Ron DeSantis’s strategy of being a knock-off Trump and a weird little freak doesn’t seem to be paying off. https://t.co/gUamTjOnUl
— Jean-Michel Connard 🎃 (@torriangray) June 25, 2023
Critics say DeSantis has built his governorship around enacting laws that appeal to his conservative base but that, as a Harvard-trained lawyer, he knows are unconstitutional and not likely to take effect.https://t.co/Bx7lrZAEYe
— CNN (@CNN) June 25, 2023
As far as the professional politics-watchers can figure, DeSantis’s team has decided his best chance to win the primaries is by assembling a hardcore minority of fanatics while the dozen-plus remaining candidates chew each other up (also known as ‘the Ross Perot strategy’). Problem is, Perot ‘gifting’ Clinton the presidency happened thirty years ago, and when a certain Vermont Independent’s campaign tried this strategy in the 2020 primaries, it… did not go so well.
… In his early outreach to Republican voters as a presidential candidate, DeSantis has portrayed himself as a fighter and, crucially, a winner in the cultural battles increasingly important to conservatives. If elected to the White House, he’ll take those fights to Washington, he has said.
“I will go on offense,” DeSantis said in Iowa last month. “I will lean into all the issues that matter.”
But back in Florida, the agenda at the centerpiece of his pitch remains unsettled. Still ongoing are more than a dozen legal battles testing the constitutionality of many of the victories DeSantis has touted on the campaign trail. Critics say DeSantis has built his governorship around enacting laws that appeal to his conservative base but that, as a Harvard-trained lawyer, he knows are unconstitutional and not likely to take effect.
In addition to halting parts of the Stop WOKE Act, judges have also intervened to freeze implementation of other DeSantis-led laws cracking down on protesters and Big Tech. The six-week abortion ban he signed this year – which he has called the “heartbeat bill” when speaking to conservative, and especially evangelical, audiences – won’t take effect unless the state Supreme Court determines that a privacy clause in Florida’s constitution doesn’t protect access to the procedure. Disney – the most famous of DeSantis’ political adversaries – has argued in court that the governor overstepped his power when he orchestrated a takeover of the entertainment giant’s special taxing district to punish the company for speaking out against his agenda. So did Andrew Warren, the twice-elected Tampa prosecutor whom DeSantis suspended last year in another act of political retaliation.
DeSantis has repeatedly predicted he will ultimately prevail in these challenges. Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for his campaign, called the lawsuits “the tactics of activists who seek to impose their will on people by judicial fiat.”
Recent weeks, though, have seen a handful of reminders that several pillars of his record remain fragile even as they figure prominently in his stump speeches.
On Friday, a federal judge blocked a new Florida law that gave the DeSantis administration the power to shut down bars or restaurants that admit children to certain “adult live performances,” widely seen as a crackdown on drag shows.
Another federal judge said Wednesday that Florida could not restrict transgender adults on Medicaid from receiving gender-affirming care. The same judge earlier this month had stepped in to allow three transgender children to receive puberty blockers while a lawsuit seeking to overturn a state ban on the treatment proceeds. In both rulings, the judge said there was “no rational basis” to prevent the care and declared “gender identity is real,” casting doubts on the future of the state’s prohibition.
DeSantis of late has also taken credit for the GOP’s narrow US House majority, noting the highly partisan map he pushed through his state legislature, which ultimately helped Republicans net four critical seats. But those suing Florida to invalidate the state’s congressional boundaries have new reason for optimism after the US Supreme Court ordered Alabama officials to redraw its map to allow an additional Black-majority district. The DeSantis map was similarly criticized as diminishing the power of minority voters in Florida.
“Many of the things coming from the governor are form over function,” said Cecile Scoon, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, one of plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit. “They want to get to a certain result, so they find a means to do it, whether it makes logic or legal sense or not.” …
Acute Scott Walker Syndrome. https://t.co/XwMVHZeuu8
— zeddy (@Zeddary) June 25, 2023
DeSantis voters arrived at his events with "freedom" t-shirts, anger at covid restrictions and misgivings about Disney. One couple wondered why a Toy Story spin-off had to feature a same-sex kiss.
with @ColbyItkowitz @dylanewells https://t.co/2p6F0H9WmH
— Hannah Knowles (@KnowlesHannah) June 25, 2023
DeSantis *does* have his fans, though! It’s probably just as well, for people like BettyC and AdamS, that it’s been conclusively proven that ‘Build a wall across the peninsular access and declare Florida a new, independent republic’ is not a winning strategy…
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Standing outside an auditorium where Ron DeSantis drew more than 1,500 people this month, Dolores McManus explained why she’s supporting him for president — bringing up a TikTok video making the rounds on conservative media that shows a “fairy godmother’s apprentice” wearing a purple gown, blue eye shadow and a mustache and welcoming a young girl to Disneyland. A Fox News host dubbed the employee “Cinderfella.”…
“We need somebody that is a little more tame but yet is willing to go and do what’s right for the country,” McManus said, whether or not “other people think it’s wrong.”
As he seeks the Republican nomination, DeSantis has the support of more than 1 in 5 GOP voters, polls show. Many are longtime Trump supporters who have cheered the polarizing fights the Florida governor has waged over pandemic restrictions, schools and gender and now view him as a more effective champion for the battles to come, according to several dozen interviews at DeSantis events and other venues around the country. As a result, DeSantis is running ahead of every other non-Trump candidate in the GOP field.
But DeSantis has yet to bounce back from a double-digit drop in the polls this spring, and Trump has averaged more than 50 percent support in national polls of Republican voters since mid-May. The former president’s pull is clear even at DeSantis campaign stops, where some Republicans intrigued by the Florida governor were blunt about why they still find Trump more appealing — posing a stark challenge for DeSantis…
Many DeSantis backers said their support began with his handling of the pandemic — a political awakening for some voters affected by shutdowns, suspicious of vaccines, and outraged by mask mandates in schools and other settings.
The pandemic “showed how much the government will control people if you let them,” said Amy Blankenburg, who supports DeSantis and wore a “Make America Florida” hat to his campaign kickoff outside Des Moines. She said DeSantis’s coronavirus response in the Sunshine State was “a beacon of hope” amid other states’ overreactions — a signal to the rest of the country that “you do not have to be afraid of this.”…
“We sometimes call it the ‘free state of Florida,’” said David Gooding, a retired judge from Jacksonville, Fla. “Because we were free to do what we thought best.”…
She’ll probably also wonder why her grandkids won’t visit her pic.twitter.com/LIoj8KFqUv
— Michael (@jaxjm) June 25, 2023
War for Ukraine Day 487: Da Fuq They Doin Ova Der? Part III
Jerzy Russian
To know him is to loathe him. Christ, what an asshole!
cain
He’s losing battle after battle – including the battle against Trump. Imagine losing in the polls to a guy who is indicted as a sexual assaulter, and is currently under indicted for stealing the nation’s secrets, and will likely be sued again by E. Caroll.
Despite all that luggage, people still prefer Trump over him.
Hopefully, he does some more media interviews with folks other than Fox News. It will be fun seeing him melt down or trying to prevent a melt down.
Alison Rose
So if DeSantis mentions grabbing a woman by the pussy, then she won’t support him anymore? Also, “not the world I grew up in” tough shit you old bat. You don’t have some kind of Boomer right to a world that never changes from the shitfuck one you were raised in. Like yeah, gender roles were so much better when you were a young woman and couldn’t get a credit card and got called toots and slapped on the ass at work and it was totally fine for your husband to rape you. SOUNDS LOVELY.
piratedan
in the olden days that Nikki Haley longed for, someone bigger, stronger and less intelligent than himself would have pounded Ron DeSantis into a greasy stain on the sidewalk for simply being smaller, weaker and “smarter”. So, after all those years of school, college and the Military and the biggest lesson he learned from all of that varied education was to be a petty, petulant asshole?
talk about missing the plot……
HumboldtBlue
Speaking of weird acts, except this one turned into a celebration of music and song, Rick Astley had himself a weekend at Glastonbury.
Then he did AC/DC
different-church-lady
@HumboldtBlue: Most obvious Rickroll ever…
HumboldtBlue
@different-church-lady:
2007 was another time.
Amir Khalid
@cain:
As The Beatles are greater than their prefab imitators The Monkees, so TFG is greater than his prefab imitator Ron DeSantis. Trumpistas want Trumpism in all its magnificent toxicity, and they want it from TFG himself rather than a cheap knockoff like DeSantis.
Jay
Back in the day, we were playing the Nashwaulk kids for the Provincial Championship. Malacites. Treaty indiginous just across the river from us.
We had been hammer and tongs on the ice all season, but,……
We spent the previous summer canoeing together, the Saint John, the Nashwaulksis, the Maramachi, the Blackwater.
A bunch of morons started shouting racist slurs at the Nashwaulk kids.
Both the Nashwaulk Chieftains and the Forest Hill Warriors cleared their benches to go up into the stands and beat the shit out of the people yelling slurs.
Do you know how hard it is to climb up into the stands with skates on as a 15 year old and beat the crap out of an adult, even with a hockey stick, gloves and team mates?
Turned out, the season was a tie.
Probably some kind of “woke” shit
Participation trophies all round.
John Revolta
Mind you: the judicial challenges to DeSatan’s legislative Gish Gallop may well fall through as the Repubs continue their quest to control the country from the bench. Certainly he’s doing his part- Gov. Little Boots appointed four of the seven judges on the FL Supreme Court.
John Revolta
@John Revolta: Correction: FIVE out of seven (including the Chief Justice). DeSantis may be a no-personality asshole but he’s very effective. He locked Florida down real good real fast.
patrick II
If Trump falls out of the race, for whatever reason, who besides DeSantis would win the Republican nomination?
mrmoshpotato
We will root for injuries, you fascist, pudding-fingers little shit.
KrackenJack
@Jerzy Russian:
To know, know, know him
Is to loathe, loathe, loathe him
mrmoshpotato
She’s 76 according to the article. Someone needs a hobby that isn’t letting FOX News and other RWNJs take a shit in her skull (h/t driftglass).
Added
“I never liked the tweeting.” – bluegal (mocking RWNJs who’ll still vote for a non-Dump monster)
John Revolta
@patrick II: Right now the only guy I can see who would be a challenge would be Chris Christie. He’s a formidable campaigner- demolished Li’l Marco in a debate- but his appeal may also be limited as he’s a no-apologies Jersey asshole which I hear ain’t to everyone’s taste, the schmucks.
JWR
Okay, lady. how’s about we give you a front row seat to the “Shoot a Drag Queen” competition? Get some of that nice warm blood on your pretty little hands, even if “other people think it’s wrong.”
God, I hate these people.
Another front row seat comin’ right up, “Judge”!
NotMax
Too late. You’re already utterly offensive.
TriassicSands
@Amir Khalid:
Calling Trump “greater” than DeSantis doesn’t make any sense. If being preferred because you’re a proven fascist instead of a wannabe makes one “greater,” what possible meaning could “greater” have?
I’m afraid what we have is two monsters being judged by people too stupid and ignorant to have even the slightest understanding of what good, bad, and pure evil are and no capability to choose sensibly among them.
My response to both of them is more or less identical. They make me want to vomit. As far as I can tell, neither one of them has any positive qualities at all, but if one of them does it is DeSantis, though I’m not able to identify it and doubt it exists. If it does, it is probably fairly trivial. Trump has shown us repeatedly that he has no positive qualities at all.
Over the decades, the American electorate has shown that it is ill-equipped to make rational judgments about candidates, issues, or pretty much anything. That doesn’t mean they always get it wrong, but one look at Biden’s approval ratings tells me that millions of voters have no understanding of who he is or what he’s done. The fact that Trump is the leading candidate in the GOP says the same thing. The difference is that in the Democratic electorate, the voters are more likely to be decent people, who are simply too disengaged and ill-informed to be able to fairly judge candidates. But they can tell what pure evil is.
In 2020, after the most profound display of corruption, incompetence, and stupidity in our history, Trump still managed to get more votes than any other presidential candidate in our history with the exception of the man who beat him. We have to be thankful for that, but it doesn’t give me any real confidence in the electorate, since it was like having a contest between a delicious, organic meal and a platter of pure feces and the feces is still chosen by huge numbers of people.
The sad truth is that if Biden wins in 2024, it will not be because he has done a remarkably good job in the face of significant mindless opposition and deserves to win, but because of just how horrible the Republican candidate is.
Honestly, I find it impossible to decide who is worse, Trump or DeSantis, and the deciding factor has nothing to do with that, but simply which one Biden will have a better chance of beating. That is exactly what happened in any number of elections in 2022 — Lake, Oz, Walker, etc. lost close or fairly close elections not because of the superiority of the Democratic candidate, but because of how truly horrible the Republicans were. However, in a number of cases the truly terrible Republican candidate won with Ron Johnson in WI being perhaps the best example of all.
This country will never be truly safe until a sizable majority of voters is capable of making rational, reality based decisions. For now, we have to settle for them simply getting it right because the alternative is so horrendous.
Baud
“Therefore, I support candidates that will use the state to control people as much as possible.”
TriassicSands
@Baud:
What, you were expecting a Republican voter to make sense? I know you weren’t, but the media still treat the GOP as if it were a responsible governing partner and Republican voters as making tough decisions among a bunch of worthy candidates.
If someone really wants to get depressed, all they have to do is read (or watch) a focus group of Republican voters explain their voting choices. I’ve said this before, but if breathing required conscious thought, a lot of those voters would suffocate
Actually, she will support candidates who will try to use the state even more than what is possible, because even ‘conservative” courts will often reject their attempts. See courts striking down recent attempts to control the lives and speech of the trans and drag communities.
Martin
@Alison Rose: DeSantis is more likely to drop the ‘grab a man by the pussy’ line.
NotMax
@TriassicSands
Hard pass on that.
;)
Tony Jay
1) I do not care for this episode of Family Guy.
2) Translated into English, what the spokesman is saying is “the tactics of people who know the law, say we’re breaking the law, and are taking us to court in order to secure a ruling that yes, we are indeed lawbreakers”.
@TriassicSands:
It does in the original German.
oatler
@John Revolta:
ABC loves Christie. Even if he can’t be on the Sunday Power Panel, they’ll give us attentive coverage to his campaign.
mrmoshpotato
@Tony Jay:
LOL!
satby
@Baud: @TriassicSands: I had a conversation with a “normie” yesterday that clarified the realization that a lot of voters still don’t relate politics to policies, except in the most generic way (Republicans against taxes, Democrats pro-choice). Media is useless at context of how a party’s platform affects the policies (laws) it tries to enact. If the DeSantis voters knew that those laws likely wouldn’t stand after expensive litigation that they as taxpayers paid for, and that everyone in Tallahassee was in on the con, how many would still be happy with him? If they had a grasp of how that nasty little law could be turned against them, how much would they still support it? Red state anti-abortionists who have a pregnancy go bad on them are finding out.
This was a drum Molly Ivins beat all the time: “Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences.” ~ Molly Ivins
“Whenever you hear a politician carry on about what a mess the schools are, be aware that you are looking at the culprit.” ~ Molly Ivins
Even stone cold racists don’t want their pockets picked, nor do hard-core pro- lifers want to watch their daughter bleed out from an untreated miscarriage. Republicans lose when an odious policy position of theirs and the deniability of saying one thing while voting for the opposite becomes widely known. Or when their hateful little social control laws bite their supporters in the ass. Having to wait as it happens until a critical mass of people become aware of that is such a waste.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue:
Wow! Rick gettin’ fancy with the sticks! Had no idea, how fun!
MagdaInBlack
@HumboldtBlue: Awww, that was fun! Thank you!
Tony Jay
STAFFER – “Uh, Governor? Could I have a couple of minutes to go through this Action List you’ve written up for the next strategy roundtable?”
RoDS – “What is nature of query, salaried minion?”
STAFFER – “Well it’s, kind of… all of it?”
RoDS – “This lifeform is busy. Scheduled procreation window closing. Elucidate or vacate at speed.”
STAFFER – “It’s… what? Nevermind, look, I’m just not sure that these will actually help your polling.”
RoDS – “Popularity begets Support begets Power. Casey say campaign must change to harvest popularity. Basic, yes?”
STAFFER – “But how does..? Okay, what’s with (reads) ‘construct restricted-access seals conforming to State boundaries?”
RoDS – “Trump Plus. One Wall = Good, Fifty Walls = Gooder. Freedominions. Next.”
STAFFER – “You want to..? That’s… (reads) ‘radical urban desettlement scheme’?”
RoDS – “Trump Plus. Black City is Blue City, but Dead City is Red City. Demographiculling. Next.”
STAFFER – “Holy fuc… ahhh, hang on, (reads) ‘liberate citizenry from discordant messaging’? That sounds like you want to…”
RoDS – “Trump Plus. Make Bad Talk mean Banned Talk. Truthinking. All done? Emission mission imminent!”
STAFFER – “You can’t say… that’s not… okay, last one, what’s with (reads) ‘Steal all available cats’?”
RoDS – “Trump Plus. Grab them all by the…”
STAFFER – “Shit! Stop! No! That’s… that’s all I need, Governor. Thank you.” (starts banging head against wall)
RoDS – “Timely!” (shuffles painfully up corridor) “Hive-Mate! Access requested! Transmission proceeding!!”
STAFFER – (whispers) “We’re not even going to win Florida.”
Amir Khalid
@TriassicSands:
By “greater” I don’t mean better, of course. I mean that Trump’s base sees him as the real deal and DeSantis as a third-rate imitation.
eclare
@Tony Jay:
Demographiculling…brilliant! My city would def be desettled.
Baud
@satby:
The Liberals’ Curse.
lowtechcyclist
With emphasis on the ‘we’ part. As in:
We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don’t take our trips on LSD
We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street
We like livin’ right, and bein’ free
.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
Cruelty is the point, and Republicans were starting to think DeSantis could deliver it better than Trump. Ron had a real chance at the nomination before Trump started hitting and Ron proved himself a pathetic weakling. Nobody trusts a pathetic weakling to deliver.
apocalipstick
@Alison Rose: “Not the world I grew up in” is the human condition. None of us grow old in the world we grew up in. Some of understand that; others are this lady.
Baud
@apocalipstick:
Right. That’s why we call it “progress.”
WereBear
The unexamined life is not worth living, and it’s not worth living next to.
eclare
@Baud:
Bill Clinton’s campaign song was Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop Thinkin’ About Tomorrow.”
apocalipstick
@John Revolta: Did he do that, or did a neo-Nazi legislature?
Geminid
@John Revolta: I can see Christie picking up a portion of the delegates in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. He might even win a plurality in Virginia, where there is no party registration so primaries are open.
Christie would find slim pickings in the South and Plains states, though. He’s a “moderate conservative” and would be unnacceptable to a lot of Republicans- a “RINO” who even resembles a rhino. California would yield some delegates for Christie, but I think he would fall short of the nomination even if he ran his best campaign possible.
Christie can be a good attack dog though, and he seems to have embraced that role. I expect him to savage DeSantis while bashing Trump.
He’ll catch flak for this from Republicans because he’ll be hurting the party’s two most likely nominees. But unless there is a bad recession in the next 16 months (and that seems more and more unlikely now), I don’t think DeSantis or Trump can beat Joe Biden anyway.
apocalipstick
@eclare: Rick Astley is, by reputation, one of the really nice people in the business of show.
Ken
@apocalipstick: Many dementia patients lose their memory (and understanding) of the last few decades of their life, but retain their earlier memories. There are facilities for the care of such patients that are set up as a small town of fifty years ago (search for “dementia village”).
Perhaps there are commercial opportunities in creating similar residences for persons who don’t have dementia, but can neither understand nor accept the current world.
eclare
@apocalipstick:
Good to hear.
Geminid
@Frankensteinbeck: One reason DeSantis attracts Republican voters and Republican elites even more is the perception that Trump is certain to lose the general election, and maybe drag Congressional candidates with him. They are probably right, and a better candidate than DeSantis might ride that sentiment to the nomination. But I don’t think he’s got “the right stuff. ”
One shadow hanging over DeSantis and any other Trump challenger is the probability that some of Trump’s hard core supporters will not vote for anyone but Trump in November. If only 5% of Republican voters stay home or leave the top of the ballot blank, a Republican would be hard pressed to win. A 10% number would be fatal.
WereBear
@Ken: From what I understand, this is EXACTLY what happened in Florida.
The retiree voting plurality is trying to draw everyone into their mass delusion. By fiat, because no one else wants to go back.
lowtechcyclist
@Alison Rose:
Exactly. I’m seven years younger than this woman, but I too remember a world where a woman’s place was in the kitchen, and colored people (the polite term at that time) knew their place.
And yeah, women couldn’t even get credit cards without their husband’s (or father’s or brother’s, if unmarried) signature. A metric ton of major colleges and universities, including the most prestigious ones, wouldn’t accept women. A woman could go to Radcliffe instead of Harvard, or Mary Washington College instead of the University of Virginia. Separate and unequal, but y’know, women were just supposed to be in college to get their Mrs. degree anyway, because working women were only supposed to be secretaries and nurses and waitresses and stuff like that.
Fuck that shit. Anyone who misses that world should go stick their head in a pig.
Matt McIrvin
@eclare: What I always remember about that choice is that at the time, that got a fair bit of snickering: using Fleetwood Mac in your campaign was thinking about yesterday; it was uncool music aimed at boomer nostalgia.
Interesting thing I learned from talking to my kid: a lot of Gen Zers like Fleetwood Mac. They got into them through nostalgic channels like “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. They’re a junior hipster thing now. One of those old things that the youths picked as worthy of embracing for reasons I don’t understand 100%, like “Friends” and cassette tapes.
apocalipstick
@Baud: Yup.
lowtechcyclist
@eclare:
That may have been the first campaign theme song from the post-Beatles era. Clinton was our first President who was born after 1924.
apocalipstick
@Matt McIrvin: Well, ‘Go Your Own Way’ is one of the great guitar workouts. Lindsey Buckingham is truly underrated.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve been fascinated by their idea of “freedom” ever since the Reagan years. It’s the freedom to do what they think best, and everyone else is also free… to do what they think best. Otherwise, you get the mailed fist. And they see absolutely no irony in calling that freedom.
I know, they’ll argue that that is exactly how we do it. We talk a good line about freedom, but refuse to get your COVID shot and you’ll be punished with… stern disapproval! It’s like the mark of the Beast!
Josie
@apocalipstick:
“None of us grow old in the world we grew up in.”
Nominated.
Matt McIrvin
@apocalipstick: Oh, I love Fleetwood Mac, myself. I just don’t understand the process by which things go in and out of style. I don’t suppose anybody does or it’d be easy to get rich.
eclare
@Matt McIrvin:
Interesting. I was in college 1986-1990, and I remember Rumours getting a lot of play at our Friday afternoon “cans” parties (kegs were banned.) So the song made sense to me for a 1992 campaign.
Matt McIrvin
@eclare: I’m your age and it was popular among my GenX Classic Rock crowd too, but I remember the rock-critic types declaring them passé.
sab
@eclare: Also too how fun. Astley used to be a guilty pleasure. Now he is just a pleasure.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Oh sure, from a rock-critic standpoint, they were passé well before 1992. But a shitload of people were still listening to classic rock stations, which were still playing new music mixed in with all the 1970s and 1980s stuff. (Even by new artists like Counting Crows.) And a lot of those folks were just hitting their 30s in 1992, the age where you might start being a regular voter.
And again, Clinton was running to be the first President born any later than 1924. It didn’t take much to be more hip than that in 1992. What was GHWB’s campaign theme song, if he had one?
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
Was it “Willie Horton is Coming to Kill You in Your Sleep” by Lee Atwater and His Gang?
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
Of course, under DeJoy’s “management,” it now takes about a week longer for the fist to get to you.
sdhays
My god, the government can draft you and send you to your death. That’s how much control the government CAN have over you. People got kind of upset over it a few decades ago. I guess Amy missed that clause.
It just astounds me that “strong encouragement to cover your germ-laden mouth-hole during a pandemic” has become “tyranny”, but pregnant women sitting in the hospital parking lot waiting to get to just the right level of “almost dying” to get standard medical care is “freedom”.
Chris Johnson
Fleetwood Mac is just straight up awesome. Eddie Van Halen used to be into them back when Roth was his singer and VH was the most badass thing out there: he was into Rumours, quite rightly so, and Allan Holdsworth.
If kids these days like Fleetwood Mac, it just shows they have working ears. Few rock bands have made as good music.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Ken: That’s called “Florida”. It’s an entire state filled with old people pretending the world is what it was, and who are pretty sure it must be someone else’s fault that their children and grandchildren want nothing to do with them.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Matt McIrvin: See, I don’t get the snickering. I mean, who *expects* a campaign to be hip? A campaign needs to be popular much more than it needs to be cool.
boatboy_srq
There are two possibilities.
1) DeSantis isn’t (exactly) an amoral illiterate thug, and expects all his machinations to get struck down by one court or another. This seems as risky (for him and for us) as laughing at Lord Dampnut’s pResidential campaign proved in 2016. There is absolutely no guarantee that the courts in question will not uphold his buffoonery, and give us all heartburn for a couple decades while we either undo the damage or flee to sane states. If this is accurate, then we should lean into every election where courts are in play, including but not limited to SCOTUS and SCOTSOFL.
2) Despite his academic background, DeSantis really is the thuggish goodfella moron he plays on TV. In which case everything legal and within reason should be done to ensure he never holds office again.
H-Bob
DeSantis said in Iowa last month that “I will lean into all the issues that matter.” Florida being worse than 35th in per capita GDP apparently does not matter!
billcinsd
@SFAW: GHW Bush used “This Land Is Your Land” and “The George Bush Song”. My favorite is Rudy Giuliani used “Rudie Can’t Fail”. I think that is what killed Joe Strummer
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay: Oh, dear God. You are a genius. *bows head in awe*.
Tony Jay
@Miss Bianca:
RoDS = Endless source of nonsense. He and his Hive-Mate are just so awful. 8-)
Seanly
I know this is an older thread, but just wanted to add that the CNN tweet about Desantis being a Harvard lawyer assumes that Harvard lawyers know WTF they are talking about and aren’t just the same conservative hacks as everywhere else.
Having good lawyers hasn’t stopped Idaho (where I live) from passing stupid law after stupid law that will get overturned. They even have a separate rainy day fund to cover their loser laws
TriassicSands
@Amir Khalid:
No argument there. Trump is held in higher “esteem” (if one can call it that) by his cult members than probably any American politician in history. The real question is: How do people get so stupid. Mere racism seems like an inadequate answer. Some, I know a woman, believe he was sent by “god” to be president. The level of stupidity that takes may not even be stupidity in any normal sense of the word.
Soon, with a huge amount of luck, Trump may officially be the greatest criminal ever to have served as president. Yeah, he already holds that title, but he really needs some prison time to set it all in stone. Unfortunately, I have a hard time believing that if Aileen Cannon makes it to the end of the trial that she will be willing to sentence Trump to prison (assuming a cult member doesn’t get on the jury and corrupt the whole process — it could even be more than one).
TriassicSands
@Tony Jay:
Sadly, for Trump, in the original German, he will always be number “zwei,” behind his hero.