DeSantis is portraying himself as the figure liberals have long feared: a Donald Trump who plans, a Donald Trump who follows through. One question is whether that’s what Republicans really want. In an interview with Ben Shapiro, DeSantis tried out a counterattack on Trump. “He’s been attacking me by moving left,” DeSantis said. “So this is a different guy than 2015, 2016.”
Is it? Part of Trump’s appeal in 2015 and 2016 was his willingness to defy conservative orthodoxy. He promised to raise taxes on rich guys like himself, leave Medicare and Social Security alone, and make sure everyone had great health care. Polls showed he was viewed as a more centrist candidate than Hillary Clinton.
DeSantis is leaving himself no such room. His voting record from his time in Congress includes plenty of efforts to slash Medicare and Social Security. As governor, he signed a six-week abortion ban into law. If you see Trump’s ideological deviations as a problem for Republican voters, DeSantis’s attacks make sense. If you see them as part of what endeared Trump to Republican voters, then it’s a vulnerability for DeSantis.
DeSantis’s other problem, both in writing and on the stump, is that he can’t bring himself to extend even a modicum of compassion to his opponents. When he describes the George Floyd protests he doesn’t spare even a word condemning or grieving Floyd’s murder. His anti-L.G.B.T.Q. agenda is unleavened by even the barest sympathy for L.G.B.T.Q. kids.
He opened a recent speech in New Hampshire with a riff on Joe Biden tripping and falling over a sandbag. “I don’t know if he sustained injuries,” DeSantis said, “but I just want to say that we hope and wish Joe Biden a swift recovery from any injuries he may have sustained, but we also wish the United States of America a swift recovery from the injuries it has sustained because of Joe Biden.” It’s a classless riff, leaden with insinuation, delivered humorlessly.
Still, DeSantis has a real case to make to Republicans. I thought DeSantis was overvalued in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 election, where his victory was no more impressive than those of Mike DeWine in Ohio or Jared Polis in Colorado. But I think he’s being underestimated now.
I’ve been listening to DeSantis’s speeches and interviews, and while he’s not a generational talent, and he does have that tic of gratuitous cruelty, he’s not as stilted on the stump as many liberals seem to think. The technical glitches of his launch on Twitter Spaces don’t mean anything for his campaign. He has a proven ability to win tough races. And polling in the mid-20s against a popular former president in that president’s own party isn’t that weak of a starting point.
A lot can happen from here, and DeSantis has proved himself nothing if not a capable opportunist.