This is enough to make me sick. And I mean that literally. If (when) we get hit with another pandemic and — god help us — DeSantis is the president, I’m fairly sure he will gleefully preside over my death:
If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis runs for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, he has an opening to attack former President Trump’s COVID response from the right, Axios’ Caitlin Owens reports.
Why it matters: The federal COVID response has become a red-meat issue for the party’s base. DeSantis’ 2020 actions are very aligned with today’s GOP’s tone.
DeSantis has even said he wishes he’d been more vocal in speaking out against the Trump administration’s calls for lockdowns early in the pandemic.
GOP strategist Alex Conant, who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign in 2016, said: “DeSantis is a conservative rockstar in large part because of how he handled COVID in Florida.”
DeSantis’ hands-off approach to the pandemic — reopening schools for in-person learning earlier than other states, fighting vaccine mandates and refusing to reimpose restrictions during case spikes — was a key to developing his political brand.
Reality check: Florida’s COVID death rate is on the higher end of the spectrum, compared to other states.
Flashback: As much as Democrats have criticized Trump’s COVID response, there’s an opening to attack it from the right.
Trump announced a 15-day national shutdown in mid-March of 2020. That was extended after the virus continued to spread.
He appeared on TV regularly with Anthony Fauci, who remained a face of Trump’s COVID response even as the right grew increasingly frustrated with him.
The other side: Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said Trump and his administration “worked tirelessly to secure medical equipment to save the lives of Americans who were infected.”
“He also fought against any attempt to federalize the pandemic response by protecting every state’s right to ultimately decide what is best for their people.”
The idea here is that Trump handled the pandemic badly because he was too restrictive. Seriously. And I guess that might play very well with the wingnuts. They love dying from COVID. It’s a form of ritual MAGA sacrifice and this makes DeSantis even more MAGA than Trump.
<<< chills>>>
And not in a good way.