Those truncated DeSantis quotes
I’ve written before about how early I noticed a smear campaign on the right against DeSantis. I use the words “smear campaign” not to describe mere criticism, but attacks based on distortions of his record and his words. Trump was a very active participant, and many of his supporters followed his lead on blogs and in comments. It spread very rapidly and very effectively.
And of course the left is very happy to encourage it and amplify it. Perhaps some of these comments are made by leftists masquerading as someone on the right, but I believe the majority are actually from people on the right.
I have no problem with criticism of DeSantis, and if voters don’t want him as the nominee then that’s the way it is. But I would like people to understand his actual positions, not distortions of those positions by the opposition.
A recent example is the reaction to DeSantis saying in an interview that Biden won the election, and that he also supposedly said that accusations of fraud in the 2020 election are false. I’ve seen headlines to that effect in many places, on both left and right.
A commenter here named “banned lizard” wrote:
I hoped he would bow out gracefully.
Oh, well.DeSantis: ‘Of course’ Trump lost in 2020
*sigh*
Why anyone would hope DeSantis would “bow out gracefully” I don’t know, unless that person is convinced Trump would win the general and be more effective at swamp-draining than he was during his first term. I think quite otherwise. “Banned lizard” and the rest who would like DeSantis to disappear and leave the field to Trump are entitled to their opinions, of course.
But what I detest – no matter what side does it – is the use of propagandist truncated quotes. I’m quite aware that waging war against that practice is a losing game. The propagandist truncated quote is a very clever tool, used constantly by each side. It’s a way of telling the truth – “So and so said this awful thing!” – while taking the quote out of context in order to lead to a misperception (or at the very least an incomplete, misleading perception) on the part of the listener or reader. I hate it when it’s used against anyone. That very much includes when it’s used against Trump – which happens constantly and to great effect, both from the left and from NeverTrumpers who used to be on the right.
How boring and time-consuming to look up the longer and more complicated story. The press knows this; politicians’ enemies and/or opponents know it, too. Nice guys finish last and all that. Much better to go with the attention-getting, incendiary quote, the one the leads people to the conclusion you want. It works for both Trump’s enemies and for DeSantis’ enemies, on both left and right, and both sides are adept at spinning someone’s words. For Trump-boosters on the right, the theme is DeSantis as betrayer stabbing Trump in the back, as well as DeSantis the wimp, DeSantis the GOPe candidate – despite DeSantis’ record in Florida and in Congress as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative group in the House.
For this recent DeSantis interview, if you look past the headlines you’ll see that the general points DeSantis was making were the following:
(1) Trump lost in the sense that he is not currently president. Biden is.
(2) The 2020 election had multiple issues that make it especially suspect, and several aspects of the rule changes were unconstitutional.
(3) Trump has some responsibility for this in that he approved of Fauci and the lockdowns that led to many of the rule changes, and he also signed a bill that funded ballot mailings.
(4) Trump’s lack of control over the FBI allowed them to suppress the Hunter Biden story.
(5) Republicans and Trump didn’t fight back hard enough against these things when it was all happening, and they need to do that in the future. (In other words, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.)
I have transcribed the relevant part of the interview that most people are talking about, the video of which can be found here:
Q: So could we just put this to bed, so you don’t have to be asked about this a million times – yes or no, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?
DeS: Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20th every four years is the winner, and I don’t think the election – and I’ve pointed out in that same quote, and I’ve said this from the very beginning – when they changed the rules for COVID, I think that was wrong. I think some of those changes were unconstitutional. When they do mass mail ballots, I think that’s wrong. When they do ballot harvesting, I think that’s wrong. I think Zuckerbucks was wrong. I think the fact that the FBI was working with Facebook and these other tech companies to censor the Hunter Biden story was wrong. And so I don’t think it was the perfect election; I remember after, the media was saying “This is the most secure election in history.” How could it be the most secure with those millions of mail ballots going out? At the same time, after the election, they were talking about Maduro stealing votes on the voting machines or whatever, and none of those theories proved to be true. But here is the issue that I think is important for Republican voters to think about: why did we have all those mail votes – because Trump turned the government over to Fauci? They embraced lockdowns, they did the CARES Act, which funded mail-in ballots, across the country. Donald Trump signed that bill that funded the mail ballots that all the Republicans have been so concerned about. And also, what the censorship of the Hunter Biden – that was Donald Trump’s FBI that was working that. He didn’t have control over his own government. So with me as the nominee, we won’t let them run circles around us. In Florida we banned ballot harvesting; I think that’s what you should do. If there is ballot harvesting that’s allowed, like in Nevada, we are going to do it too. We’re not going to fight with one hand tied behind our backs. And so I think all of those issues were very problematic, but at the end of the day, Donald Trump helped facilitate that whole set of circumstances.
Q: Okay, but respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question. And if you can’t give a yes or no on whether or not Trump …
DeS: Because …
Q … lost, then how can you …
DeS: Of course he lost …
Q Trump lost the 2020 election …
DeS: Joe Biden’s the president. The issue is I think, what people – in the media and elsewhere – they want to act like somehow this was just the perfect election. So I don’t think it was a good run election, but I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening, and you shouldn’t have provided all the money to fund the mail-in ballots.
The left and right aren’t as different as one might hope. These days I need to exercise and clean my annoyance suppression filter every morning before going online.
like I said before, it’s not a deal breaker, but his answer is still incomplete, where did the mail ballots happen, in fulton dane, maricopa, wayne, bucks, (the one in pittsburgh) i’m probably missing one, in those blue bergs, there is practically no chance that he could affect the outcome, we saw what happening in maricopa, just last year, there was no chain of custody with said ballots, thats something d’souza and the ninja outfit noted, so florida strengthened the balloting requirements, so ‘fortify’ against such a recurrence, the newer secretary of state, cord flynn, has been deemed an ‘election denialist’ for said actions, unlike the last 20 years of such statements,
I’ll be voting for DeSantis in the NY state Republican primary.
I won’t be voting for Trump under any circumstances.
no the left wants total power, and they allow no legal niceties to get in the way, most of the right, is doing perfunctory motions, while accepting the left’s narrative,
My only complaint with DeSantis is all the GOPe who support him and those lovely slugs the Lincoln Project.
well he hired ed rollins who promptly backstabbed him,
maybe i’ll have to vote vivek, fwiw, in the florida primary,
The hatred of DeSantis from the right is wierd to me. I mean, I understand why someone may prefer Trump over DeSantis, but to actually hate and resent DeSantis for daring to even challenge Trump so much that you’re willing to make stuff up about him seems like the behavior of a Leftist to me.
Left-leaning and right-leaning media have more in common with each other than it would seem. Note how people move from one to the other. They don’t become different people when they change jobs.
Both flavors are in the business of selling a narrative, they are not in the business of giving you all the facts so you can figure out what’s going on. That doesn’t make money. Journalism has been pay-to-play for at least ten years now–remember all of those think pieces about how is media going to survive with the rise of the Internet? Pay-to-play is how.
everyone’s entitled to their opinions, but I’m trying to get to the mechanics of the thing, which will be
Of course the point of asking DeSantis the question is not to know what he thinks. The media asks him because they want to damage his electoral prospects.
I’m not at all sure they are TRYING to get Trump to win the primary: I’m skeptical of 5-D chess arguments even if we weren’t talking about journalists here, who are not exactly masterminds.
It’s because the media is sure that a lot of Republicans will stay home if they think DeSantis doesn’t think the election was “stolen”, and that a lot of moderates won’t vote for him if DeSantis DOES think it was stolen.
It’s the same playbook they always run, when some Republican says something inflammatory they ask every Republican to weigh in on it, and it’s the same thing, either to make them look nutty or to make them lose the support of nuts.
Whoever thinks that The Lincoln Project would support any Republican let alone Ron DeSantis is crazy.
If it’s Trump versus Biden on the ballot, how can anyone sentient not vote for Trump? No point in voting for Biden, just ask for your euthanasia now.
The hatred of DeSantis from the right is weird to me. — Nonapod
One could say that this is how hardball politics is played now across the US, and then site Alinsky. But it goes back at least to the birth of organized syndicates of anarchists, namely the Proudhon, Bakunin, Blanqui strategy.
The power of your political base isn’t based entirely on the number of people, with a one person, one vote calculation. It is based on the numbers combined with their motivation level and the money at the party’s disposal. Hatred = Motivation.
Thanks, Neo, for all your hard work on this subject– very much appreciated.
A) “But what I detest – no matter what side does it – is the use of propagandist truncated quotes. ”
• 100% agree.
• Is it possible that DeSantis – no stranger to how MSM operates – got the headlines that he wanted?
B) “I have no problem with criticism of DeSantis, and if voters don’t want him as the nominee then that’s the way it is. But I would like people to understand his actual positions, not distortions of those positions by the opposition.”
• Does this standard apply to DeSantis himself?
C) “For Trump-boosters on the right, the theme is DeSantis as betrayer stabbing Trump in the back, as well as DeSantis the wimp, DeSantis the GOPe candidate – despite DeSantis’ record in Florida and in Congress as a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative group in the House.”
• Now do DeSantis boosters: For DeSantis-boosters on the right, the theme is …
I say again, Republicans are both crazy and stupid. Absentee ballots are primarily used by (i) old people and (ii) people who travel and/or have second homes (i.e., rich people), both of which are Republican constituencies. Making them less available will not help Republicans.
I could point out that Democrats are also crazy and stupid, like the way they eliminated the filibuster for nominations less than a year before they lost control of the Senate and less than three years before they lost control of both Senate and Presidency, but everyone knows that.
People in business are much more rational than people in politics.
? “Republicans and Trump didn’t fight back hard enough against these things when it was all happening” ?
Don’t I recall that *all* the various court venues stalled and put-off the election complaints by Trump’s team? In some cases “You don’t have standing”. In some cases “You haven’t exhausted all your legal remedies yet, you’re acting too soon.” Then later on, “laches” – “It’s a done deal guys, you should have acted sooner.”
It would be nice to have some guidance for NEXT time, so we non-lawyer types could understand WHO has standing, and WHEN complaints can be brought forward, and HOW to avoid that “Tough cookies guys, it’s over” legal-door-slam-in-the-face finale.
@y81:Absentee ballots are primarily used by (i) old people and (ii) people who travel and/or have second homes
Maybe in 1980. In some states 100% of ballots are absentee. When you make everyone absentee then the demographics of absentee ballot voters dramatically shifts.
People in business are much more rational than people in politics.
It’s the big corporations bankrolling Pride and DEI, and making everyone sit through reeducation or be written up by HR…
Mail in ballots are being abused when ballot harvesting is allowed, and voter rolls are not cleaned up.
With our current system, it’s impossible to verify how clean the election is. And that is a huge issue.
Perhaps require only those age 65 or physically disabled be allowed mail in ballots?
DeSantis was given an unfair question, but his answer was mild on the cheating issue. Unfortunately one an elected official takes the oath for Potus, there is no mechanism to recall them.
And by some weird coincidence once a state goes all mail in ballot, it stays Blue. Amazing the repercussions of stolen elections are.
Meanwhile,
Kristi Noem on GOP primary: ‘Why run if you can’t win?’
Indeed.
Banned Lizard:
Oh, I get it. We should decide who will win a half year before primaries begin, and even before a single debate. And everyone else should drop out.
Let’s go back to coronations. Yay!!
Rumor is that Noem may want to be Trump’s running mate.
yet they removed all restrictions in michigan wisconsin, pennsylvania, theres the carter baker commission, I know that was 18 years ago,
TommyJay @4:41pm,
Unfortunately all too true. We’ve seen that calculation pan out in election after election; no matter the candidates or issues.
Political parties and politicians who put party above their constituents are a blight on this land.
neo,
I appreciate how accurately you are stating Trump’s flaws, as well as his positives.
Quite a few “ever” Trumpers are tenacious and nasty. You’d save yourself some personal grief by not attacking The Donald when he falls short, but you don’t shrink from stating the truth.
I notice ace at ace of spades coming out hard with Trump negatives lately. I think he is tired of some of the more ludicrous ever Trumpers clogging up the comments on his blog.
I have nothing against Trump supporters debating openly and stating their opinions, but there are some who even Trump noticed as being irrationally loyal, (“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”)
Regarding the Republican primary, this election does feel different but historically it’s W-A-Y too early to be counting anybody out. Or in. Unless DeSantis pulls a Giuliani I doubt he’s out. Yet. Howard Dean blew up after winning a primary. Several candidates who were polling strong fizzled after a poor debate performance.
And, I still hold out hope there are third and fourth party challenges on the left and right. I’d love to see the two party Presidential race stranglehold finally crumble. I know that’s a long shot, but candidates like RFK, Jr. and Ramaswamy are doing very well ignoring party leadership.
Yes, the MSM will misquote candidates they don’t like. So will blogs that don’t like certain candidates. Those of us who are interested in politics see all this stuff happening now, and it’s disturbing. The problem is only about 10-15% of the public is paying much attention. So, why get our panties in a twist this early? Yes, I know – this coming election is very important. But I’m not losing sleep over it at this point.
Here’s why.
1. Joe Biden/Kamala Harris are very weak in the polls and are actually weak candidates.
2. Biden and Harris may not be the Democrat candidates. We all can see the party is looking around for someone better.
3. Have you looked at the Republican candidates? What do I see? I see many people who would be a better POTUS than Joe Biden.
a) Every one of them would close the border.
b) Every one of them would stop the war on fossil fuels.
c) Every one of them would do their best to rein in profligate spending.
d) Every one of them would be for school choice.
e) Every one of them would be for standing up to China and bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.
f) Every one of them would be for a strong traditional military with no DEI or CRT.
I could go on, but I think you get my point. All our candidates have much in common and are far superior to Joe Biden.
In addition to the above stances, I think we’re all looking for someone who can reform the DOJ, stand up to the MSM, and convince our fellow citizens of the correctness of his policies by going over the heads of the MSM much as Reagan was able to do. These things are more difficult to do than a)-f), And we should be looking for the ability to actualy accomplish these goals. I haven’t made up my mind. I like DeSantis, Ramaswami, and Trump the best. I’m hoping the debates will allow me to sort them out better in my mind. May the best man win.
Whomever the republican nominee may be, I will vote for them. As I consider every possible democrat nominee to be, given the policies of their party, constitutionally illegitimate. Fully understanding that a RINO republican president is simply a slower march to the gallows.
PA+cat: “Thanks, Neo, for all your hard work on this subject– very much appreciated.”
I vigorously second that.
Re absentee voting, I would end it except for military serving overseas. Election day should be election day, and if you can’t make it to the polls, you don’t vote, period. Everything else is too fraud-friendly.
Also, registration should end four to six weeks before an election. Same-day “registration” is preposterous — if you can’t be bothered to register well in advance, them you’re not serious enough to be voting. And if you just moved to town, OK, you don’t vote: Suck it up.
its way too soon to make any judgments, but if you want to curry favor with the voters, not the donors, one should sharpen up their arguments,
Also saying thanks to Neo for pushing back against those giving DeSantis the Alinsky treatment!
We are ~ 15 months away from the general election. What will the Only Trumpers do if Trump somehow founders, personally or politically? Sit out the election, or vote for an unelectable 3rd party candidate?
I am sick of Trump and his supporters using the Clinton-popularized politics of personal destruction. Ted Cruz was nice to Trump, until Trump attacked him viciously. Same with DeSantis. A wise chief executive grooms his successor. Who is Trump’s, Jared Kushner? This should be about a country of 330 million people, not just one man! Only Trumpers need to keep in mind the concept of a circular firing squad!
I will vote for Trump if he is the GOP nominee.
I will vote for DeSantis in the primary, and I am contributing to his campaign. If Trump the nomination, I will vote for him in the general. The Trumpistas here should make a similar pledge to support Ron DeSantis if he wins the nomination.
JJ:
You make good points, but to me the most important point of all, and the over-arching one, is: which Republican can win the general?
Neo: “which Republican can win the general?”
IMO, that’s an unknowable question. Yes, we can read the polls. Yess, we can follow the news and\or the propaganda. So much of what passes as news these days is actually tailored to a narrative. We know/feel that, if the voters were well-informed, they would not vote for the policies of the Democrat party. We know/feel that, barring some huge development, the election will be very close. And that’s why it’s so hard to tell which way the wind is blowing. A small shift of opinions can make a difference.
With all the good issues that Republicans can run on, I’m still of the opinion that the economy is the strongest. The economic struggles of the middle class are out to sight to the elite media and pols. They’ve got no problems paying their bills. The citizens who are $200 to $1000 short every month are wondering when the economic pain is going to end.
Two things could happen between now and election day – neither one good for the citizenry or the Democrat party.
Scenario one is that Biden continues his insane policies and inflation continues or worsens. We know for sure that oil prices aren’t going down. The OPEC nations have cut production and Biden can’t tap the national oil resources again. (If he does, he’s really nuts.) We also know that Biden will continue wasting money on green energy and trying to pump money to his base supporters – teachers unions, NGOs, etc. It spells more inflation and more economic pain. Voters will be looking for relief from that pain.
Scenario two is that the Fed’s interest rates will finally slow economic activity enough to tip us into a recession. Jobless claims and business failures will be the headlines. More economic pain that voters will be looking for answers to.
In both cases, I think any Republican who can lay out a reasonable plan for recovery could win going away.
If I’m correct, I’m a genius. If I’m wrong, I’m just a crazy old coot. 🙂
@JJ:I think any Republican who can lay out a reasonable plan for recovery could win going away.
The people whose harvested ballots will deliver the swing state Electoral College votes to the Dems will not know about the plan or care about recovery. They may not even know who is on the ticket.
Frederick re harvested ballots:
“They may not even know who is on the ticket.”
Or even that they voted …
Lots of Republican voters are fed up with the elected officials, pop-pundits and the like. My impression is that many of these folk vacated the field when problems emerged and avoid providing actual leadership to deal the numerous structural problems the country is dealing with.
We have the phenomenon of these established voices for the GOP who talk, talk, talk, but never get to the meat of the hurt people feel. There is a reason many people don’t vote for Republican, and that is Republican’s lack any follow through. If they mention an issue that motivates the base, they abandon it to work on the “big” brain pet issues which leave the real concerns of voters behind.
We have Republican voices arguing critical of people who identify real problems but offer controversial or unconventional solutions. They allow the left to frame the debate, and tear into various voices of opposition to the deteriorating system we face today. This is often described as tickling left and punching right.
This nation is suffering deep systemic problems that result of 50 plus years of destructive policies and the abandonment of the upper classes’ responsibility to take care of the lower classes. And yet, the left is allowed to censor, limit conversation because the non-left is controlled by voices which always limit the focus to today’s hot headline and avoids giving tools to long-term solutions.
(One exception is the work of Chris Rufo on the CRT school stuff, where he’s provided tools and information that actually is helpful to parents who are active in participating in their children’s education.)
The question any contender to movement Trump inherited is how they will help the people who have been attacked, demeaned and slandered. They need to connect with the actual voters. They need to connect with the Obama voters who voted for Trump. They need to answer the needs of a people who have been ignored while the nation was hollowed out though affirmative action, environmental overreach, mass immigration and outsourcing of jobs.
So far, DeSantis hasn’t learned to connect with actual base of the Republican party in the way Trump has. He seems smart, he’s implemented some good policies, but he’s not learned to content at the national level, and he doesn’t know how to connect yet to base. His supporters are arguing with Trump supporters on the internet too much. I don’t know how to coup the king, but DeSantis needs to answer that and squabbling with Trump and Trump’s base isn’t the answer. And yes, it is unfair that Trump can act childish and attack DeSantis, but that’s what being the frontrunner provides. Trump is part of the terrain, and if DeSantis can win this, he’s got to prove it.
So far, DeSantis has spent a lot of money, changed up his campaign and lost his place in the polls.
DeSantis Says Trump’s Election Fraud Theories ‘Did Not Prove to Be True’
As reported on Aug. 4 by The New York Times, the Florida governor and 2024 presidential hopeful levied his most harsh attack to date against GOP frontrunner and former President Donald Trump, saying the allegations that the 2020 election was stolen were “unsubstantiated.”
Oh, the humanity!
In hindsight, the catastrophe was inevitable.
Banned Lizzard:
You remember the Kraken? It may work in the movie, it didn’t work in our country.
you mean the helderman reports aired on hbo and frontline, the info from the dominion whistleblower, yeah I think theres a lot of pillow covering
sadly my memory is too sharp, to forget that one of cruz’s terrible hires, liz phair (sic) went after melania and trump fired back, admittedly roger stone is a low down cutthroat,
The final act of Trump’s political career will include destroying DeSantis, a candidate who had a reasonable chance to actually turning the tide against the left, and then losing the general election to a corpse (for the second time).
JJ – I think you’re willfully blind. Which Republican can win the general is not an “unknowable question.” It can’t be known with certainty, but we have evidence. Trump has run in the general election twice. He topped out at about 47% of the vote both times. And that was before January 6th, which most people just don’t view the same way as posters here. Trump won on a wing and a prayer in the Electoral College in 2016. Most everyone around here agrees it has become more difficult for a Republican to win since 2016. String that evidence together and the unavoidable conclusion is that Trump’s chances of winning the election are exceedingly small. Sure, anything can happen. But believing that Trump has just as good a chance in the general as the other candidates involves ignoring the evidence that we have.
That aside, I think you’re missing a very important point. I agree that a Republican with a good plan for the economy has a great chance of winning next year, but only if the election is about the economy and/or becomes a referendum on Biden’s time in office. If the GOP nominates Trump, however, the election is not going to be about the economy or Biden’s record. If Trump is the nominee, the election will be a referendum on Trump, and whether he was right to keep documents, and on his behavior surrounding J6, and on his complaints about the 2020 election, and on whether the prosecutors going after him are overreaching, etc. The economic message will be drowned out by all of Trump’s other antics. Democrats will keep the focus on Trump, and Trump will gladly accomodate them by keeping the focus on himself and whatever crazy things he says on Truth Social.
The scenario in which a Republican with a good economic plan can win does not include Trump as the nominee.
LeClerc
Why conservatives are not united case study. Me, me, me! Like a child my way or no way.
I agree with Bauxite, I can’t imagine how Trump wins the general. If Harris somehow became the opposition, maybe, simply because she is so unpopular, but even then I’m not sure. People who hate Trump would crawl across glass to vote against him and, with mail-in balloting that’s not even necessary.
Bauxite makes a good point about how closely Trump squeaked by in 2016. Michigan re-elected Whitmer. How would Trump win there again? Wisconsin? Pennsylvania?
Trump drives turnout on the Left.
Frank B,
“Republican’s lack any follow through.”
Kevin McCarthy?
Jim Jordan?
Rand Paul?
Glenn Youngkin?
Ron DeSantis?
Sarah Huckabee Sanders?
Brian Kemp?
Bill Lee?
Greg Abbott?
For DeSantis-boosters on the right, the theme is …
…DeSantis is not as much of a polarizing figure as Trump, nor is he such a loose cannon. Therefore, given the dismal Biden approval poll numbers, DeSantis has a better chance of winning beyond the margin of fraud (which, to me anyway, includes the ridiculously one-sided media coverage to which everyone is exposed who doesn’t explicitly seek out either Fox or harder-to-find right-leaning or consciously-trying-to-be-nonpartisan sources) than Trump does.
At least, that’s how I’m reading them.
I like DeSantis, but I haven’t contributed to anyone’s campaign yet. I’ll vote for whoever gets the R nomination.
Rufus T. Firefly:
To me, these are pockets of sanity. We always seem to treat politics as a separate sphere from culture/media. The libs/progs use all three in concert. Conservatives? Not at all. Whether Trump or Desantis wins is irrelevant. The American voter has pretty much abdicated their responsibility and the Dems control the culture. Plus there really is no unified Republican party.
Richard Cook,
I agree, but Conservatives and/or the Right are in much better shape than they were 15 years ago. Tucker Carlson gets more views on Twitter (X?) than Anderson Cooper does on CNN. The Daily Wire is making movies and TV shows, as are other non-Leftist entertainers/pundits. Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Jordan Peterson… tens of millions listen to their podcasts. The Gutfeld show draws more viewers than the Tonight Show. Conservative talk is dominating Spanish language radio.
Rufus
I hope your are right. But I am not really positive at all for the future of this country. But I’m old and cynical as hell at this point.
@Bauxite:only if the election is about the economy and/or becomes a referendum on Biden’s time in office.
The election is ONLY about delivering and counting ballots. Republicans have so far done nothing that would help in the states whose Electoral College votes need to switch to Republican.
It does not matter who is on the ticket or what they run on or what engaged voters care about. Unengaged voters whose ballots get harvested will decide the 2024 election just as they decided 2020.
I’m not saying Republicans are to blame for having done nothing that can change this, but the fact is they have done nothing that can change this no matter whether they are culpable or not.
Richard Cook,
I try not to lose hope, but at times it is difficult. Despite what it seems, there are a lot of talented, caring, freedom loving young people coming up behind us. They may not be a majority (maybe they are?), but they’re not going away.
Frederick,
To your point about election processes in the states, I am disheartened that the GOP did not elect Harmeet Dhillon as its head. She is a talented lawyer and tenacious. I think she could have led election reform, improved monitoring and overseen the lawfare necessary to counteract the Dems. The fact that McDaniel was re-elected does not indicate a desire to change the status quo.
(from wikipedia)
If that’s a summary of what DeSantis was saying, he’s right. I wouldn’t blame Trump for getting blindsided by COVID, as all world leaders were, and as Biden or any other president would have been. I could fault Trump and Ronna McDaniel for not developing a response to Democrat vote harvesting and vote fraud, and blame the media for suppressing the laptop story. I do fault Trump for carrying on after the election was already lost. He couldn’t realistically have expected that Pence would reject the states’ elector slates on his own.
Every one of them would do their best to rein in profligate spending.
Experience suggests not. Consider Bush-Cheney. Deficits didn’t matter for them. Even Trump didn’t reduce deficits. I don’t see most of the other candidates having the will, the skill, and the backbone to decrease spending.
“Republicans lack any follow through.
Look at most of the candidates. Christie, Scott, Haley, Hutchinson, Burgum, Pence, Hurd. Vivek and Ron may be exceptions, but the others don’t seem to have much backbone. The same might be true of Kemp and Youngkin if they entered DC politics. Listening to the candidates’ early commercials inclines me to think that it’s just the same empty rhetoric from the same empty suits.
Frederick – Harvesting ballots gives Democrats a huge GOTV advantage, that’s true. It exploits Democrats latent advantage in registered voters and makes it harder for the GOP to win. Harvesting is not the “ONLY” factor in the election, though. The GOP needs to win more votes.
It’s not at all impossible for a Republican to win more votes in the current environment. If Republicans can’t figure out how to win more votes in the current environment, the country is in for some rought sledding. What I can for (near) certain, though, is that the chances of Trump winning more votes in the new environment are very, very small. He didn’t do that great under the old rules in 2016 and the GOP has lost or underperformed in every other election where Trump was either on the ticket or the titular head of the party. He’s not changing anything. (Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results?)
Rufus,
Thank you for responding. I’m making a general point about a habitual and structural weakness of the GOP.
Take for example, W gets his no child left behind through after Kennedy modification which removed school choice options. Why didn’t the GOP bring it up again to make the bill more suited to families? To add school choice?
Just getting a bill on school reform is good enough. No need to refine it.
A few responses to my comment. I don’t have time to write a reply to all.
I can say that all the responses were as expected. The Republican party is divided and while that’s why our ideas are better, (we allow differences of opinion and competing ideas.) but it makes for difficult teamwork.
I will reply to Abrxas: “Experience suggests not. Consider Bush-Cheney. ”
Yes, Republicans have spent too much, but not if you compare them to Democrats. Imagine what the deficits would have looked like had Gore been POTUS. It’s a matter of a lesser evil. Only a Libertarian is going to be a real budget cutter, and the chances of Rand Paul becoming POTUS are relatively small. We have to work with what is available. Right now, there is so much money sloshing around the system and going to leftist causes, that just a normal budget procedure would look truly conservative.
Rufus-
The main thing making me so cynical is that I am seeing way too many parallels between the three countries I was deployed to who were in the midst of civil war and our own.
Rufus. Some bright spots to add to your list.
Sara Huckabee Sanders governor of Arkansas
Kim Reynolds governor of Iowa.
Regarding get out the vote and ballot harvesting, DeSantis has an actual plan and he’s shown in Florida that he can implement voting efforts. In the meantime, Trump is still back in 2016. He thinks he can win with rallies where he preens in front of his adoring fans. The man is a supreme narcissist.
Banned Lizard:
As Ronald Reagan would say: there you go again.
Again with the truncated quotes. Did you even read the post you’re commenting on? “The allegations” were not true – which allegations? Are you even interested in what DeSantis actually said? Or would you rather just link and sigh.
Here’s the rest of the article you linked to, in case anyone is interested:
the problem is not in florida, its in gruesome gretchen cadaverous evers, conniving kemp (yes he enabled his fraudulency biden) by not challenging fulton county,
Pingback:Instapundit » Blog Archive » KIND OF. EXCEPT THE FULL THING … HE STILL SAID IT. YES, HE’S TRYING TO HAVE HIS CAKE AND EAT IT TO
1. Who won the Teas Democratic Primary for the Senate in 1948?
2. Who won the 1960 Presidential election?
3. Who won the 2000 Presidential election?
4 Who won the 2017 World Series?
5. Who set the Reichstag Fire?
6. What is Stalin’s famous\infamous quote on elections?
DeSantis praised Trump for signing the CARES Act right after it was passed. But that was before he was desperately trying to save his failing campaign.
Here’s his PR statement at the time:
Governor Ron DeSantis: Florida Receives $4.1 Billion from CARES ACT
Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that Florida has received more than $4.1 billion in federal relief under the CARES Act to aid the state in responding to and recovering from COVID-19. These funds reflect 50 percent of Florida’s total allocation under the CARES Act, with an additional disbursement of funds pursuant to the CARES Act later this month.
“The $4.1 billion in federal funds received through the CARES Act will help ensure Florida secures critical resources as we continue this fight,” said Governor DeSantis. “We thank President Trump for this much-needed support and look forward to our continued work to defeat COVID-19 and emerge stronger than before.”
I think for many Trump supporters the issue with DeSantis starts with the fact that our government has spent nearly a decade and at least $100 million to find any crime to put Trump in jail. This is somewhat new to American politics; it marks how much we have declined from exceptionalism.
The question becomes if we allow the Democrats to destroy Trump in this way, are we going to normalize this behavior from them for the future? To a large extent, through their control of the DC courts, and the enormous disparity in the political leanings of DC juries, Democrats have succeeded in creating a tiered justice system for national politicians (at the notion of invoking Godwin, this is how Weimar fell, as told in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). They have also normalized the notion of using the justice system to surveil Republicans and their supporters.
The full context hardly makes DeSantis look any better.
>>”what the censorship of the Hunter Biden – that was Donald Trump’s FBI that was working that. He didn’t have control over his own government.”
Unless DeSantis is a lot dumber than I think he is, he is fully aware of the fact that the President does not control the FBI. And he is fully aware of the fact that the GOP as an institution does not desire an FBI under the Presidents control. It likes the system just the way it is.
I think the candidates other than Trump have one insurmountable problem. The base wants to exercise citizen sovereignty over a system, starting with the election system that they know was denied them twice, now. They intend to force Trump into office to prove that point; sovereignty. Everything else is window dressing for that one thing; all the issues, all the policies, all the personality drama are important but secondary considerations. Trump just has happened to capture all the secondaries except personality drama for which he gets a pass due to checking all the other boxes.
DeSantis is circling the drain because of his own missteps. Trump and his supporters have nothing to do with it. And the opposition, with GOPe support, are trying to destroy Trump because they know they can’t steal enough votes, this time around. The disastrous performance of the Biden regime guarantees it.
Talking about smear campaigns, the GOPe are going right along with the democrats and globalists. Trump did win in 2020. He did get the Independent and Suburban women’s vote. In 2024, he will get substantial support from Democratic voters. Trump has been proven right on just about every important issue.
I fail to see a path for Ron De Santis to be POTUS, short of Trump withdrawing. Even with that, I am not sure he’d be the primary winner.
It’s not that “he hasn’t yet learned to connect”—it is that he DOES NOT connect with people on a mass scale. And that is an insurmountable problem for a politician who wants to president.
How did Trump get to be POTUS in 2016? Not by giving some eight paragraph, nuanced intellectual response to the most anticipated question every R primary candidate will be asked– Did Trump win in 2020?
He won by persuasion, connecting, using techniques well described by trained hypnotist Scott Adams in his blog from 2015 and 2016. Using and repeating phrases like “Fake News,” “What the hell do you have to lose?,” even “Lock her up.”
“Make America Great Again.”
It’s those short phrases that people hear and remember, not the paragraphs.
It’s those phrases that media repeats.
And we know they love to pick a phrase out of a paragraph, even if it has almost the opposite meaning of the full explanation.
Ron should have been ready for that question, and used it as an opportunity to engage those 30% of 2016 voters who voted R for the first time.
Ron could have replied to that question by saying “That election lacked Constitutional integrity,” based on Michigan and Wisconsin courts finding that both states failed to follow constitutional regulations when they changed their voting methods without having their legislatures approve those changes.
Or he could have said “it is clear our Intelligence Community played a determining role by their treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop” (you know, sitting on it, rather then using it to charge him with the criminal activity it documents) or that “Government censorship of social media played a significant role in the information voters based their choice on” (see Twitter Files).
Or even “Bill Barr threw that election.” (Which he did, both by failing to verify the existence of Hunter’s laptop, which was under his purview for eleven months by the time the letter from the retired IC folks was released, failing to investigate his attorney in PA’s reports of fraud, and it appears now by squelching the investigation in to the massive Michigan voter registration fraud being reported this week.)
“So you could say it was rigged.”
Or even “It makes it tough to argue with those who say it was rigged.”
Vivek, the non-politician, is doing a far better job with all this than long time politician Ron de Santis.
Which is likely why yesterday, Vivek pulled in to second place in the aggregated polls, and Ron dropped to ten per cent.
its a long time, between now and january!! these primaries are tedious exercise, and when they yield mccain or romney really what was the point,
its a marathon not a sprint, jeff roe and ed rollins seriously, what were they thinking, maybe that’s what the donors were thinking,
brian kemp could do a lot of good if he dismissed fani willis, for the citizens of that benighted borrough, but he’s not going to do because he’s a co conspirator in this gang of pirates,
A commenter pops up (on a story about how DeSantis is lied about) to say that the Lincoln Project supports DeSantis. Pretty much says it all.
I don’t know if it’s just my Twitter feed or the other range of articles I scan, BUT I see much more sharp & personal criticism directed at Trump by DeSantis fans than the other way around. In addition, the way they criticize and undermine policy choices and execution (as if the entire elite and Deep State bureaucracy of BOTH parties didn’t do everything- legal and extra-legal to slow walk, change and stop the MAGA agenda) all sounds just like Democrats or, alternatively, Project Lincoln to me. Trump faced a legal and illegal and outrageous conspiracy in and out of government that we have never seen before.
On the other hand, the Democrats made Trump’s personality and personal failings their target throughput the 2016 campaign, his term and today. Why? Because Trump was elected on a populist MAGA agenda that most Americans wanted and neither party would fight for- only Trump. They didn’t want to have to compete against THAT.
THAT’S why I voted for Trump and will again if I have the opportunity. DeSantis has done great things in Florida and I don’t believe I’ve ever criticized him. I don’t approve of his consultants and GOPe staff and the campaign he’s run. I support the MAGA agenda that only Trump has a record of fighting like hell for. I would vote for whatever national politician showed the most commitment to fighting BOTH parties for that agenda.
I seethe when I and my fellow MAGA supporters get called “Trump loyalists” or worse, “cultists” by the DeSantis crowd. That they don’t get it is a big “tell” (just like the “tells” I saw in the lies on Covid policy and “climate science”- I sniff out cons pretty well) that the DeSantis crowd are not committed to the MAGA agenda. That’s why DeSantis will capture the GOPe vote, just not mine.
I’m reminded of bcci, which along with the other s&l, allowed the dems to take the senate back,
https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1689998230560415747
“A former three-term governor of Vermont, Dean was seen as the candidate of the Left and… was considered a frontrunner despite conservatives’ attempts to depict his campaign as a “left-wing freak show,” but finished third in the Iowa Caucuses.”
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-dean-scream
yes he lost to john kerry, but he’s the important part, he got control of the party machinery,
How many third-party votes do Cornell West, Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema have to peel off the democrats before it becomes winnable?
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/will-cornel-west-turn-the-2024-presidential-election-into-a-rerun-of-1948/
And that’s Biden pre-impeachment.
Who does a better job among republicans at mobilizing the left-hand side of the bell curve, hmm?
On the right, who’s better at winding up the crazies?
Kenneth:
“In 2024, he will get substantial support from Democratic voters.”
OMG, that’s just too funny! If you really think that, you are living in a true fantasy world. He won’t even get substantial MotR voters. He got them in 2016 because they disliked Hillary, but after seeing him for 4 years, they turned against him. As others have said, nominate Trump and get another 4 years of Biden or Newsom.
Whose stance on a national abortion policy is more likely to alienate women and drive turnout for the other side?
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/desantis-criticizes-trump-for-implying-florida-abortion-ban-is-too-harsh
https://youtu.be/rU6PWT1rVUk
thats a rather mild statement, I don’t agree with it,
Via this exquisite exhibit of self control:
https://youtu.be/l6i-gYRAwM0
Just kidding. That scream was the end of Dean on the national stage.
yes but i’m looking at the bigger picture, lefties do not stop at one stumbling block, they just doubled down like they did with obama the next cycle, with a few helpful secretaries of states and governors,
In hindsight, I should have made a reference to Howard’s End:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104454/
Doug Martin:
It’s your Twitter feed or however else your information is being filtered and selected.
I read a number of blogs and comments – or at least skim them – quite regularly. Even before DeSantis formally announced but after it was clear he was probably going to run, the character assassination of DeSantis based on lies/misrepresentations was going full swing. This was by the same people who had praised him consistently earlier. The word had gone out that he was a Trump enemy, and had to be invalidated and smeared. The speed and breadth of it was really quite something to behold.
Trump has always gotten a steady stream of criticism. But – as I’ve written many times – since the fall of 2020, his judgment seems to have fallen off and he does things like viciously attack Kayleigh McEnany for the mildest of statements about a poll – a person who’s been one of his most stalwart and loyal defenders. This sort of thing is the reason he’s drawn some criticism from people who used to defend him.
I started noticing what could be called “Trump cultists” right from the beginning of Trump’s candidacy in 2015. That does not describe all or probably even most Trump supporters. But it describes those who defend him no matter what he does, and who attack everyone he attacks in follow-the-leader type fashion. And there are plenty of them.
John Paul:
The FBI is under the DOJ and is part of the executive branch. Trump could have appointed a different FBI director, for starters.
This post isn’t about whether a person should like or support DeSantis or agree with what he said. It’s about the fact that people are lying about what he said. He never said there was no fraud in 2020. And he said that Biden won in the sense that he is now president, not that it meant he won fair and square and that everything in the 2020 vote tally was on the up and up. He said quite the opposite about that.
Rob:
From what I’ve seen of DeSantis supporters, they do NOT support the prosecution and persecution of Trump. In fact, they are very much against it. That’s certainly true on this blog, anyway.
That Trump appeals to a block of deplorable voters whose support for him is so unconditional that it’s regarded as essentially impervious to reason, is regarded as a valid justification for credentialed aspiring/frustrated elites to reject him?
He has a higher floor than the other republican candidates.
Does he have a lower ceiling? Even with republicans co-opting ballot harvesting??
@neo:The FBI is under the DOJ and is part of the executive branch. Trump could have appointed a different FBI director, for starters.
Not sure that would have made much difference. Anyone he gets who’d be considered qualified and experienced is just coming from the same mileu, and only the top couple of levels are appointed anyway. The Strzoks and Pages are still going to be there. A true outsider appointed would probably not be obeyed any better than Trump was.
So much of what is wrong is due to people who can’t easily be fired and don’t change out with new administration. They tend to regard their appointed bosses as temporary occupants who don’t really know how things are supposed to be done. Also true of state government.
It’s called “an organizational culture.” It is a feature of companies and government agencies.
The most effective Presidents we’ve had in my lifetime — Reagan, Clinton, and Bush Jr — were governors before becoming President. (Carter is the only exception.) We owe Trump profound gratitude for revealing the scope and power of the Derp State, but the fact is that he didn’t have a clue what to do about it. We need the sort of remodel that DeSantis has achieved in Florida, and we need somebody who can act decisively from Day One and keep the screws on for a full eight years.
(I see that my fingers have typed “Derp State” and I have decided I like it too much to correct it.)
That’s why I initially supported Scott Walker in 2016.
Turns out he was soft on illegal immigration and too indebted to big donors who support open borders to adjust his position. He wasn’t a suitable vessel for the populist position on illegal immigration, so I jumped to Ted Cruz and hoped for the best. Cruz lacked the charisma to charm the masses and got clobbered by Trump, the last man standing.
Just let the race play out and agree to support the last man standing and you’ll prolly end up with Trump again.
It doesn’t help when all of your erstwhile allies are taking Chinese money just like the sell outs in the other party.
Trump appears to understand abating the political rot means forcing out corrupt republicans like Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney, too. Too bad not everybody is on board with that.
That’s what I said about Scott Walker.
They’re a valuable resource and they’re practically free.
You wind them up and aim them at stuff.
They got some form of hybristophelia, whaddaya want from me?
https://www.magellantv.com/articles/romancing-the-monster-what-is-hybristophilia
Neo –
You could be right about the information I’m seeing. However I don’t think you can sway me that there are any significant number of “cultists” and just like calling “racism” on those who disagree with an argument, perhaps we shouldn’t use the power of that word for the behavior you describe.
There is a trait of many people to not give an inch in debate with those they view as their enemies. Trump is one of these (and I don’t think you believe he’s a cultist) and he’s been encouraged by that behavior all his working life by great success. Manhattan real estate and construction was his early teacher, and the Democrats, Deep State and their media solidified that behavior. What good it does showing any weakness or error or backing off a position when facing such enemies is debatable. But note how often those enemies ever use that tactic themselves…
The Trump supporters you characterize have lived through 7 years of lies and smears and omissions of context of Trump by virtually everyone in public life. In the first few years they couched their support and wondered what and which crimes could Trump have REALLY committed. But before the 2020 election they were over it. All the evidence was that Trump was conspired against by every institution and political figure, using unfair, unethical, untruthful and even illegal means. They are defending him reflexively, no-holds-barred not because of their fealty to him, as you claim, but because of their disgust with his enemies. DeSantis in their view, and after having promised not to, has aligned with those enemies.
If you think characterizing MAGA folks as “cultists” is either accurate or helpful to DeSantis, echoing the longstanding dog whistle of the left, the Lincoln Project and GOPe or would discourage MAGA supporters in the slightest, you ought to try your hand at being a political consultant to the GOP.
Doug Martin:
The Trump-or-no-one group to which I refer is not at all a new phenomenon. It’s an old one that I noticed the minute he declared his candidacy in 2015, and it has not changed at all. So this is not a reaction to 7 years of anything.
Early in Trump’s candidacy in 2015, this group was extremely active online on all the blogs, including this one. Everything Trump did was wonderful. Nothing any of his opponents did was okay. If you didn’t like Trump at the time, you were under constant attack.
I have long been angry at the attacks on Trump and the mendacious and vicious things that have been done to frame him and trap him. So I share that feeling. But it doesn’t mean I think he’s a good candidate for 2024.
And many of these people now say if Trump isn’t the nominee they will NOT vote for the eventual nominee of the GOP no matter who it is. This to me is a “tell.”
Nor have I “characterized MAGA folks as cultists.” As I pointed out in this comment, I explicitly said that most Trump supporters should not be characterized that way, only some.
Mentus:
Oh, and then there is your own truncated quote. You wrote that I wrote:
However, this is the actual quote of what I wrote [emphasis added]:
It’s mostly cheap talk, a bargaining position, an ultimatum, a bluff.
But even if it isn’t cheap talk, so what?
We showed up and voted for the republican establishment shills, the execrable McCain and Romney.
It’s the republican establishment’s turn to hold its collective nose and pull the lever for Trump.
Or else burn it all down (<<cheap talk??)
Mentus:
So you think you read their minds? How nice for you, to be so all-knowing about the fact that those commenters are not stating what they mean.
And almost all Republicans held their collective noses in both 2016 and 2020 and voted for Trump. So your point is no point at all. Not only that, but if Trump ends up being the GOP nominee this time, I believe that the vast vast majority of Republicans will hold their noses and vote for him again.
Did the excised material undermine my argument?
Would leaving those words in detract from the point I was making??
The Trump Cultists, a minority of Trump supporters, are potentially useful. I stand by that assessment.
I am very sorry that currently, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity, but at this point its irresponsibly dangerous to deny it.
That would be a sick burn if you didn’t immediately undermine your own point:
Even the erstwhile Never Trumpers?? I don’t think so.
My point is valid.
Potentially useful to Democrat operative; encourage internecine warfare. Talk up the Trump turd party option, stoke the hate towards de Santis. Win win solution.
It’s cool for establishment shills to run Evan McMullen against Trump and risk helping the democrats but Trump is forbidden from doing the same thing? Screw that.
Deal with him or lose for sure. Support him and maybe win. You’re lying to yourself if you see it differently.
Maybe you just can’t admit you’d rather lose supporting a dark horse candidate your progressive workmates don’t despise than win with their bete noire.
Mentus stokes the division and the turd party option.
om @ 5:09pm,
Give that man a cigar! Bing! Bing! Bing! We have a winner!
Mentus:
You ignore many of my arguments and come up with strawmen such as Evan McMullen.
NeverTrumpers were almost non-existent except among the punditry. The vast vast majority of voters in the GOP voted for Trump, as all surveys indicate. But you would like to ignore these facts.
I voted for Trump and I plan to vote for him again if he is the nominee. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You have now proven yourself to be a troll and a huge time-waster.