Talk about optics … yikes.
It’s not just optics. It’s very dangerous propaganda:
I assume that Desantis thinks he can gather unassailable wingnut cred by doing all this stuff and then tack to “the center” and pretend he isn’t insane in a general election. But I don’t think that’s possible these days. This stuff lives on the internet forever.
On the other hand, he may just be betting that between election suppression and propaganda a majority will sign on to this extreme far-right agenda. Maybe he thinks he can ride this insanity all the way to the White House. After all, Trump wasn’t exactly a middle of the road guy.
However, the voters who loved Trump loved him because of his attitude, fame, wealth and other intangible personality traits. (Why, I’ll never understand.) And he went after specific people they didn’t like. DeSantis is a simple bully who instead of entertaining his audience with colorful insults and childish nicknames, is systematically attacking institutions and ideas, using the power of his state government to shut down dissent. His culture war crusade is grim and methodical and his personality is dark and mean. Maybe that will be attractive to the majority of voters. But it never has been before.
Sure there are political junkies and right wing true believers who like this stuff. And they number in the tens of millions. But in order to win, you need more than that, which even Trump with his more entertaining, World Wide Wrestling style of politics couldn’t do. Which Biden voters are going to be drawn to vaccine hostility? How much ritual humiliation of LGBTQ people will they tolerate? Do suburban moms really want to destroy public education by sending teachers running for the exits and banning books? Are main street Republicans looking for the government to dictate what private businesses are allowed to say and do?
There is always the chance that we’ll find ourselves in a major crisis and people will look to a strongman type. Who knows? Maybe the Republicans will even provoke the crisis for that purpose. (It wouldn’t be the first time a right wing faction successfully seized power using that tactic, would it?)
But short of that, I wonder if DeSantis is going to wear well. He’s just going so far, so relentlessly. Is the country ready for this level of radicalism? I guess we’re going to find out.