With a less than awe-inspiring initial declaration of his candidacy for President, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has seemed uncharacteristically low-key as of late. But as Steve Green reports, this Republican governor is a man with a plan, and that plan has a decidedly beautiful ring to it.
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32 replies on “DeSantis, Rebooted”
Q: Do you know why Nathan Hale was hung and John Adams became our first VP?
A: Nathan Hale got first choice.
On my 2nd listen to this DeSantis Rebooted, it hit me like a hammer striking a big loud bell…what I took away from Scott comments was that while all the points in DeSantis’ plan were spot on, being able to distill it down to something as simple and recognizable as MAGA would be a benefit to the campaign, especially on the long grind to the primary.
DeSantis has his Declaration of Economic Independence, and Biden and the socialist left has Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. One’s uniquely American, one is completely socialist.
DeSantis just came out with Ameica’s DEI.
America’s Declaration of Economic Independence.….
has a nice ring to it.
“Czar of Grabbing the Leftists By The Balls And Squeezing”
Is that a GS20 position? Does it come with a West Wing office? Or is it in the executive building? Is there a budget allowance for gloves?
(cuz: Eww!)
Are gloves with spikes allowed?
Asking for a friend…
My concern is that Trump will strike a deal to quit his presidential run in order to avoid conviction in WDC (southern justice), an ankle bracelet, and jail time. Will Trump leave MAGA supporters & the Republican party high and dry and no way to win the White House. Odds?
As soon as Trump names his VP candidate, Jack Smith and the Biden DoJ will press charges against him for something, anything! Scott Walker was so successful in his state because he spent several years researching the left in his state. Trump’s first term was the research phase. We knew the deep state and Bureaucracy was bad but we did not believe it was as bad as Trump, Navarro, and some Libertarians, were saying. Now we are convinced. This is a battle not a political competition. Trump’s the fighter. His “mistakes” are all tactical or strategic. Often bait for a trap the left walked into. The VP pick needs to be another fighter but not a state governor because you need the state governors on the job there. I do not yet see that candidate in the current list. You do not need administrators or managers; you need reformers and demolition experts. You need a hatchet man. There 20+ million people that need sacking and they will fight dirty.
Did anyone check Trumps plan?
If you search for Trump’s campaign you get reports about it but the campaign web site is 4 pages down in the Google search. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/ Expertly Shadow banned.
Steve, I was at MMA today and I mentioned you to a cadet who was complaining about doing a job that was not up to his standards. However he had no idea who you are. That being said it’s a great place, you should talk about it more when you can. Carry on.
I know it will never happen but this is what I would like to see.
Trump wins and has Desantis as his VP. Spends two years draining the swamp, hitting the left and cleaning house.
Then resigns. (See what I mean it will never happen?)
Then Desantis wins the presidency two times in a row, for a total of ten years.
That is possible under the Constitution. More than ten is not.
Trump attacks loudly and gets the flak, while Desantis quietly dismantes. Trump derangement syndrome in effect, Desantis is never noticed until it is too late.
But it will never happen.
But I can dream.
IF something like you’re describing happened, something similar with those or other primary characters, and we went 10 years with genuine, conservative policies, the U.S. would be in such great shape financially, militarily and globally that no Democrat would have any hope of winning the White House for decades.
The Democrats know this too. That’s why they pulled out all the stops to destroy Trump. It’s not that Trump is such an amazingly fantastically stupendously wonderful leader. It’s that any good leadership that uses common sense and patriotism is simply bound to improve the nation and destroy the Democrats.
Because if the nation is improved materially and substantially under Conservative leadership no one needs the Democrats anymore. The lunatics and deviants are relegated back to their proper place of keeping their weird abnormal peccadilloes in their closets where they belong.
Where Trump screwed up. among other things, was letting them know he was doing that before the time had come to complete their destruction.
If we could get 10 years of good, competent Conservative leadership — Aside from the amazing gains we would make as a country, it would force the Democrat Party back into some semblance of recognition of reality. They’d have to come back from the far left lunatic fringe if they had any hope at all of ever gaining power again.
The problem with Democrats is their vote accumulation methods lead them ever and ever further from reality and what’s good for America. It’s the nature of the populist beast.
The problem with the Republican Party is that historically they let the Democrats do that. They’ve let them do that for so long that the Democrat Left now believes it is “normal” and it’s us normal people that are the shameful weirdos.
The Democrat Party needs to abandon the far Left. The Left needs to be smashed once or twice a century so that it has to start all over again.
If we could get 10 years of solid, good Conservative leadership we could not only do much better as a nation and thereby improve the lot of the entire globe, we could get Democrats to stop trying to destroy our country. If pandering to the destructive lunatic fringe no longer works for them they’ll have no choice but to reassess their methods. That would be a major plus.
Oh, they’ll get back to the far left lunatic fringe again eventually. And the need will arise to smash them again. The political pendulum inevitably swings. But the oscillation will have been changed in favor of a strong America and a better world.
Your math is defective. 4 years of Trump followed by 8 years of DeSantis or whoever is 12 years and beats 10 years. The reforms needed will probably take 20+ years so the question is not who follows Trump but how to ensure that no one from the DNC ever gets back into the White House for 2 decades. In Australia we managed 16 years, Bob Menzies After WW2 and he had served 2 years before the war but got stuck in London when the Germans took north Africa. John Howard had 11 years to reform (late 90’s early 2000’s). Labors Kevin Rudd, a Maoist Diplomat turned politician, reversed that progress in 4 years. That’s the problem. You need to find irreversible reforms. That’s far more than mere politics.
Two years of Trump followed by ten of Desantis is also 12 total years.
I just think Trump is better on attack although Desantis is no slouch.
Trump is a wrecking ball. Eventually the wrecking ball is finished. Then you need a builder. I think Desantis is a better builder.
A purple state turned deep red that quickly supports my thinking that he is a good builder.
Rebuilding will start no earlier than 2028 and it will require one of two things beforehand. The left cities leave America, seceding from the Trump USA (I don’t think that will be successful but it means they will not vote at all in 2026 and 2028) or enough people on the democrat party gets prosecuted for non political crimes: pedophile; fraud; theft; riot & violence, that the party is effectively de-listed in some states.
This situation is new in the USA but not new in the world. Two of the known resolutions are secession and party bans. Its why there is an India and a Pakistan and Pakistan split forming Bangladesh. There are other cases in Africa.
The Left seceding is not talked about much but its more likely on a big Trump win than the Right seceding. If Texas and Florida seceded everyone knows that all the central states would join them and so would the rural parts of the coastal states.
The result is the same as if the Leftist cities seceded. Baltimore, New York, Los Angelis, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, might grab a few miles of hinter land. None would be connected or viable.
That’s all completely ridiculous. No one is seceding from the U.S. They know that would be suicide. I can’t imagine where you would get such absurd ideas.
Desantis turned purple Florida bright red without Miami, Tallahassee and Orlando even mumbling about something as silly as secession. He even slew the giant Disney Corporation in Orlando and no one in Orlando even said a single word about secession. He not only prevented the bulk of damage due to stupid COVID policies he rebuilt Florida the same way he would the U.S.
Which is why Florida is now a bright Red state. Places like Florida and leaders like Desantis are our greatest and very real hope. I’m not saying Desantis is the new Trump, I’m saying we need leaders like him.
We’ll never get those leaders if Donald Trump and his gargantuan ego have anything to say about it.
The Leftists are evil but not stupid. They know that if they somehow managed to secede that would be the end of them. They know that the Right would cut off food, power and water to their cities. They know that they’d lose all that juicy Federal tax money that they use to buy votes. They know they’d be deposed and any territory that manages to successfully secede would ultimately come begging to the real U.S. for readmission to the Union.
The whole idea is just dumb. Not only dumb but demonstrates a total lack of grasp on reality. Those Leftist city politicians know better than to kill and eat the goose that lays the golden eggs.
You really ought to know that too and it’s astounding that you don’t appear to.
I did not say they would succeed or that it was viable, just that they, the left, are dumb enough to try.
And I said that secession or attempted secession is not happening because the Left is NOT “dumb enough to try”.
One of the worst and most stupid things you can do in any conflict, and this is most definitely a conflict, is to assume your enemy is stupid and will do only stupid things. Along with that kind of stupid assumption goes an underestimation of the depths to which human perfidiousness and debasement will sink.
Just because there are a lot of stupid people backing the Left does not mean the leadership of the Left is stupid too. Purple haired sky-screaming landwhales are useful idiots, they are not the strategists and leaders of the Left. The proof this is true is the success the Left has been enjoying so far.
Your assessment is completely ridiculous. It’s typical of the view non-Americans have of American politics and society. When I lived in Australia I had the signal pleasure of educating quite a few Aussies on the absurd misconceptions they had about the United States. America is not a land of stupid people who can’t see the obvious but it is also not a land of simple problems with simple solutions.
Your country is in much worse shape than America. The Aussie Left isn’t stupid either and they’re enjoying a LOT more success in Oz than the Left is in America. You’d do well to sweep your own doorstep first rather than come up with absurd evaluations of our problems and ridiculous pronouncements on what America’s future holds.
If you were making sense I’d treat you like someone who makes sense, Aussie or not. You’re not making sense and frankly after you called us all a bunch of morons I’m not a lot interested in what you have to say. If I notice that you cease to be moronic yourself I’ll reassess my position. I gave you the benefit of the doubt once upon a time and you squandered that.
I think very highly of DeSantis. As a Canadian, with no dog directly in the fight, but someone who spends up to 182 days / yr in Florida, DeSantis is next to god. I have 2 concerns with DeSantis running for President, 1) Is Florida red forever now? All it takes is one solid election result? I’m not sure the Dems are ready to give up on ruining Florida, and 2) DeSantis is backed by the Bush / Cheney / Rove cabal.These are the ultimate DC insiders. They couldn’t care if DeSantis wins the Presidency. They will do fine under a Dem President too. All they want, is to stop Trump.
I am less convinced the Bush/Cheney/Rove bunch are backing DeSantis as much as they are opposing Trump. Since no one else breaks 3%, they have to back DeSantis or stay silent. Karl Rove doesn’t know how to stay silent.
If Trump would step aside and “anoint” DeSantis, the Republicans would be unbeatable…….IMHO. Not going to happen, but that is the way to guarantee a win.
If Trump did that Maga would lynch both of them. This is a battle; don’t change the general mid fight. DeSantis and the others know this, they are only running to force reforms at the RNC and the presidential debates committee and Trump needs those reforms. I still don’t know what Mistakes you morons think Trump made. Everything was tactical and strategic. Show me a mistake and I will show you which leftist or RINO it as aimed at wrecking.
Just who the hell do you think you’re calling “you morons”?
First of all, you have no dog in this hunt. You’re an Aussie and having lived in your country I can state with total certainty that you would do much better to concentrate on your own political problems than worrying about ours. Sweep your own doorstep first. Your opinion on American politics means nothing because you do not have to suffer the direct results of any misguided advice you might give.
Second of all, I can name one very huge mistake Donald Trump made. He turned the United States of America, our economy, our legal processes, and our general society over to a putz political appointee with a record of dismal failures. That putz would be Anthony Fauci, apparently you’ve forgotten about that fiasco. Which just happened to be one of the very worst in American history and it’s all on Donald John Trump.
You can make excuses for him but at the end of the day it was Trump’s decision to make and no matter what other influences might have been brought to bear it was still all on him and no one else. When we needed him to stand up, he caved, shut up and sat down. He didn’t rise to the challenge, he was clearly and undeniably out of his depth. That was a serious mistake that we’re still paying for and probably made it possible for the current potted plant to gain the Oval Office.
Another big mistake he made cost us the Senate. Twice. Once in 2020 by discouraging voter turnout in GA and again in 2022 by picking some really terrible candidates based solely on the criteria of if they had previously supported him or not. Both times were examples of sheer political stupidity and childishness. Donald Trump personally killed The Red Wave.
I know all the absurd arguments about Trump’s endorsements …
“That role goes beyond simply a numerical scoreboard of endorsements. Trump deterred some potential candidates, even incumbents, from running. He endorsed unsuccessful primary challengers to candidates who won in November. He helped some candidates win their primaries with decisively timed interventions. He endorsed others only when they had locked up their nominations, or only in the general election. Once the campaigns began, some Trump-endorsed candidates ran standard Republican campaigns; others, even those not formally endorsed by Trump, went all-in on 2020 stolen-election theories. The latter fared much worse.” -The National Review
Thirdly, you sure as hell DO fire a general in mid fight. Lincoln fired Fremont and McClellan. Roosevelt fired Short and Kimmel for not preparing properly for the Pearl Harbor attack. GW Bush fired Fallon for his defeatism in Iraq. Etc. When a general isn’t winning, he gets fired.
Trump may or may not win the coming election but keeping him on because he’s “a general in mid fight” is about the lamest excuse I’ve seen for Trump yet. What Trump is winning is the hearts and minds of his own admirers. Which is very low hanging fruit indeed. It’s unlikely that will get him enough votes to retake the Presidency and that’s just a fact of life. He may get enough votes above and beyond the Trumpazoids but that remains to be seen.
Just because someone is leading the polls and becomes the Republican candidate doesn’t mean he’s the right, or even a good, choice. See the disastrous election results of John McCain and Mitt Romney for historical realities.
Picking the wrong candidate, no matter how popular he might be with some people on the Right, is a recipe for disaster.
Stick your “moron” nonsense where the sun doesn’t shine.
We can’t fix our mess while your billion are Marxists are secretly funding our major leftist parties and providing billions of dollars of free web services to them. We are fighting Soros on steroids. Even the Chinese when they interfere are here are using US based fronts. The USA being a corrupted superpower is important globally.
You know what they say about excuses right? It wouldn’t matter how much of “our billions” are funding major Leftist efforts if there weren’t so many damn leftists in Oz. Money does not change people’s minds who were not already predisposed to an idea or agenda anyway. THAT is why Conservatism is still alive and a contender in America.
“Our billions” that are being used to promote Leftism are not coming to you from our government. They’re coming from private sources. The only thing we, and you, can do about that is say “no thank you” to what they’re peddling.
Of the “our billions” that do come from our government are included Australia being under the defensive umbrella of the United States of America. WE provide a nuclear umbrella for you so that YOU don’t have to have your own nukes. We negate the nuclear threat you would otherwise experience from China, India and Pakistan. Then you waste money that would otherwise go for your own defense on socialist programs to buy Australian votes. Your problems in that regard stem more from a European attitude than anything that comes from America.
Europeans are doing exactly the same thing as Oz in spending money that should go for their own defense on socialist agendas.
(I’ve told my Senator that America should cut Australia loose and make you defend your own damn selves. There is little or nothing that comes out of Australia that America cannot live without or get elsewhere. You need us a LOT more than we need you. What we don’t need is supposed friends like Australia spitting on us. Lucky for you that Senator and the U.S. Government are not likely to take my advice.)
At the end of the day, Aussies are responsible for Australia and no one else. Having travelled over most of the globe including Australia I cannot even begin to tell you how sick I am of everyone everywhere blaming us for their problems. Put on your big boy pants and deal with your own villains.
You said Trump never made any mistakes. Trump made a LOT of mistakes and that’s why we’re in the predicament we’re in right now.
Even if he had not made a single mistake the problem still remains that if he’s electable or not. That’s in question as I explained above.
If we don’t win, we can’t do anything. If we run Trump, despite the vitriol coming from Trumpazoids and people like you, we may not win even with the disaster that is the Biden Administration to bank off of. I’ve spoken with a lot of people that are not going to vote for Trump for a third time no matter what. They won’t vote for the other side either. Those people will sit out the next election if he’s the candidate. That’s scary AF and if you think things are bad now, wait and see how the world goes if we don’t win this next election.
A lot of stupid people seem to think that if Trump is the Republican candidate in 2024 that means an automatic win for the Republicans. That’s not even close to being certain. Those stupid people think “If we just run Trump we’ll get him back again and everything will be OK”. There is NO realistic basis for thinking something like that.
People that back Trump unconditionally, come hell or high water, win or lose and deny the likelihood of losing — Live in a Trump Bubble. Living in a bubble of any sort is never, ever a good idea.
Go ahead and pop your bubble. Join the real world.
If you want to discuss things in a civil, civilized fashion that would be great. If you are going to go around calling people morons then you’re going to get treated like a moron. The Golden Rule is not some namby-pamby pie-in-the-sky religious concept, it’s an observation of fact. You show people how you deserve to be treated by how you treat them. You can disagree if you like, you can’t go around calling us morons because all that does is prove you to be the actual moron. The proof is that if you weren’t a moron you’d already know all this and I wouldn’t have to explain it to you.
I like Contract with America 2.0.
The electorate is all too easily side tracked with fluff and flash, name calling, etc. The media exacerbates that, too. We need our political parties and our politicians to be held accountable and such contracts or “manifestos” can help do that. Then let the media hold their feet to that particular fire, as the media should be doing in a more general and neutral fashion anyway. Focusing the party on a smallish set of goals would also reduce the back and forth or behind the scenes bickering among the R’s that dilutes the core message. I am not sure if this process would actually corral the “special interests” into a more general welfare posture, but it can’t hurt.
If DeSantis does not get the nomination in 2024, he should go find a senior executive position in the real world of profit and loss, not some fancy NGO, but where real competition in the market is on display. This would give him more personal wealth so he can be less beholden to donor desires in 2028 or 2032, more experience with countering the world of government regulation and rules, and deeper plain executive experience (although he seems to be doing pretty well in that arena already).
I’ve been reading that the Democrats want Trump to run because they think there are so many who detest Trump that he’s guaranteed to lose. It’s a scary thought but they may be correct. On the other hand, many Americans might support him because they see this attack on Trump as unconstitutional and un-American and would vote for him regardless of their negative feelings for him. I just don’t know!
I don’t know for sure either but there’s something I do know for sure. Some people will use these attacks on Trump as a reason/excuse not to vote for him. I hate to let the bad guys win but there’s a larger issue here than the vindication of Donald Trump.
Another thing I do know for sure is that no other President in living memory ran for office with all the baggage Trump is dragging.
I think, and I hope I’m wrong, that there are too many people who love Trump for no other reason than that he’s Donald Trump and thus are victims of their own starry eyed delusions.
I think you are correct based solely upon the rampant vitriol that DJT zealots exhibit when any comment is made that does not consider Donald as the second coming of Christ. There are certainly a large number of such zealots.
Yeah, in this episode we hear Scott Ott say that the election is Trump’s to lose and that he’s the most likely Republican candidate.
That’s not the ringing endorsement required by the Trump zealots though it is a realistic view of the situation.
The fact that what Scott says is reasonable and realistic, yet Trump zealots attack him as a “Never Trumper” is de facto proof of starry eyed delusion. The starry-eyed deluded are neither real Conservatives nor patriots. You can’t put one man ahead of the nation and be a real patriot.
Bill and Steve also did not properly kneel at the altar of Donald Trump so I’m sure that there will be those who now include them in the category of “Never Trumpers” and will privately or publicly hold them in disdain thereby.
That is a good list and I agree with the guys that he needs to break it down Newt style.
He also needs more practice and needs to get out there more with one on one interviews. He recently (finally) did 45 minutes with Megyn Kelly and while she pushed pretty hard on a few things, he did very well overall. He needs to more of that.
She had a pretty good line of questioning on the Disney thing, them losing their special status. I think he could have had a better response for that.
But he needs to be available a lot more. Maybe he just didn’t feel ready for it yet. It’s early, but to quote Yogi, it gets later real early out there.
DeSantis is one of the best governors in my lifetime, well above Scott Walker, who was great. Ramaswami is a positive-attitude conservative thinker who is full of ideas I like. But Trump has been a populist firebrand who takes no guff with a four-year stint as President that accomplished nearly everything I could have ever hoped. If he wasn’t an assh*le, he never could have survived those four years. The overwhelming assault by the media and deep state have him poisoned to low-information voters, the biggest demographic. But all the baggage he brings, most stemming from his persona as the classic New York City alpha male (imagine all the ‘pearl-clutchers’ who think him distasteful), pale next to his record. Sure, the Fauci thing stunk. But he realized too late that the deep state saw the crisis and used it to murder him. Without CoVid-19 he would have won handily.
The other side of that argument is that if Trump wasn’t such an asshole he would never have drawn the lightning he’s now facing. By that I mean that he would have known better than to give his political opposition so much to work with.
At the end of the day, I don’t think Trump’s assholedness is a primary factor. Barry Big Ears was an asshole too, and his people and the media loved him. Trump’s problem was that he gave the other side way too much material to work with and they have the media on their side.
I’m nowhere near so predisposed to forgive Donald Trump over the Fauci/COVID-19 issues either. When we needed him most, when we needed him to shine with the very assholedness you seem to admire, he failed the nation badly.
If he’s elected there’s no reason to think he may not face another crisis as bad or worse. Among other issues we’re in a proxy war with a nuclear power right now and who knows what else might be lurking in ambush. It doesn’t matter whether the crisis is manufactured by his political opposition or not. There’s also no reason to think that when the chips are really and truly down he’ll do any better than he did with Fauci/COVID-19.
I’m not a Trumpazoid, I’m not willing to just blow that off and make excuses.
If he gets the nomination I’ll hold my nose, again, and vote for him. I don’t think that’s the case with a lot of Donald Trump fanatics. I’m not comfortable that they’ll turn out and vote if he’s not the candidate. He could truly lose this election for us because of them. Both because they’re making unrealistic expectations common regarding his electiblity and because for them it’s Trump or nothing and the country be damned.
Consider yourself properly chided 😉
Trump and DeSantis cannot run on the same ticket unless Trump moved out of Florida the electors for the state of Florida cannot vote for two persons from their own state
If Trump agrees to DeSantis as a running mate Trump will simply shift his state of residence back to New York. DeSantis, being governor of Florida doesn’t have the option to change his official state of residence. Trump could do so in a matter of weeks.
That’s what happened with GW and Dick Cheney. Cheney was a Texas resident but had a home in Wyoming, where he was previously a Senator, and just changed his official state of residence.
They’re not prohibited completely from being on the same ticket, there would just be a few hoops to jump through if that ends up being the decision.
So it’s not that they cannot run on the same ticket, it’s been done before and recently.
Whether a Trump/DeSantis ticket is likely or not is a completely different matter.