DeSantis’ plan for the FBI and the DOJ
[Hat tip: “Kate.”]
A man with a plan:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been working for months on plans to tear down and rebuild both the Department of Justice and the FBI, consulting with experts and members of Congress to develop a “Day One” strategy to end what conservatives see as the weaponization of the justice system.
The governor has privately told advisors that he will hire and fire plenty of federal personnel, reorganize entire agencies, and execute a “disciplined” and “relentless” strategy to restore the Justice Department to a mission more in line with what the “Founding Fathers envisioned.”
But his ambitions go beyond bureaucratic restructuring. He wants to physically remove large swathes of the DOJ from the District of Columbia, including FBI headquarters, RealClearPolitics is first to report.
“We’re not going to let all this power accumulate in Washington, we’re going to break up these agencies,” DeSantis said during a private strategy session over the weekend, excerpts of which were obtained exclusively by RCP. He vowed in that call to order “some of the problematic components of the DOJ” be uprooted, reorganized, and then promptly “shipped to other parts of the country.”
To me, this highlights the difference between Trump and DeSantis, which is that DeSantis – whom some see as boring – is more of a policy nerd and is interested in the nuts and bolts of government. He proved that in Florida, where he was instrumental in spearheading a program to reform (see also this) the all-important voting system, despite cries of “racism” and “voter suppression.”
Here’s more about DeSantis’ plans for reforming the bureaucracy (please read the whole thing):
“We’ve seen throughout this country that the DOJ and the FBI are controlled by one faction of our society,” DeSantis said on the call, pointing to how those agencies were “going after pro-life activists,” wrongfully investigating parents at school board meetings “who are concerned about things like critical race theory, and forcing kids to wear masks,” and “colluding with tech companies to censor information such as what they did with the 2020 election.”
DeSantis has assembled a brain trust of academics, members of Congress, and former administration officials to draw up step-by-step blueprints for tearing the DOJ and FBI down to the studs for a rebuild…
A key feature of the emerging plan: Move fast. Don’t wait on Congress…
While the current Republican frontrunner was famous for telling celebrities, “You’re Fired” on television, the DeSantis campaign insists the governor would follow through in the Oval Office. DeSantis promised that as president, there’d be a “new sheriff in town,” one who doesn’t mind sending federal employees into early retirement…
Trump said in Iowa earlier this month that he could tame the bureaucrats who tormented his tenure “in six months.” DeSantis countered in New Hampshire that anyone making that kind of claim should be asked, “Why didn’t you do that when you had four years to try?”
I doubt this will convince many (or any) of the EverTrump group to support DeSantis. I’d be happy to be wrong about that, but time and again I have seen them counter positive news about DeSantis with suspicion for his every utterance. I think that’s a big big big mistake on their part.
And he has already shown he means what he says:
This is something of a theme for DeSantis. He fired a state attorney for failing to enforce Florida election law last year. He has already told voters he would fire Wray, the FBI director appointed by Trump and retained by Biden. He identified a new target Saturday: any DOJ employee working on a grand jury investigation caught talking to the press to undermine political opponents.
“If they’re leaking,” DeSantis said with a broad directive that could very well foreshadow his tenure if elected, “we’re going to fire people.”
Let’s not forget the CIA, and another powerful elusive entity:
Slaying the Censorship Leviathan
May both be splintered into a thousand pieces and scattered into the winds. DeSantis shows promise. Table manners will come in time.
Trump’s Schedule F seems to be the right starting point. Unfortunately he waited until late in his term to issue it, and Biden rescinded it on January 21, 2021.
DeSantis endorsed the idea.
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/03/desantis-endorses-schedule-f-ahead-possible-presidential-run/383504/
The only Republicans unwilling to take on the worthless “alphabet agencies” are those favored by GOPe, and they deserve nothing but contempt, beholden as they are to wealthy donors and to ideas long since discredited. There may well be nearly three million members of the federal bureaucracy (all well-compensated, almost all voting for and contributing to a single totalitarian party); many (especially at DoD, as well as Education, Homeland Security, Energy, and HUD) contribute nothing of value and are, in fact, eager to work, for reasons of ideology, against the interests of law-abiding traditional Americans and towards the destruction of the republic.
He wants to physically remove large swathes of the DOJ from the District of Columbia
He’s showing his cards early. That should make for the biggest election battle ever seen in the USA, because there’ll be a solid, savage bloc all organized against him, from government employees, public employee unions, most Universities, nearly all the branches and megaphones of the US ‘news’ media, all the unelected 3-letter Executive branches and as much support as the CCP can skulduggerate.
Well, let ‘er rip.
OK. DeSantis really wins me over here.
While I’m sure Trump would be quite the bull in the china shop, should he return to the White House, I’m not sure he would be disciplined enough to make anything stick beyond his tenure.
DeSantis has a plan. I like that.
In addition to election laws as neo mentions, DeSantis has taken on, effectively, New College, the progressive flagship of Florida state colleges (my alma mater FWIW), and pushed New College towards a Hillsdale model.
I gather there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth at the Sarasota campus and among the NC alumni these days.
Good.
If Desantis wins and does this I hope he lets the FBI know he’s serious by showing up at the FBI offices with the army in tanks. I seriously think that it’ll take that to actually accomplish it.
Move the federal agencies eh? Well, let’s put some meat on those bones:
Agriculture: Bakersfield
Energy: Houston
Transportation: Atlanta or Chicago
Treasury: Las Vegas
HHS: New Orleans
Homeland Security: Brownsville
You get the idea.
I hope he has something workable. I cannot help but think we need a revised (much reduced in scope and elaboration) federal penal code, a reduction in the discretion enjoyed by federal judges and prosecutors, an end to impunity for federal judges and prosecutors, a revision to the geographic jurisdictions of the federal courts, mass dismissals in the Washington HQ of the FBI and the management level of the FBI, replacement of the FBI with a series of specialized agencies, separation of legal representation from investigation, and distribution of federal investigatory, security, and custodial agencies over six or seven departments.
Move the federal agencies eh?
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About 85% of all federal employees are posted outside of greater Washington. This business of relocating agencies is a gimmick. What we actually benefit from is eliminating agencies and their functions. Short of total elimination, we might transfer a fragment elsewhere and eliminate the rest. We’d also benefit from restoring impersonal examinations as the default means of recruitment and promotion to the federal civil service and eliminating AA. Rotation-in-office rules for certain types of federal employee (e.g. prosecutors) would also be beneficial.
DeSantis stands head and shoulders above the rest of the GOP field.
If he wins the nomination, he’ll beat Biden or Newsom decisively.
“ I doubt this will convince many (or any) of the EverTrump group to support DeSantis.” DeSantis is just out of the box. I like what I am hearing and seeing so far and there is a lot of time until the voting starts. If Trump keeps digging (what you should not do when you are in a hole) DeSantis has a real shot at the nomination. I am a Trump supporter and support his policies. But I grow weary of his persona. I sense that Ron could be at least as effective as Trump with a bit less of the baggage.
I like the plan. This has a much better chance of succeeding than Trump’s MO. The fact that they’re already planning now, more than 18 months before they would take office is refreshing (and necessary).
It’s going to be hard, though. Remember this:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/13/politics/usda-employees-relocated-kansas-city-perdue/index.html
I can’t find a link now, but I don’t believe that Trump actually succeeded in moving the Ag Department agencies to Missouri.
I am afraid that Trump is getting too old for the job. DeSantis appears to be an excellent alternative. Could Trump be placated with a VP nomination?
There are some who state that colleges and universities should be permitted to go their own way, free from political overseeing. The problem with that POV is that the left has totally politicized colleges and universities.
I’m with Art Deco on this. Re-locating Fed Agencies far away from DC is not enough. This has wide R appeal, of course –but didn’t the whole “work from home” pandemic let’s Zoom meet instead experience teach these old dogs to ignore old tricks? I believe it hasn’t.
As Art says, SIZE MATTERS here. That is, total funding. And this and reorganizing the entire corrupto-KKKratts Federal Court system will take the recruitment of Congress and legislation because of! H Constitution
Congress has, for example, given DF its own Federal Court branch through which Leftist tyranny flows.
Solution? Break up Home Rule of DS C and put the figured bureaucrats on dispersed islands instead, by inserting them into alien (ie, American) regions.
Prevent the D Ruled Bureaucracy from ever re-uniting again and turning Nova and DC into their wholey owned fiefdom.
Neo lays out argument worth assessing separately. But isn’t De Santis setting himself up for thinking too much inside “the box” when it comes to Federal Overhaul?
We need outside the box thinking to achieve the results we need. The Leftist paradigm is both collectivist and tyrannical. Innovation undreampt of by the Framers is required because we need the meat axe to fall to achieve radical reform.
I seem to remember when the Dept. of Vet. Affairs was created that it ultimately required Congressional approval. If that’s true it stands to reason that destroying that department (and HHS and Transportation and please don’t get me started) would also need Congressional approval, yeah? Presidential decree wouldn’t be enough?
If that’s not true I withdraw my question.
I can’t find a link now, but I don’t believe that Trump actually succeeded in moving the Ag Department agencies to Missouri.
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It would have been a waste of effort. You want to do something salutary in regard to the Department of Agriculture, do this:
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1. Eliminate the Food and Nutrition Service. Replace the SNAP program with a small increment to Social Security, SSI, and unemployment compensation and elaborate on the Earned Income Tax Credit.
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2. Eliminate the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. It’s a grant money vent pipe.
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3. Shut down the rural development apparat.
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4. Auction off the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the Commodity Credit Corporation.
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5. Institute a set of counter-valing tariffs to protect American producers from the farm subsidies of foreign governments. Elaborate on the research staff of the department as needed to get that done. The statutory legislation should have general procedures and principles of consideration, with the precise dollar values or ad valorem rates set by an appended commission of the department.
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6. Shut down the Farm Service Agency, end subsidies distributed by that agency and any residual production controls and cartels administered by that agency.
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7. Though it is not formally a component of the USDA, auction off the Farm Credit System.
To my above comment sorry it’s a little off-topic from defanging DoJ etc.
I seem to remember when the Dept. of Vet. Affairs was created that it ultimately required Congressional approval. If that’s true it stands to reason that destroying that department (and HHS and Transportation and please don’t get me started) would also need Congressional approval, yeah? Presidential decree wouldn’t be enough?
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I think that’s generally the case. One exception I believe is the old HEW department, which I believe was assembled by executive order.
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IMO, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs passes muster as an administrative unit. You might move the cemeteries to the Interior Department, as they are parks. Outside my wheelhouse, but it seems to me that there are two major problems with the VA.
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One is that rehabilitation and care for service-related disabilities relies quite heavily on services provided by federal employees when some portion thereof could be replaced with vouchers and insurance programs with a concomitant reduction in staff and physical plant.
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Another is that the range of benefits granted veterans seems excessive. IMO, we should concentrate on cash transfers for elderly and disabled veterans; provision and finance of vocational training for veterans; provision and finance of same for the spouses of disabled veterans; and grants for adaptive changes to the homes of elderly and disabled veterans.
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I am just not understanding why the VA does such a brisk business in life insurance, finances home purchases, and finances tertiary schooling without regard to one’s program. Perhaps someone can explain.
Yes, I think congressional action would be required to eliminate departments. However, there’s quite a bit that the chief executive can do administratively.
If that’s true it stands to reason that destroying that department (and HHS and Transportation and please don’t get me started)
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IMO, Transportation makes a satisfactory unit, though at some point down the line you might put the regulatory component in a different department from the service component. The problem is that it’s a grant-money pukathon. If you had an office which, in regard to the U.S. Routes and the short-haul Interstates defined the routes and issued specs on the signage; had another office which performed inspections on the U.S. Routes and Interstates; had another office which could sanction state governments by putting segments of road under trusteeship; had another bureau which collected tolls on the long-haul Interstates and distributed the proceeds to dedicated funds in each state on a per-acres-of-macadam basis, you could terminate the extant federal highway program. If I’m not mistaken, the ‘Motor Carrier Safety Administration’ is actually a grant distributor, not a regulatory inspectorate, so should be eliminated.
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HHS is actually a Frankenstein monster of scavenged carrion. Parts of it should be shut down and the parts you keep should lose their franchise to make grants to corporate bodies and persons with institutional addresses and also be distributed in a mess of successor departments. NB, Anthony Fauci couldn’t have laundered money to the Wuhan Institute through that scammer if Anthony Fauci’s agency had no legal warrant to distribute grants. Have the NIH do in-house research. If it wants to pick the brains of university-based researchers, it can award term-fellowships which include an indemnity to the researcher’s home institution for the loss of his services. Have university-based researchers seek grant patronage from individual persons, foundations, corporations, and state governments.
As Art says, SIZE MATTERS here.
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Not quite. What matters is that the federal government stays in its lane. This has implications for coercive authority, manpower, physical plant, and budget. For example, the federal government can and should get out of the housing market. An exception would be some provision to house federal civilian employees posted abroad (and their dependents), to house servicemen and their dependents, to house federal prisoners and the like. Another exception would be to undertake health and safety inspections of manufactured housing marketed across state lines or marketed across the international border. Otherwise, no tax preferences, no federally administered secondary mortgage maws, no grants, no vouchers, no preferential credit, no regulatory intervention in real estate transactions outside of Indian reservations, nada. You can replace things like Section 8 vouchers with a small elaboration on the EITC and a small increment to Social Security checks, &c. Some boob state like New York wants to retain public housing or subsidize people’s rent, that’s out of their domestic revenue.
So DeSantis says he’s going to bell the cat for us. That’s great.
Moot since the states he needs to win still have the ballots that swing those states counted by the Dems in urban territories they control.
So by all means let’s all vote for DeSantis in the primaries, and vote for him in the election, but in the meantime let’s think about what we’re going to do after he loses and maybe start laying for the groundwork for that before we get there.
Because it’s not going to be easy, legally, for anything really conservative to organize after DeSantis loses an election where he openly threatened to curb the power of the Deep State. They’re going to see to it that doesn’t happen again, and start nipping organizations in the bud and help the other Republican governors get their minds right about ever mounting a similar challenge.
thats the detail they haven’t quite figured out, the system is designed to cause dysfunction, hence mcconnell let the parade of horribles pass,
Trump is also threatening to dismantle the Deep State. His ideas seem less focused, though, or at least his public statements are less focused than DeSantis’s.
Well, Frederick, I live in a moderately free state. If you’re not in one, perhaps you should relocate before the election which you are sure we will lose.
@Kate:If you’re not in one, perhaps you should relocate before the election which you are sure we will lose.
Trust me, I’ve been thinking about that very hard. And maybe you know about some election reforms that happened in the states Trump barely lost since 2022 that didn’t make the news, because that would change my mind about the winnability of 2024.
But if there’s anything that you and I are both old enough to know, it’s that sometimes having Republicans win Federal elections hasn’t been enough to prevent the things that have been happening. We know because we lived it. The Republican electoral victories in period 1990 – 2020 were squandered on tax cuts, pork-barrelling and adventures abroad. That’s what makes money for connected people, and so that’s what they go to Washington to do, and will continue to do so until we can reform from the bottom up.
that is true, but a redder state provides some protection,
Dear Neo:
I am afraid –so afraid they will not give DeSantis a fair chance. Why should they? They own the machines, they own the communication systems, they are organized to dismantle the above-average middle class and they have already destroyed two generations of children. People in “leadership roles” who have the education of someone at a level of 10th grade in our old school system, not someone with two college degrees! I fear the only way DeSantis can get through all of this is to make “deals”. Deals we would not particularly support.
anne:
From what I’ve seen online – and I’ve seen plenty – it is the diehard Trump supporters who won’t give DeSantis a chance, and who want to turn others against him. I have seen this for months now, all around the blogosphere, very consistently and destructively.
I see no evidence that DeSantis has made “deals” in the past, and my evaluation of his character is that he won’t be making deals like the ones you describe in the future. He also has the respect of more people and will therefore have less difficulty getting good aides or a good VP willing to work with him than Trump would at this point.
Frederick:
Bigger GOP majorities would help, because that way they wouldn’t need to court or cater to the RINOs. The problem is there’s practically no chance of getting big GOP majorities.
I’d like to know how he is going to do this.
Move the federal agencies eh?
Which triggered the thought that we should build the southern border wall as a 1954 mile long string of federal office buildings, no windows on the south side, razor wire and/or machine gun emplacements on the roof, etc. Periodic spaces between them for the manned entry points. Maybe use some of the first floors for ICE offices and / or detention centers for illegal entrants, etc.
Continuing the fantasy: if you are an immigrant and have helped to build 100 miles of said wall then you go to the front of the queue for citizenship, after you show proficiency in English and civics/history, etc.
This idea or image cannot be original with me.
Art has provided quite a few comments on this thread, and managed to do so without using the word “scarify” (a very useful word 🙂 )
But in one comment you said “a revision to the geographic jurisdictions of the federal courts,” and I am not sure why you included that – can you please clarify?
With regard to big Republican Majorities–here in my state we have done it! Our legislature meets every two years for 3 (4) months. Elections are on the even years. We won a slim majority of both state houses in 2020, and last year in 2022 we won a clean, clear sweep. Full majority in both houses–didn’t need to negotiate anything, but they did. Here is the problem: prior to 2020 this state was controlled by a large majority of Democrats. The governor was 16 years a Democrat. All of the state judges have been appointed by previous Democrats. Now, when the Republican party passes a law the Dems don’t like it goes straight to the supreme court. Even better yet–they have funded by private resources multiple little “non-profit” law firms. For example: we have tried desperately to get charter schools, to give money to parents, etc. In 2021 we gave public school teachers a big salary boost, what did they do for us this year? Demand a second bill regarding charter schools–this one required charter schools to be under the authority of the public school teachers! Big change that’s going to be. Republicans gave them that bill and then created another bill for “private” charter schools which has been immediately sent through the court system. There is NO WAY to reach a compromise with these people over any issue!
Art Deco’s proposals are very well thought out, as usual.
The problem is that no matter what gets reformed, or even eliminated, eventually the departments and agencies will return to the same situation we have now.
Bureaucrats overwhelmingly support Democrat politicians because Democrats give them jobs, and Republicans (at least the voters) prefer not to.
@ anonymous > “There is NO WAY to reach a compromise with these people over any issue!”
I refer you to The Cake Analogy (or if you prefer a different visualization, the Democrat Ratchet Racket).
Once the GOP has “compromised” with the Democrats the first time, the next round of “bargaining” begins with the new status quo, and no recognition that it’s “their turn” to give way this time.
The subject of Lawdog’s post is gun control vs 2A rights, but it has general applicability, as you noted.
https://thelawdogfiles.com/2010/09/ok-ill-play.html
Yes, Trump throws away opportunities to show himself to be serious and issue-focused. It’s as if he’s driven by some inner demon or daemon to always put forward his worst self. Perhaps things would fall into place and a second Trump administration would work out well, but he seems determined to convince people that it wouldn’t.
For years, Republican primary candidates have talked about abolishing or consolidating agencies. That talk doesn’t last beyond the convention. The public either doesn’t want it or is scared by it. They don’t like anything that sounds like free market dogmatism. Privatization reminds people of Bush’s talk of partial privatization of Social Security, which was followed by a stock market crash. For all the chatter about “fiscal conservatism,” the electorate doesn’t like anyone who’s too dogged a budget cutter. Someday we’ll have to make deep cuts, but voters want to put that off as long as possible.
Balanced budgets can happen when the two parties can agree on some things. That happened in the Eisenhower and Clinton years. Some agencies and programs were even abolished under Carter and Reagan, but we don’t live in such times any more. The problem with moving agencies is regulatory capture. Moving Energy to Houston would be as bad as moving Transportation to Detroit would have been in the days of Big Three domination.
yes I don’t see that transportation is about anything but pork, on its best days, because all of the stupid regulations, in it’s more destructive fashion as typified by mayor buttigeg it’s worse,
the congress is not interested in federalism, in fact one can conclude it’s not interested in anything that works, change my mind, resource extraction was agonizingly promoted under trump, and wiped out with a stroke of a pen, the schools don’t teach, they impart unknowledge worthy of the flying spaghetti monster,
It’s slightly off topic, but I think Banned Lizard makes an important point at the top.
Don’t forget about the Intelligence Community. I’d say start at the top of the superstructure with the ODNI. Get rid of it, and go back to something similar to the pre-9/11 structure.
From Wikipedia:
You can see that nearly all of the important powers for controlling the IC reside there. And they filter the information that is passed up to the president.
My recollection of post 9/11 politics is that president Bush was very much against the formation of the DHS and ODNI structure, but then got rolled by congress.
My cursory look at this suggests that the FBI is excluded from their purview (but the Treasury Dept. is not??) which is odd since domestic intelligence is one of the FBI’s more important and potentially pernicious functions.
yes both were the answer to the wrong question, the CIA was composed of state, former oss and navy intel officers, but each branch retained fiefdoms as well as comint, (NSA) and NRO and NGSA, they horde their intelligence,
around 9/11 the CIA had some parts of the puzzle, the bureau did not, the NSA apparently didn’t care, so the conclusion was to weld them together like that anime robot vultron, instead of fixing what each agency did wrong,
as a result of the national intelligence act, the dni ended up on top, little use came of this, clapper being among the worst, till miss erotic poetry reader haines
that serious?? gop senator walters was complicit in the russia hoax, ratcliffe and grenell did make some headway,
in fact instead of narrowing the focus, the number of persons with some classifying authority ballooned to a million, in and outside in private contractors (green badgers)
My DeSantis yard sign is up!
The public either doesn’t want it or is scared by it.
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Joe Blow off the sidewalks of Dayton has no opinion. Agencies are protected by the Iron Triangle, which has nothing to do with public opinion.
My recollection of post 9/11 politics is that president Bush was very much against the formation of the DHS and ODNI structure, but then got rolled by congress.
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If he were against it, it wouldn’t have happened.
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The division of labor between DHS and DoJ does look like the result of a lot of log rolling between members of Congress protecting their turf.
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I doubt the DNI with the powers it has is the source of our problem.
The problem with moving agencies is regulatory capture. Moving Energy to Houston would be as bad as moving Transportation to Detroit would have been in the days of Big Three domination.
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Regulatory capture is already a problem. The problem with moving departments around is that it’s a waste of time.
the electorate doesn’t like anyone who’s too dogged a budget cutter.
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As long as you leave Social Security and Medicare alone, the bulk of the electorate is not that interested. Tax increases bother people. For some it’s just cussedness, but there’s a real irritation that the new revenues will not be deployed to reduce the deficit.
Bureaucrats overwhelmingly support Democrat politicians because Democrats give them jobs, and Republicans (at least the voters) prefer not to.
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Disagree. The FBI and the DoJ have a deeply corrupted culture, the development of which I’ll wager antedates BO’s time in office. I think the ruin of the flag-rank military is more recent.
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I think if you surveyed public employees generally, you’d discover that their status as a public employee is only a weak vector in influencing voter preferences. Salaried line employees in education and social services favor the Democratic Party. In the police and the military, they do not. I think you’d also discover hourly employees in the public sector and support staff personnel are all over the map.
Kind of a basic practical issue: In the federal bureaucracy, how far down can the President, on his own, fire people? I have a vague recollection that his limited authority in this regard was something Trump was railing against.
Kind of a basic practical issue: In the federal bureaucracy, how far down can the President, on his own, fire people?
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We need satisfactory procedures for recruitment and promotion. We don’t need to be nailing employees’ feet to the floor.
Joe Blow off the sidewalks of Dayton has no opinion. Agencies are protected by the Iron Triangle, which has nothing to do with public opinion.
I didn’t say that voters had any great interest in the Transportation or Interior budget. I said they didn’t trust free market dogmatists. They can also be made to distrust anyone who can be portrayed as a free market absolutist. Of course, it’s clear by now that agencies and programs develop constituencies that support their continued existence and expansion, but why doesn’t the public support budget cutters, deregulators, and privatizers? Because it doesn’t like them, doesn’t trust them (or can be made not to trust them), and doesn’t believe that their plans will work, or work to the benefit of the public. It’s not just Social Security and Medicare. Start talking cuts in health and safety or environmental protection and people to get scared (whether they feel that way naturally or because of propaganda). Often this isn’t expressed as “I don’t like what they are talking about doing,” but as “I really don’t like that guy.”
I think if you surveyed public employees generally, you’d discover that their status as a public employee is only a weak vector in influencing voter preferences.
Possibly at the state and local level, maybe even in federal field offices, but DC is pretty solidly Democrat. In big cities, the top bosses and the union leaders also support the Democrats and they carry more weight than the small fry.
“A man with a plan:” “I doubt this will convince many (or any) of the EverTrump group to support DeSantis.”
Short Version:
100% agree that what you see may not be what pro-Trump supporters see. Also, 100% believe that once the primaries & debates start the contrast between DeSantis and the other candidates – not just Trump – will not work in RD’ favor. (see what has happened since RD announced).
1) Tomayto, Tomahto. Potayto, Potahto. Plan, Distraction.
2) A sound Plan should be: Comprehensive, Cohesive, and Credible.
3) Credit, Command & Connecting
Long Version:
100% agree that what you see may not be what pro-Trump supporters see. Also, 100% believe that once the primaries & debates start the contrast between DeSantis and the other candidates – not just Trump – will not work in RD’ favor. (see what has happened since RD announced).
Have commented before that I support many of the positions/ actions that DeSantis has taken. And I do support this position (i.e., strategy to end … the weaponization of the justice system). I followed the link to read more about this plan. Then decided I needed to “hear it” from RD, not just an article, so I went to the DeSantis campaign site.
https://rondesantis.com/
I was not only underwhelmed, I was embarrassed for DeSantis. Then I went to the Trump campaign site.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/
To be fair I have no idea what Trump’ 2016 campaign website looked like. However, in 2023 there is a night & day contrast between how those two candidates are communicating their vision/ plan.
Part of that is the clarity of the site design – home page stipulates vision/ plan via written executive summary & objectives v. verbal clips & headlines – and part of that is the clarity of the vision/ plan (i.e. form follows function).
Only one of them comes across as an Executive, and has having the Experience & Expertise to be the President. Again, to be fair Trump has been both the President and one of the most successful Presidents in our lifetimes.
A sound vision/ plan should be Comprehensive, Cohesive, and Credible – not just a compilation of shiny objects and distractions. And even more disconcerting is how did DeSantis reach this point and not understand that the Economy will always matter.
DeSantis does deserve credit for what happened in Florida while he was Governor – especially when it concerns election corruption (see Brenda Snipes & Susan Bucher). And folks far more knowledgeable than me have written about the differences between a State and National executive office. However, it is not the office that determines if an individual has a ‘Command Presence’ or the ability to ‘Connect’.
Yes, the DeSantis inventory of what we saw pre-Presential campaign was dominated by shiny objects/ distractions and angry denunciations/ sparring. However, it is starting to appear that that is who DeSantis is – not just what the MSM showed us – and that there may not be another “side”. Or enough of another “side” to help balance out his image.
I’ll add that when he is not in a “set format” – news conference, speech, etc. – he appears unable to command-the-room, or connect with others in an authentic, regular guy manner. That will only become more apparent when he is compared to others – sometimes literally side-by-side (see debates).
DeSantis should have joined forces with Trump. That would have allowed him to contribute what he appears to do well, while seeing firsthand what the national role & responsibilities entail. That would also have required the humility to understand that experience matters.
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Spent the winter of 2007 in Nepal – winter trekking Himalayas – and was asked frequently who I thought the next President would be. ** Told them I could not offer a name – no announced candidates – but I believed that the best speaker would win.
** = Did not matter what continent I was on, the world saw GWB in the same way they now see Putin – a bully invader – a they wanted to see “regime change”.
That always puzzled people. I explained that GWB is now so consistently inarticulate that it has impacted his ability to lead, and that people have a hunger for a communicator. I added that people tend to gravitate towards the person that embodies “leadership” to them. And that the ability to communicate and command-the-room has always been part of the “leadership equation”. Even if they do not consciously recognize their hunger/ need, they will vote for the candidate that fills that need. Fast forward, Obama won and I felt vindicated.
When the 2016 election arrived, I thought that people had a hunger for competency – I know that I did. And I genuinely thought Gov. Walker was the man to meet that need. I was wrong. And that reinforced what I believed in 2007.
Walker was a good leader for his state & its challenges. However, when he was compared to other Presidential candidates it was clear that he did not measure up to their ability to communicate and command-the-room. That will matter in the 2024 primaries too.
that does seem a little bareboned, compared to trump,
but DC is pretty solidly Democrat. In big cities, the top bosses and the union leaders also support the Democrats and they carry more weight than the small fry.
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The metropolitan settlement includes the District, two counties in Maryland, four counties in Virginia, and five stand-alone municipalities in Virginia. There are many people who commute into town from points more distant than that. The thing to remember is that 80% of the working population in those jurisdictions are not federal employees.
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The dense settlement in and around DC has a population of about 4.2 million. It’s one of our premier cities. It also has an abnormally large black population – north of 30% of the total. The blacks account for about 60% of the population of Prince George’s County, Md. and about 50% of the population of the District itself.
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You have about 16 1st tier metropolitan settlements in this country. If you add up the sum of preferences in all of their respective components, the Democratic Party has the advantage in all of them and (if I’m not mistaken) a large advantage in all but four (Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and Miami). Have a gander at election returns for greater Denver in 2016. Greater Denver splays over seven counties. Hellary won six of them. She won six of the nine counties around Chicago, losing the three least populous counties. She won all of the counties around Los Angeles, all of the counties around San Francisco, all of the counties around Seattle, three of the four counties around Detroit, nine of the ten around Atlanta, nine of the ten around Philadelphia, and 14 of the 19 around New York. That she swept DC and it’s suburbs is a shade better than par for the course.
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I’ll wager the professional-managerial stratum in greater Washington is bluer than is usually the case. Extractive industries and manufacturing are nearly absent around Washington. It’s services all the way.
Start talking cuts in health and safety or environmental protection and people to get scared
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They don’t. Lobbyists, fundraisers, and PR people go to work. They can gin up some cash and stupid opinions among ordinary people, but people in general are not motivated.
but the epa is just another way of emiserating the people, now targeting farms as well as industry, one of their apparatchiks admitted this in 2015? crucifying the oil industry,
Unfortunately the nominee is going to be the unelecatble Donald Trump who will then lose to the worst presidentin our lifeitmes. These primaries guarantee unelectable candidates who are selected by what Limbaugh once called “Low Information Voters”‘.
Meanwhile, Tim Scott is truly impressive, confident of his abilities, proud of his accomplishment and even prouder that Obama is attacking him.
Because he KNOWS WHY Obama is attacking him:
FEAR.
“Sen. Tim Scott: ‘No Higher Compliment’ Than an Obama Attack”—
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/tim-scott-barack-obama-gop-race/2023/06/18/id/1123984/
Because for Obama, Blacks who love their country and actually articulate and promote policies that make sense for the Black community and for ALL Americans MUST be castigated, slandered, defamed, put down by Democrats who believe that the most effective way they can destroy the country is to deploy the weapon of RACISM against it
Well Scott is having NONE OF THAT.
(It wasn’t clear from which of his mansions Obama was launching his attacks on Scott…)
Meanwhile, “Biden” has started to roll out “his” weaponized IRS…
‘Armed ATF & IRS Agents Hit Montana Gun Store With “Soviet-Style Intimidation Raid’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/armed-atf-irs-agents-hit-montana-gun-store-soviet-style-intimidation-raid
…even as “he” continues “his” onslaught against the American economy….
“Biden to unveil $600 million in additional climate spending;
“President Biden pledged another $1B to the UN climate fund in April”—
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-unveil-600-million-additional-climate-spending
File under: Break Bones Better.
This is all true and needed. I believe DeSantis can deliver better and more consistently.
The open question is whether the election will be merely crooked, or a complete farce. If the latter, the only option for me would be to vote for Trump as a protest.
Meanwhile, “Biden” has started to roll out “his” weaponized IRS…
‘Armed ATF & IRS Agents Hit Montana Gun Store With “Soviet-Style Intimidation Raid’—
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Note: Congress does nothing to simplify the tax code.
Unfortunately the nominee is going to be the unelecatble Donald Trump who will then lose to the worst presidentin our lifeitmes. These primaries guarantee unelectable candidates who are selected by what Limbaugh once called “Low Information Voters”‘.
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Primary elections are less infected with low information voters than are general elections.
well except for dem primary voters, they think the sky has a nice shade of purple to it,
}}} I doubt this will convince many (or any) of the EverTrump group to support DeSantis.
Well, one distinction that one hopes there is is that there are no “NeverDeSantis”ers. So if DeSantis gets the nom, most of Trump’s supporters will have sense enough to not shoot the GOP in the foot by standing down or counter-voting for whatever loony is the Dem nominee.