DeSantis Makes Progress -- And What Needs to Happen Now
A Marquette University poll brings good news for Ron DeSantis. As reported by the Washington Examiner, DeSantis is tied with Biden in a prospective general election match-up, leads Trump by 20 percentage points among registered Republicans, and by 30 percentage points among registered voters nationally.
After Republicans were dealt a midterm beating, performing below expectations, public soul-searching has led to a division in the party over Trump among GOP heavyweights.
“Usually those voters are going to want to vote for people that are offering an alternative,” DeSantis explained during a press conference Thursday. “And yet some of those voters throughout the country, not in Florida, but throughout the country … they still didn’t want to vote for some of our candidates.”
His remarks mirrored other top Republicans, some of whom, like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, directed sharp criticism at Trump, blaming him for elevating low-quality candidates. Trump debuted his 2024 campaign about a week after the lackluster GOP outing and began unleashing scathing attacks on DeSantis, who has polled as his top hypothetical GOP rival.
DeSantis has shown restraint, largely refraining from returning fire on Trump and seemingly positioning himself as a viable alternative to the former president. Despite Trump's broadsides against him, DeSantis touts a 76% favorability rating among respondents amenable to Trump and 51% who are apprehensive of him, according to the Marquette poll.
While this is good news for those of us who think DeSantis is the strongest conservative candidate in 2024, there are at least two caveats. First, it doesn’t gibe with other polling I’ve seen, which puts Trump well out in front of DeSantis with Republicans. So, as Trump himself would say, we’ll just have to wait and see. I have, however, detected increasing discontent with Trump even among those who’ve been willing in the past to cut him a break (and a break and a break). Partly, I think, this is because Trump continues to be fixated on the past and portray himself as a victim; partly because his legal problems and litigation reversals are mounting; partly because he sponsored losing candidates in last month’s election; and partly because of that most menacing danger to political figures — becoming tiresome, increasingly a figment of yesterday’s news. The more Trump keeps on and on, the more he starts to seem like an ill-tempered Harold Stassen.
The second caveat that the DeSantis forces should bear in mind is that Trump became President, and continues to have a considerable following, for a reason. The reason is not that Trump is a cult figure or has a kick-over-the-table attitude (that quite a few disaffected Americans share). It’s deeper and more serious than that.
Trump uniquely gave voice to the large and increasing distrust of, and contempt for, elites in this country — the elites in Big Government, small school boards, academia, the media, entertainment, journalism, and culture. And although I have a less-than-stellar opinion of Trump’s character and behavior, he was spot on about these critically important things. At the time, he was nearly alone among political figures in his willingness to call them out.
DeSantis supporters and the Republican Party more generally dismiss this fact about Trump at their peril. While Trump’s routine crassness in blasting the elites (and way too much else) is easy to ridicule, it’s a temptation best avoided. He was onto something true and important — something that resonates particularly with people who self-consciously think of themselves as patriotic and/or traditional, and with the big segment of voters who used to be called Reagan Democrats. In other words, it resonates with the swaths of voters DeSantis will need to win the presidency.
What Trump was on to specifically is that American elites are suffused with rot. If they don’t hate the country exactly — and some do — they look down on it. If they don’t buy routine race-huckstering, they decline any serious action to defeat it. If they don’t wear the mantle of Wokeness, they’re too cowardly to resist it. And if they see the danger in ubiquitous lowered standards, they’re too weak to stand up for higher ones.
Trump probably never put it to himself like that. He wasn’t the most reflective man I’ve ever seen in public life. But his instinct, or something like instinct, was there. And that, against 2016’s heaven-sent foil of Hillary Clinton, was what got him elected.
DeSantis’ job is to embrace the instinct, without the nastiness and pettiness and with a more thought-through and articulate vision of what it means. If he can combine that with an energetic and hopeful message about our future — a Reaganesque message of renewal and restoration — the White House, I expect, is his.
Great post, Bill. Agree with skyzyks's comments: The last three paragraphs are golden rules if republicans hope to prevail in 2024.
I am one of those who would prefer DeSantis, but am concerned about the growing cohort of party sycophants who are urging him to moderate or move to the muddling middle. Most republican voters do not want a return to globalist GOP. I do not think sycophants will be successful, because unlike most politicians I think DeSantis is a vertebrate animal who has his own compass and tacks to it.
In a contest between those who want to return America to a more nationalist, self-interested posture, re-affirm traditional values, return to constitutional governance and the nihilists who want to rip up the constitution, racialize everything, institutionalize gender fluidity and free meatball surgery, there is no muddling middle. There is a dire need for someone who can articulate our case, make the choice clear, and close the sale.
You are right about Trump's instincts, and his inability to articulate the case. What makes DeSantis attractive to us is that he would embrace the same governance that Trump did, but articulate the case more persuasively, and that he would not make the many tactical errors that Trump has (sloppy messaging, appointing wolves in sheep's clothing to his administration, etc.).
Early DeSantis supporters should also be keenly aware that should he run, DeSantis will quickly become Public Enemy #1 and he will be subject the same vitriol and methods of attack that Trump has been weathering for almost 6 years. No doubt DeSantis knows this. I'm not sure that enough republicans know, even after all the experience of the post-9/11 years, that country club republicanism is not going to win the day.
"Trump uniquely gave voice to the large and increasing distrust of, and contempt for, elites in this country..."; "At the time, he was nearly alone among political figures in his willingness to call them out."
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "at the time," which is why I take this as something of an insult, not quite from William Otis, but from Trump and his followers.
For eight years I stood by George W. Bush, mostly enthusiastically, as he, and by implication I, were attacked by elites. At first they treated him as a moron, then as a criminal mastermind. News media ran non-stop smears -- remember when the AP heralded proof that he had been warned about the possibility of New Orleans's levies breaking, when the video they offered showed no such thing? From the special counsel who persecuted Libby, to the inspector general who claimed that Cheney behaved improperly because he performed his own intelligence analysis rather than relying on the CIA, to the media and Democrats who treated Bush's firings of U.S. Attorneys as a scandal, to the worldwide attacks by artists and opinion leaders -- remember the dress designer who depicted Rice as a fire-breathing dragon? -- to the stabs in the back by establishment Republicans like James Comey and David Frum, to the deranged call for retreat by the Iraq Study Group composed of supposedly wise elder statesmen, George W. Bush stood outnumbered defending American values against an establishment with no regard for our heritage or values. One essayist -- possibly in the Weekly Standard -- dubbed him the "Rebel-in-Chief." I supported him -- including at one vastly outnumbered counterprotest -- due to my own stubbornness and admiration for his willingness to stand up against the establishment.
So imagine how I felt in 2015 when Donald Trump, the embodiment of the liberal Manhattan establishment, denounced Bush and the Democrats as members of a "globalist" cabal. Bush was the guy fighting the globalists. And what did Trump do in his term? He pursued almost all the policies of the Democrats, as real conservatives expected. Trump does not fight: The wimp just talks and tweets.
As for those voters who support Trump because he promised to stand against the establishment, where were they when we needed them? Many of those voters are the same ones who elected Democrats in 2006 and 2008, to say nothing of 2012. And they deserve respect BECAUSE they only just got inspired?
So spare me instruction on how Trump was the one guy latching onto an important unrepresented sentiment. I was fighting against globalists; they weren't.