The writers of the piece, Curt Anderson and Alex Castellanos, then spend a couple of thousand words throwing the DeSantis campaign under a grain combine.
Strategy. The DeSantis campaign should have had one.
Oh, the campaign had one. It’s just that it mostly consisted of DeSantis saying, to borrow a phrase from Joe Biden describing Rudy Giuliani, “a noun, a verb, and ‘woke.’” It wasn’t just that he was a “socially awkward nerd, an introvert who did not enjoy people.” Nerds, as they traditionally are coded in political campaigns, are semi-serious academic types with an interest in and command of policy details.
Barack Obama, for example, was a nerd. Ron DeSantis is a sour, mean weirdo who bragged about how much he had done to hurt undocumented migrants and transgender people. He seemed to enjoy causing hurt.
You could almost imagine a little bedroom action with bargain-basement Jackie O role-playing as a desperate Salvadoran mother or Dylan Mulvaney was the only thing keeping the marriage spicy.
God_damn_ Wonkette out here slapping them into space. Love me some Wonkette.
Don't know if it's the eyes or that he seems increasingly and more frequently angry behind the smile.
Maybe it's covid. Does seem to have given those teetering on the edge, a shove into "Where We're Going, We Won't Need Eyes To See!" territory.
Then again, given De Santis seems to be losing popularity, and the nature of present day conservative politics, that may mean he's not been ritually sodomising enough puppies and is more normal than I think.
Trump’s schtick can’t be duplicated. His fascist rants are packaged in an entertaining, reality tv quality. He spent decades forming and honing the persona that connects to his audience.
Desantis thought he could run further right than Trump on social issues, but ultimately couldn’t begin to match his showmanship, which is the main draw. Ramashwamy made a better effort at it, but also fell short.
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