(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Meet Ronald DeSantis: Your 2024 Republican ‘Nominee by Default’ [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2023-05-24
Thanks for the assist in Florida, now please die or go to jail...
Many here have astutely questioned why Ronald DeSantis has yet to make a real move attacking Trump.
Especially after Trump’s abysmal 2022 performance by proxy and lining up a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ failure moment as leader of the Republican Party.
Trump was wildly vulnerable, the base was champing at the bit for a new strongman Trump-like figure “without all the baggage”.
For how much ink has been spilled about how scary it must be to challenge Trump and how much apparent risk there is in “losing Trump voters”, it seems little thought has been given to actually taking the necessary coup de grâce to end Trump’s reign once and for all and fully supplant him.
Trump is old, he’s a criminal, a convicted sexual assaulter, a f*cking traitor to this country, unabashed lover of all strongman types (especially Hitler) and all around lovely guy to have a riveting discussion with on the nuances of grabbing women between their legs without consent.
Yet he persists… to be a cancerous lump on the Republican apparatus dictating its every move and action.
Let’s be real, Trump is a mediocre strongman at best these days and only running on the fumes of his glory days and narcissistic fever-dreams of grandeur.
The media gives him much more credit than he’s due and that’s part of his strategy.
The media boxed in everyone with a bounty of breathless articles fawning over Trump’s all-powerful supremacy over the Republican party and base that made every single other potential contender scared to RISK taking on Trump.
The media both advertently and largely inadvertently made a mountain out of a mole hill in Trump so that he appeared far less vulnerable than he actually is.
America should count itself lucky that Republicans don’t have any other candidate who could out-strongman Trump.
If it did, Trump could easily have been pilloried and slayed by this theoretical Trump 2.0 figure (sorry Ronald) after the 2022 failure. And damn well might pull off a 2016 on steroids in 2024. Because Trump would ultimately back that person and just pretend he’s the one actually pulling the strings (necessary logical superiority off-ramps for narcissists to accept an L peacefully).
The thing about strongman figures is that younger, more offensive and more virile figures can easily decapitate elders of a such a movement and immediately assume full control.
Sure, die-hard Trumpers would take some time to fully adapt but the appeal of a better strongman to inflict the deep pain on fellow Americans that the base so deeply craves would be tantalizingly irresistible. To the point that Trump would even eventually have to bow down and suffice himself to continue his grifting by proxy from outside the White House (really it’s a win-win for Trump either way).
If you’re struggling to imagine what could possibly be worse than a psychopathic man-child and wannabe Hitler protégé, imagine something like ‘the evil twin of Gavin Newsom’.
This person is fit and handsome and charismatic and has a bellow that can send entire stadiums to their feet in raucous applause on the heels of well smoke-screened racist proclamations that would make even Trump blush.
Anyone just a tad meaner, with a tad more charisma and a couple less decades old with a few less extra pounds and maybe even a little muscle for the ladies, (‘angry Paul Ryan’ might actually be the better corollary here) would effortlessly push Trump off the cliff and assume the mantel of the entire Trump base.
Sure the General Electorate will see you as the POS you quite plainly are, but that’s the only lane that could possibly hope to defeat Trump in a primary.
This was supposed to be Ronald DeSantis however he has already showed his true colors as a mere ‘wannabe strongman’ and all around pudding eating pushover.
He’s tough and mean with that Governor's pen no doubt, passing the most offensive and racist laws this country has seen in the past century, while safely surrounded by his loyal White Christian Nationalist acolytes.
But he most certainly is not a strongman.
His "wannabe" status becomes self-fulfilling every time he steps up to a lectern to equivocate, whine and take cheap pot-shots at Trump that deflect like a slingshot trying to penetrate a tank.
He WANTS to be the strongman replacement to Trump but his PLAIN FEAR of attacking Trump makes that entirely impossible.
The lack of pure, unbridled psychopathic narcissism that really drives Trumper dopamine cycles (and strongman egos) just isn't there.
Therein lies the problem posed by Trump’s current positioning, you must somehow retain the suburbs while sounding MORE extreme than Trump to beat him in a primary and still win in the general.
Ironically when it comes to strongman calculations, words speak a lot louder than any actual actions and Trump has the perfect buffet of horrible words and unveiled subtext that someone like Ronald could hardly dream of being able to regurgitate to an adorning audience. Let alone just simply having an adoring audience.
Again because he's scared. He being too careful. He's already actively emasculating himself in the eyes of the hyper-toxic-masculinity Republican base by being a little "p*ssy a*s b*tch" as many Trumpers are assuredly referring to him as at this point.
Ronald is weak and instead of taking the bold path of attacking Trump head-on “like a f*cking man” to take that top-dog spot for himself and unabashedly spewing what the masses crave for, he chose the "safe" path.
If you haven’t checked right wing hate forums recently, Ronald is what you might call a “Beta” and he stinks to high hell in that musk that is so repulsive to “masculine Alpha real men”.
In fact, his is the more high risk path because for him to successfully secure the nomination at this point, it is REQUIRED for Trump to be dead or in jail.
There's no path available that includes actually beating Trump head-on now. His window has closed. He was too scared and now too late to win the nomination except "by default" if Trump goes away.
The worst part about this strategy is that there's also no longer any way to hold together enough of the Trump base and Suburbs to win in a General.
Suburban moms to Ronald... “is that a 6-week abortion ban in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”.
Trumpers to Ronald… “lol”.
Strongmen need to be strong. They need to decapitate their superiors and reign as the supreme leader.
Ronald didn't do that and now he will assuredly lose in a head-to-head against Trump or assuredly lose in a general against Biden.
Assuming Biden can hold his sh*t together for 3 debates and he doesn't slide into the other Ronald’s territory too quickly (dementia… Ronald Reagan and many advanced age people have their brains physically degenerate to the point of them becoming a petulant child again… *cough* Diane Feinstein *cough*).
Otherwise you may as well welcome your new Supreme Ruler now.
Ronald or Donald… take your pick!
*FOOTNOTE: If Trump does survive, he is quite likely to pick DeSantis as VP, solidifying that strong racist policy base while putting Ronald in permanent “lap dog” status… Trump’s new Michael Pence.
Can’t wait for Biden Harris vs. Donald McRonald 2024.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/24/2171176/-Meet-Ronald-DeSantis-Your-2024-Republican-Nominee-by-Default
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
