Trump's temper tantrum

Including a confession that he endorses candidates arbitrarily

Donald Trump threw a temper tantrum yesterday. There’s nothing new about that.

Nor is there anything new about the fact that the target of Trump’s ire — Ron DeSantis — is neither a squish nor a loser. Trump viciously attacked Ted Cruz, no one’s idea of a squish or loser, during the 2016 campaign. Cruz was running against Trump. DeSantis seems poised to.

But Trump’s attack on DeSantis comes in a context that differs from his prior attacks against leading Republicans. When Trump went after Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, he had a huge amount of momentum. Bush, Rubio, and Cruz were struggling to keep up.

Now, it’s DeSantis, coming off of a hugely impressive victory, who has momentum. He’s a conservative hero, riding high.

I can’t say that Trump is struggling to remain relevant, but he is struggling to stay where he is.

Accordingly, Trump’s outburst against DeSantis smacks of jealousy and desperation. It seems far more likely to hurt than to help the former president.

This assessment is supported by the negative reactions collected at Townhall. They include this tweet from Jesse Kelly:

Apparently Trump is going to just embarrass himself and go down in flames and I’ll be honest, it saddens me a little. Not how the Trump era should end [Ed: Or maybe a fitting end].

And this one from Joe Concha:

For those who argue that Trump is just fighting back against DeSantis, point to any public statement of DeSantis saying anything negative about Trump. This is a one-way street on that front and the former president looks small in doing so

There’s another point about Trump’s tirade that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere. Trump said this:

Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017 — he was politically dead, losing in a landslide to a very good Agriculture Commissioner, Adam Putnam, who was loaded up with cash and great poll numbers. Ron had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win. I didn’t know Adam so I said, ‘Let’s give it a shot, Ron.’

Trump thus admits that he endorsed one GOP candidate over another — a “very good” state official — because he “didn’t know” the latter candidate. One might reasonably expect a GOP kingmaker to do a little outreach before choosing which of two good candidates to endorse for a position as important as Governor of Florida.

But it would be unreasonable to expect this from Trump. He goes by whom he knows, who is more of a celebrity and, of course, who has said something nice about him.

Is it any wonder that Trump endorsed losers in key races this year? More broadly, is it any wonder that Trump staffed his administration with so many underperforming officials, most of whom he became disillusioned with?

There are a number of good reasons to prefer Ron DeSantis over Donald Trump for the GOP nomination in 2024. As I’ve argued before, attention to detail and administrative competence rank high among them.