I’m taking a break from not talking about politics on Cicero and Adams anymore to talk about politics on Cicero and Adams. Since this year of Our Lord 2023 has begun, all of the worst people online and on air have tied themselves in knots arguing about whether or not Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will challenge President Trump in the 2024 Republican Presidential primary. Both the Trumpists and the DeSantoids are engaged in a weird game of one-upsmanship, competing for the dumbest possible take. But if you’ve been paying attention at all for the last year or so, it’s pretty obvious that there isn’t an argument to be had. Everybody on both sides is wrong. Except me— and you, since you are here reading this. I have no inside information from either camp, and I won’t make any claims that are above my pay grade. Everything I’m about to say is out in the open. So let’s dig in and try to understand what’s going on here.
A Note On “DeSanctimonious”
Before I get to the meat of this, I want to throw in a note about “DeSanctimonious.” Trump’s nickname for DeSantis as generated a lot of stir, but in context, it works. Trump rolled it out at a rally in Pennsylvania on November 5th. The day before (November 4th), DeSantis released a 2-minute ad that is, well, sanctimonious. It’s a montage of black and white photos of DeSantis with a narrator giving what sounds like a sermon about how, on the eighth day of Creation, “God made a fighter” to protect it from various and divers societal ills. It’s loaded with not-at-all subtle references to COVID and his (very excellent) response to the lockdowns and hysteria of 2020, but in the most Messiah complex-y language possible. Whoever came up with the idea for that ad should never work in political advertising again.
Also, a note in regards to “DeSanctus.” This is Trump’s new shorthand nickname for DeSantis. The Fox News types are trying to meme it into an unforced error, but again, it’s very simple and obvious what he’s doing: he’s just tired of spelling out “DeSanctimonious” every time. He’s done the same thing with all his other opponents: “Sleepy Joe Biden” became “Sleepy”; “Crooked Hillary” became “Crooked H” or just “Crooked.” Trump has a point he wants to make, and he simply doesn’t want to waste characters. You know this. They know it too, they just don’t care because they must dunk on Drumpf.
What Trump Gets Right And Wrong About DeSantis
At an instinctive level, Trump is largely correct about DeSantis, or at least what DeSantis represents. All of the worst people in the GOP establishment are throwing their weight behind DeSantis: Jeb!; Bill Kristol; the McCains; Jeff Roe; the donor class; Rupert Murdoch, and by proxy the “respectable” conservative commentators on the Fox News Channel. All the “conservatives” whose criticisms of Trump are weirdly the same as the Left’s. Even George Soros has expressed fear about Big Ron, an endorsement in and of itself (but that’s a different animal altogether). The GOP establishment sees the potential downfall of Trump and the rise of DeSantis as their ticket back onto the gravy train. Trump singlehandedly demolished the Bush dynasty. He smashed the dead consensus of the 20th century— interventionist foreign policy, valueless free trade, and feckless social liberalism in the flimsy mask of “sMaLL gOvErNmEnT”; coupled with a general weakness of will among Republican lawmakers— and replaced it an emergent new consensus of nationalism and cohesive social conservatism that actually looks like something our Founders might recognize (you know, those Founders that the GOPe loves to wax poetic about, without knowing anything about them besides lame platitudes). And while Trump has not and likely will not excise all the parasites and grifters from party leadership and policymaking, A LOT of power has gone unbrokered.
With Trump out of the picture, the establishment believes it can get its mojo back. The power brokers can cash in their favors and peddle their influence unencumbered again. Party leaders can go back to crowning favored sons for Congressional elections and Party chairmanships, and the Bushes and Romneys and McCains can groom the next generation of their political dynasties. Fox News can reclaim its monopoly on conservative opinion and messaging. And with enough people in the right places, the Republican Party can reject big government and the far-right and return to the uniparty consensus and small government conservatism of Ronald Reagan. Once the GOP “moves on from Trump,” the establishment can reclaim its party from those ugly people who do dirty things like work real jobs and pay taxes and vote. They can tune out all those calls to actually do something, and go back to comfortably managing the decline from their insular swamp bubble. They are, of course, wrong about this, but more on that in a little bit.
Trump knows all of this. He is acutely aware that the same people who stonewalled and sabotaged his presidency are out to excise him from the party permanently. He has been blasting Fox News and establishment-friendly “conservative” media outlets since 2020 because of the election. He’s done the same for the rest of the establishment. Trump is absolutely right to go after them. But he also sees DeSantis as the avatar of the establishment’s campaign against him, and as a result, he’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
For his part, I have to imagine that DeSantis is deeply hurt by Trump’s words. By all accounts, the two were very close friends just months ago. But the mainstream media and the establishment GOP have been relentlessly trying to drive a wedge between them (for much same reasons), and it seems to have worked. Trump no doubt feels deeply betrayed by DeSantis, even though he has done nothing wrong, and it is their common enemy that has pitted one against the other. Trump can’t see through that, to his detriment. But DeSantis can, which is why I think he hasn’t really responded to Trump. He usually deflects in some way when an MSM reporter asks; when pressed on it one-on-one by a friendly, his responses come off as genuinely perplexed, even pained. He’s trying his absolute best to stay away from the issue and not make it worse for everybody involved by stoking Trump’s rage. DeSantis has nothing but good will towards Trump. But besides that, he wants to stay away from party infighting so that the party can succeed.
DeSantis Wants The GOP To Succeed
During the last weeks of the 2022 general elections, DeSantis took to Twitter and endorsed every single statewide candidate in a battleground race, across the board, for better or worse. But more important than wins and losses was the message it sent. He endorsed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano when the state GOP and the Republican Governors Association hung him out to dry; he did the same for Blake Masters in Arizona and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire when the Senate Leadership Fund did the same. He also endorsed Joe O’Dea for Senate in Colorado. Joe O’Dea had no business running as a Republican in Colorado, or any other state, for that matter; in fact on social issues he ran to the left of Democrat Michael Bennet. DeSantis endorsed him anyway. It was roundly (and rightly) decried as an absolute L for Big Ron, but the seat mattered more than the virtues or vices of any particular candidate. DeSantis had a winner’s mindset.
The number one reason DeSantis won’t challenge Trump for the nomination (in theory) is the same reason he endorsed a clown like Joe O’Dea: he wants the Republican Party to win. He isn’t going to risk the future of the Party unless it is clear that he can win and take the rest of the Party with him; as of right now, that isn’t the case. In fact, a 2024 run would be a disaster either way it ends. If he runs and wins, Trump will never let him live it down. It would make him very likely to run third party; and Trump wouldn’t be the Ross Perot spoiler— the vote share would likely be evenly split, and would probably favor Trump. DeSantis would be the spoiler, pulling the already small anti-Trump GOP vote and probably some independents: probably about 10-15%. But the more likely outcome is a crushing defeat for DeSantis. He would do well in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and the pundit class and NeverTrump types would start to chatter. But then he would get rolled in the Rust Belt, rejected brutally by Obama-Trump voters and the white working class, who don’t relate to his Harvard/Yale education and his polished mannerisms. Without the white working class, the GOP doesn’t have a path to victory; and therefore, neither does he. And after being rejected by Republican primary voters, he loses the backing of the establishment. Post-mortems get published in The Bulwark and The Dispatch and the Washington Examiner scolding the Republican base for not swallowing the poison pill; others pick nits that DeSantis didn’t do this or talk about that message effectively enough. DeSantis will get branded as a failure, and Trump won’t throw him a lifeline. Sure, we’ll get two years of Punished DeSantis; but after that, he’s likely out of politics for two years, and becomes just another pretty face who lost to Trump. In the meantime, his voters, especially the NeverTrump crowd, still carve out that same share of the vote from Trump, which means another win for Democrats at the presidency and likely down ballot as well. Either way, the Republican Party loses, badly.
DeSantis won’t sacrifice the future of the party– mainly because he is the future of the party, and takes that responsibility seriously, which explains his tour of American cities promoting Florida’ pro-police laws and policies. The pundit class swears up and down the wall that this speaking tour is incontrovertible evidence that he’s just about to announce his Presidential campaign. But if that were true, why would he be going to New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago, instead of Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina? Well for starters, two of those cities– Philly and Chicago– have mayoral elections; in both cases, crime is a major issue. Then there’s New York, where Republican Lee Zeldin made some serious inroads in Brooklyn and the Bronx in the 2022 Governor’s race by running on crime. Indeed Zeldin and DeSantis have something in common: they both pulled their parties out in front in 2022. By all accounts, New York and Florida were the lone bright spots in an otherwise sucky midterm cycle, and it happened only because Zeldin and DeSantis offered a positive vision for their voters. A positive vision. That’s what DeSantis is doing. This speaking tour is DeSantis promoting his agenda around the country, showing what effective Republican governance looks like. He’s not setting an agenda for a future time, he’s touting the agenda he’s already set, and trying to get other red states to follow his lead. He’s trying to give residents of Philadelphia and New York and Chicago an alternative, a reason to vote Republican. He’s trying to give leaders in Iowa and Nevada a platform and a model for effective, popular governance. He’s trying to give skeptical, low-propensity voters a reason to turn out for Republicans at all levels. You could say that instead of running for President of the United States, he’s running for president of the American Right. DeSantis has a concise agenda and platform that he can advance effectively at the state and local level, a platform he simply couldn’t advance as President. He is squeezing every last drop of his influence to put forth a Republican agenda for the 21st century in the most effective way possible, and he’s in the perfect position to do so.
What The GOP Establishment Gets W(Ron)g About DeSantis
The GOP establishment thinks DeSantis’s moment is now, in part because 2024 is very likely their last chance to retake their party.
Trump has by no means been the perfect conduit for the America First mandate, but he does enable and invigorate it. If Trump wins, the MAGA/ America First wing of the party will in all likelihood become the dominant force. MAGA candidates at all levels will sweep in behind Trump’s momentum and put pressure on leadership to fulfill promises. State and local parties will be filled with MAGA volunteers and board members. Even with the establishment at the top of the RNC, Congress, the Senate, and state legislatures, the power would be with the people, and they would be held accountable to them.
However, if they get their way, the GOPe will make the 2022 primaries look like a first date. There won’t be any primaries like we know. It will be Alaska-style Ranked Choice Voting all the way down. And just like Alaska, RCV will shelter rotten incumbents from having to face accountability from voters, and essentially force voters into choosing between an establishment pick and a Democrat (but I repeat myself). In states that don’t adopt RCV, The NRCC and NRSC, the Senate and Congressional Leadership Funds, and the PACs that are backed by leadership and Adam Kinzinger, will dump resources into primary races so that /ourguys/ don’t win. They will waste their war chests on primaries and lose seats to Democrats to defeat challenges from their Right flank— exactly like they did in 2022. State parties will push out their pro-MAGA members, and as I said previously, simply stop listening to their voters.
Of course, they have to beat Trump. And DeSantis is, ideally, the key to that. By occupying much of the Trump lane of the Republican base, while being a respectable, polished politician, he is the perfect Trojan horse for them to sidle in through the cracks— filling in administrative vacancies, collecting favors in exchange for campaign contributions, and circulating in the think tanks and policy centers that influence the administrative state. Folks like Jeb! will become campaign surrogates, while big dollar donors and DeSantis’s friends in the Swamp will leverage themselves into putting their people into advisory positions. They will use this power to subvert the America First mandate and re-establish the neocon policies of the last century. They’re already trying it: consider the Senate GOP response to the policy answers DeSantis gave to Tucker Carlson about the Ukraine invasion. The collective refrain effectively boils down to “I REALLY hope that he will come to see it our way wink wink nudge nudge we will destroy your career” And of course, they will get plenty of airtime from the MSM and Fox News, which they will use to talk discontented voters into compliance.
But the establishment is very wrong about this. First off, the party is way too far gone. The New Right movement has firmly taken over the party: from the House Freedom Caucus, to the Claremont Institute, to Revolver and Breitbart, to Twitter anons, the energy has shifted, and putting the interests of America First is the mandate of the people. Republican voters no longer sleepwalk through primaries and blindly vote for a ham sandwich with an “R” next to their name. Just look at who Republicans voted for in the 2022 primaries, or rather who they didn’t vote for in the general election. Much of the problem with turnout in 2022 was low-propensity voters who only showed up for Trump, and that’s a problem that the post-Trump GOP needs to fix with messaging and an agenda. If the establishment returns to power, those voters are gone. Only the New Right coalition can lead the Republican Party to victory in the 21st century.
Second, while Trump is the face and heart of the New Right, DeSantis has been steeped in it for his entire tenure as Governor. DeSantis took the issues Trump very clumsily brought out during the 2020 campaign, and made them winning policy positions. Even on foreign policy, DeSantis has taken a lot of cues from the Trump Doctrine (as evidenced by his answers to Tucker Carlson’s Ukraine questionnaire, which he later amended). There would be little difference between the two in governing style, either. But DeSantis has something Trump lacks: people. Trump got steamrolled by the Swamp during his first term, because he was simply overwhelmed and didn’t know who to trust in Washington (the answer of course is no one). I won’t hold that against him. In fact, it’s sort of a Shakespearean tragic foil. The forces stacked against him were so vast and moved from all angles at all times to break him, that he hardened himself. His sense of loyalty became deeply personal, and now only those who stuck by him at every stage are allowed into his circle. But that has also made him vulnerable to subversion by establishment players who flatter their way into his circle without really having his interests or the interests of his supporters at heart.
DeSantis, on the other hand, has a robust circle of people who do put his and his supporters’ interests first. These people are the best of the best. I’ve interacted with several through Claremont. They know what time it is, and what must be done to arrest and reverse the decline of America. If DeSantis does win the Presidency, many of those people will follow him, and they will assume those roles that are closest to him. He will also have an excellent talent pool to pick from for Cabinet positions and others that require Senate confirmation. The establishment will put some of their pieces on the board, but if they think they can force their way back into positions of influence, in a DeSantis administration, they seriously underestimate Big Ron.
Which is what it boils down to. They’re simply wrong about him, but they’re too excited by their own hot air to can’t see it— yet.
What DeSantis Benefits From Waiting Until 2028
Yes, you read that correctly. The right time for DeSantis to run is not this cycle, but the next one.
I’ve already established the fact that DeSantis will get rolled in the rust belt. Look no further than 2022. Big Ron and Glenn Youngkin together couldn’t move the needle for Tudor Dixon in Michigan. How much better could he realistically do for himself? The attacks on Dr. Oz as an elitist, out-of-town carpetbagger apparently worked for John Fetterman in Pennsylvania; Oz lost. A lot of those same criticisms can and will be leveled against DeSantis by voters in Northeast and Central Pennsylvania and the Ohio River Valley. But white working class voters in the Rust Belt see Trump as a kindred spirit— a straight-talker who speaks their language and understands their needs and political interests. They voted for Obama over John McCain Mitt Romney; what makes you think they would vote for a guy backed by the same establishment figures they despise? It doesn’t matter how smoothly DeSantis talks about stopping CRT or Radical Gender Theory. The people in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin want to hear how he’s going to restore the industries that powered the country for 100 years; how we’re going to make things in America again. And they want to hear it straight up, without scripts and from someone who understands them. Until DeSantis can do that, he won’t win. But I’ve already written at length about the negatives. There are very positive reasons that DeSantis should wait until 2028.
First, Trump won’t be a factor. If he wins, he’ll be termed out. If he loses, he won’t be a viable option in 2028; he can’t be. Trump will be 82 years old and twice “defeated.” He would simply be too old, and, ideally, kind of washed. In the ideal scenario, 2024 and 2026 will see a lot of America Firsters win elections; instead of just a bench full of prospects, the Republican Party will have a genuine America First/ New Right governing caucus in Congress and in the states. More leaders in the Party directing the America First mandate with courage and potency will inevitably lead to us finding the rightful heir to Trump, and we likely won’t need him. This is a good thing. And right now, Heavy D is the heir apparent (if either had won, Kari Lake or Doug Mastriano would likely have had a much more viable claim to the throne, but alas). Only he has captured the potency and urgency of the Trump moment in any real way.
DeSantis also has to ward off the establishment. The best way I can think to do that is by denying them what they want. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth if he puts off a run. Many of the “nice conservatives,” the Fox News class, will continue to wish-cast about him waiting unto the eleventh hour to announce, but many of the worst names in the NeverTrump crowd, the Bulwarks and the Dispatches and the neocons, will rage. Many a column will be written about how DeSantis is a coward who couldn’t stand up to Trump, or worse, that he is one of Trump’s vassals. They will then flock en masse to a Nikki Haley or a Tim Scott, someone who better represents Bill Kristol’s loathsome foreign policy or David French’s nasal platitudes about how Drag Queen Story Hour is a “blessing of Liberty.” They won’t return for 2028, either; by then, Big Ron will just become the next neo-Hitler, Worse Than Trump (™). You judge a man, especially by a political leader, by his enemies. By waiting until 2028, DeSantis has a chance to make some excellent ones.
An additional four years of prep time also gives DeSantis time to hone his agenda properly. Without the establishment leeching off of him, he can fill the void with thinkers policy wonks from Claremont and not Claremont (I keep picking on them but a) I am a Claremonster and b) there really aren’t that many other organizations on the New Right; American Moment, The Heritage Foundation, Club for Growth somewhat, Hillsdale; that’s about it). He also has a chance to go to those places where he’s politically weakest (the Rust Belt) and listen to those voters. By listening to those voters, he can start to craft his own domestic agenda.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, I would gladly vote for either one. But as I sit here writing this, DeSantis hasn’t announced his campaign, and I hope and beg to The Powers That Be that he won’t. I don’t think losing would permanently scuttle his political future, but it would put him in a rut that would be extremely hard to climb out of.
In the four/five year interim, the most essential thing that Big Ron must do to become a worthy to America First is become his own man— because he simply is not. That’s not entirely a bad thing, because from a social policy standpoint, he has put some of the best people in positions of power and advanced the best agenda in all of politics. But it also makes him vulnerable to the whims of the establishment, mainly because they are the ones writing the checks. The influence of big dollar donors is the great tragedy of our politics, and they obviously wield enough influence to talk down the boldest of men. The Twitter anon FischerKing has a great thread on how money influenced DeSantis to change his rhetoric on Ukraine. It cause quite a stir in the replies, but for all the talk, it bodes poorly for Heavy D.
As FischerKing illustrates, DeSantis lacks the financial independence to buck the system. Therefore, one of two things must happen: either he must build an apparatus and become independent of the donor class; or the donor class must lose its outsized influence— it must be torn down from without. Trump cannot and will not do it by himself— there must be an army of other candidates and leaders like him to help— but it must be done, for the future of the Republican Party.
The other thing DeSantis must do is build a legitimate America First agenda. The anti-woke stuff has been awesome. But it won’t win the 2024 election, nor 2028 if that’s his top campaign plank. Where is his plan to restore American manufacturing? What has he done in his tenure in politics, as a Congressman and Governor, to bring criticalindustry back to Florida or the rest of the United States? Where is his commitment to put an end to ridiculous foreign policy adventures? He has a back-and-forth record as a Congressman, and has already shown in recent weeks that he is vulnerable to the establishment consensus. He did have excellent fiscal policy in Congress, and I actually agree with Social Security reform (which he backed in Congress but has walked back as Governor). But he has benefited from GOP supermajorities in the Florida Legislature; he needs much more political will and capital to balance the budget and reform entitlements.
But the most significant reason DeSantis shouldn’t run is one completely out of his control. It just simply isn’t his moment. With each passing day, the energy seems to mirror the energy of 2016— or even like a second 2016— like we’re not doing anything new, just doing what has already been done over again. We’ve been forced to return to the status quo, and we need someone to blow it all up again, not simply to halt the decline. DeSantis can lay a solid foundation for the next generation of Republicans, but not before the decrepit facade of the establishment, at both the party and regime level, is demolished to make room for it.
For all his foibles and flaws, and for all his questionable decisions and bad personnel choices past and present, Trump is the only person who can do this. The reason is simple: it’s personal. Trump has had the full force of the regime leveled against him. Bogus criminal charges, civil litigation, election forni- fortification, impeachments, judicial obstruction, Congressional opposition, primary campaigns, sabotage from within the Republican Party, the list goes on and on. He has withstood it all. If he wins; if he is vindicated, triumphant even, what won’t he do? Trump is not one to forgive and forget, and his vendetta is fully justified. Furthermore, he now talks openly about how he represents retribution for his supporters. Trump can’t do it all, and he won’t, but there is no person more suited to our moment than him.
There are a lot of good people, strong allies, who are pulling for Big Ron. There are also a lot of people in Trump’s orbit who are enemies of the America First mandate. And both sides are twisting themselves into vitriolic knots. All this mental gymnastics succeeds in doing is making both sides look like idiots. It also enables all of the worst people in the Republican Party: the power brokers, the donor class, the pundits and the laptop class, to skate by. All of these people are throwing their weight behind DeSantis, and these are the people who must be crushed if the Republican Party is going to have a future. Trump has flaws and failures and bad people in key positions. Many of them are significant fetters on the America First agenda. But the bad apples can be plucked and replaced, and a strong pressure campaign can force him to the right where he needs to be. There was a time when I hoped Trump and DeSantis could run as an unstoppable joint ticket. That time seems to have passed. But the infighting between the Trumpists and the DeSantoids is the greatest threat to victory in 2024. Big Ron will have his turn. But for now, he and his people need to step back and help the clear front runner; first to win the election in, then to implement a real America First agenda. Anything less makes you an enemy.
There’s plenty of room on the Trump train, and a lot of good work to be done. It’s going at full steam, so get in line or get behind.
Well thought out. A good read.
This is the first attempt I've seen from anyone to try and contextualize everything that's happening in the GOP Primary.
I disagree with a fair amount of your assertions here, but I'm glad that someone wrote this tome and you raised a lot of interesting points.