… as long as the victim is a designated enemy of wingnuttia
The latest from the worst Governor in America:
Gov. Ron DeSantis voiced his support for Daniel Penny, the Marine charged in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, in a tweet Friday.
“We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens,” DeSantis wrote in a tweet with a fundraiser for Penny’s legal funds. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.”
This is a man who wants to be president of the United States. And people keep telling me that he would be better than Donald Trump. Why?
Basically, this law and order candidate is declaring that unarmed mentally ill people who make people uncomfortable can be killed with impunity.
There’s a big story in the NY Times today about how DeSantis is “re-tooling” his sputtering campaign. Here’s an excerpt:
In six short months from November to May, Mr. DeSantis’s 2024 run has faltered before it has even begun.
Allies have abandoned him. Tales of his icy interpersonal touch have spread. Donors have groused. And a legislative session in Tallahassee designed to burnish his conservative credentials has instead coincided with a drop in the polls.
His decision not to begin any formal campaign until after the Florida legislative session — allowing him to cast himself as a conservative fighter who not only won but actually delivered results — instead opened a window of opportunity for Mr. Trump. The former president filled the void with personal attacks and a heavy rotation of negative advertising from his super PAC. Combined with Mr. DeSantis’s cocooning himself in the right-wing media and the Trump team’s success in outflanking him on several fronts, the governor has lost control of his own national narrative.
Now, as Mr. DeSantis’s Tallahassee-based operation pivots to formally entering the race in the coming weeks, Mr. DeSantis and his allies are retooling for a more aggressive new phase. His staunchest supporters privately acknowledge that Mr. DeSantis needs to recalibrate a political outreach and media strategy that has allowed Mr. Trump to define the race.
Changes are afoot. Mr. DeSantis is building a strong Iowa operation. He has been calling influential Republicans in Iowa and is rolling out a large slate of state legislator endorsements before a weekend trip there.
“He definitely indicated that if he gets in, he will work exceptionally hard — nothing will be below him,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential Iowa evangelical leader whom Mr. DeSantis hosted recently for a meal at the governor’s mansion. “I think he understands — I emphasized that Iowa’s a retail politics state. You need to shake people’s hands, look them in the eye.”
Still, his central electability pitch — MAGA without the mess — has been badly bruised.
A book tour that was supposed to have introduced him nationally was marked by missteps that deepened concerns about his readiness for the biggest stage. He took positions on two pressing domestic and international issues — abortion and the war in Ukraine — that generated second-guessing and backlash among some allies and would-be benefactors. And the moves he has made to appeal to the hard right — escalating his feud with Disney, signing a strict six-week abortion ban — have unnerved donors who are worried about the general election.
“I was in the DeSantis camp,” said Andrew Sabin, a metals magnate who gave the Florida governor $50,000 last year. “But he started opening his mouth, and a lot of big donors said his views aren’t tolerable.” He specifically cited abortion and Ukraine.
I wonder how they feel about vigilantism? (They’re probably fine with it…)
This is what’ they’re counting on:
Mr. Trump’s compounding legal woes and potential future indictments could eventually have the opposite effect — exhausting voters, which is Mr. DeSantis’s hope.
They’re also hoping he drops dead. Other than that, good luck shaking Trump loose from that base. The legal woes only bind them closer together.
Not ready for prime time:
The DeSantis team seemed to buy its own hype.
Days before the midterms, the DeSantis campaign released a video that cast his rise as ordained from on high. “On the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a protector,’” a narrator booms as Mr. DeSantis appears onscreen. “So God made a fighter.”
For years, the self-confident Mr. DeSantis has relied on his own instincts and the counsel of his wife, Casey DeSantis, who posted the video, to set his political course, according to past aides and current associates. Mr. DeSantis has been written off before — in his first primary for governor; in his first congressional primary — so both he and his wife have gotten used to tuning out critics.
Today, allies say there are few people around who are willing to tell Mr. DeSantis he’s wrong, even in private.
In late 2022, the thinking was that a decision on 2024 could wait, and Mr. Trump’s midterm hangover would linger. Mr. DeSantis published a book — “I was, you know, kind of a hot commodity,” he said of writing it — that became a best seller. And Mr. DeSantis was on the offensive, tweaking Mr. Trump with a February donor retreat held only miles from Mar-a-Lago that drew Trump contributors.
But it has been Mr. Trump who has consistently one-upped Mr. DeSantis, flying into East Palestine, Ohio, after the rail disaster there, appearing with a larger crowd in the same Iowa city days after Mr. DeSantis and swiping Florida congressional endorsements while Mr. DeSantis traveled to Washington.
One Trump endorser, Representative Lance Gooden of Texas, backed the former president only hours after attending a private group meeting with Mr. DeSantis. In an interview, Mr. Gooden likened Mr. DeSantis’s decision to delay entry until after a legislative session to the example of a past Texas governor, Rick Perry, who did the same a decade ago — and quickly flamed out of the 2012 contest.
“He’s relied, much like Rick Perry did, on local political experts in his home state that just don’t know the presidential landscape,” Mr. Gooden said.
He relied on his wife who is desperate to be seen as the next Jackie Kennedy (and Hillary Clinton although she’d never admit it.)
The article doesn’t really show that he’s capable of changing his chilly personality and there’s little reason to believe that his “anti-woke” campaign is enough to combat the Trump circus. He’s a monster so I can’t say I’m sorry to see it.