigns have only barely begun, but if polls are any indication (they may not be), DeSantis's path forward already looks pretty bleak, and he seems only to be fading further. Sure, Trump could croak or commit some immense self-own, but things aren't looking good for DeSantis.

ADDENDUM: Pool apparently sat down with Vivek at some point. I'm going to track that video down and give it a watch. Pool points out that Vivek has boldly proposed the notion that you need to show some bona fides if you're going to vote. This isn't too different from my own "modest proposal" from a while back, so I suspect there'll be objections to Vivek's thinking that parallel objections to mine. I think, though, that Vivek's proposal is more about proof of devotion and self-sacrifice than it is about knowledge and competence (which is what I was aiming for). I might be willing to accept Vivek's way of thinking. When I think about which liberals' opinions I'm more likely to respect, it's the opinions of liberals who've been in the trenches and done the hard work for their cause, not the hoity-toity limousine crowd of liberals who are detached from regular society but think they can tell us proles how to live (looking at the DiCaprios who fly in their private jets while preaching at the rest of us about climate change). I'd have way more respect for the liberals who've put years into working the soup kitchens and have seen homelessness up close than for the rich liberals who simply click an online button and nonchalantly give a pittance to their favorite charity.