Oh, and by the way, in line with my post about truncated DeSantis quotes …
… here’s a comment I just noticed at Instapundit:
Ron deSantis just effectively committed suicide with the Republican base (and independents as well) by endorsing the 2020 election theft.
Which of course Ron DeSantis did not do, as I wrote (with actual quotes) in this post. But the truncated-quote-lie is a very effective tool, as I also wrote, and it’s being used against DeSantis by the Trump forces – and of course by the MSM, which also uses the Trump forces to spread the word although the latter may not recognize that’s what’s happening.
Most people will not get curious enough to look up the context of any quote. Most people will jump on a quote that seems to substantiate what they already thought was the case, rather than check it out. Why do you think that NBC interviewer was so eager to keep asking an asking DeSantis to repudiate the idea that there was fraud in 2020? She was hoping to elicit something to use in a headline that the Trump forces would pick up and spread, something that would hurt DeSantis with the right. And although DeSantis was careful in his answer, the misleading sound bite was generated because – as Karl Popper said – Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
Although actually, I very much doubt that those accusing DeSantis of rejecting the idea that any election fraud happened in 2020 actually misunderstand what he said, if they in fact read it or heard it. They are purposely misrepresenting it in order to effect a political end. So I will revise that Popper quote to read this way: Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be quoted in a misleading manner in order to harm you: there will always be some who use a truncated quote in order to mislead others for political gain.
Of course it was obvious that the whole purpose of the NBC interview of DeSantis was to get him to admit that Trump actually lost the election. All the nuanced caveats and clarifications would be ignored. DeSantis knew this (or should have known this) and should not let himself be bullied into creating the sound bite that NBC wanted. All he had to say was “I know you want me to say that Trump lost but I believe the election was neither free nor fair and I won’t play along with you.” Instead DeSantis walked right into the trap. Or DeSantis said what he said because he thought it would make him more popular with “moderates” In any case it was a mistake.
He made a similar mistake in his interview with Piers Morgan on the subject of the Ukraine war when clarifying his statement to Tucker Carlson. First of all it was a mistake giving an interview to a self-promoting hack like Morgan but he let Morgan bully him into calling Putin a war criminal.
Has DeSantis been treated fairly by the press? Of course not and fair treatment could never have been expected. But the main reason for the wheels coming off the DeSantis campaign is that he simply can not make the sale to ordinary voters. DeSantis is just not a very good politician. The skills that make him an effective Governor and administrator don’t translate to the campaign trail. His campaign has been filled with poor judgements that won’t be remedied by another shake-up of his campaign staff.
Gregory Harper:
But that’s my exact point: It is literally IMPOSSIBLE not to give such sound bites to the press, if the press is against you. That’s what I meant by the Popper quote. Trump gives such sound bites almost every time he opens his mouth, for example. In DeSantis’ case, as the underdog, he must give interviews and he is very careful. But no one can be careful enough. Trump transcended the problem in 2016 because he was so unusual and flamboyant and combative that he appealed to a lot of voters on the right, and a lot of them remain loyal to him. But he makes such errors constantly.
And I believe that you are wrong about why DeSantis is not doing well. Or perhaps it’s merely a matter of emphasis. DeSantis isn’t doing well for two reasons: Trump has a core group that is large and will not abandon him for anyone else as well as some of them being very active online lying about DeSantis. That’s the first reason. The second is that many people on the right have become addicted to very dramatic candidates who are exciting and transgressive and channel their rage, although such candidates probably cannot win in the general. Trump has accustomed them to wanting either Trump or someone as exciting and funny as Trump. Trump starts out with enough support in a large field to win the nomination, and that support will not abandon him. It really doesn’t matter what DeSantis does or doesn’t do, or any of the others, if the Trump diehards are determined to stick with Trump – which they are.
“She was hoping to elicit something to use in a headline that the Trump forces would pick up and spread, something that would hurt DeSantis with the right.”
______
Maybe. Or maybe it was just the lying press’s commitment to pushing the “free and fair” line to the max. (I think I hold their intelligence in lower esteem than does neo.)
I do agree with Gregory Harper that DeSantis dropped the ball here. He really should have pushed the question right back at the interviewer. That’s something he has done before, and if he wants to get any traction he needs to do it regularly.
One other point: I used to know some people actually in the line of running campaigns. One thing that always got them laughing was when people commented on candidates, critiquing “how they ran a campaign.” All the guys I knew agreed. The first rule is you make sure the candidate is as far as possible from running things.
Using fake news against opponents is ironic considering what’s been done to Trump. I don’t respect it coming from Dems and I don’t respect it coming from the Trump camp.
neo:
Anyway. I appreciated your rebuttal yesterday. I too was brought up short by that sound bite.
Neo:
I know the press will do whatever they can to twist statements and get you to say what they want you to say. In another life, I was a press contact for the Census Bureau and the press would always try to get me to say something that our data simply did not support. DeSantis did not have to say that he thought Trump lost. He could have and should have deflected the question. I’m not sure if he said what he said intentionally or not but it was an obvious own goal.
I also disagree on the reasons for the DeSantis campaign troubles. You are right that Trump has a large and loyal base but people were willing to give a look to an alternative, given Trump’s baggage. In April, DeSantis was polling with 15 points of Trump and doing better in some states. Since then his numbers have declined sharply. We were told that once he officially declared his candidacy and people got a closer look at him, he would do better. But the exact opposite has happened. The more he campaigns, the worse his numbers get. He is not Hillary level painful on the campaign trail but he is just not an effective retail politician and doesn’t connect with people. Some people have this ability and some don’t.
I also think it is a mistake to assume that Trump can’t win the general election. There just isn’t any objective evidence to suggest that a more moderate candidate would fare better than Trump. Given the level of rigging and fraud, it will be an uphill battle for any Republican candidate but Trump has almost singlehandedly changed the electoral map. I believe that the best chance Republicans have of winning is that the economic pain felt by working class people in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan will be enough for them to turn out in large enough numbers to overwhelm the margin of fraud. It may be a long shot but I think it is the most plausible scenario for Republican victory.
Gregory Harper:
I think a Trump candidacy is poison at this point. I’m not at all sure that any Republican presidential candidate can be elected, however.
I think DeSantis’ numbers have dropped somewhat because of the lies told about him, and spread, by the Trump diehards. They have been VERY active online doing this for many months now.
I get annoyed when reading an article that pulls quotes from other online sources but, fails to link to the original source document.
For example, I’ll read articles saying that this “red” state has a law that forbidding something. But, if you go to the state website, the “law” is just a recently introduced bill that has yet to go through committee for review or even get to the floor for a vote. Many bills never get to to the governor’s desk for signing.
If the article is really bad, I’ll start commenting with direct quotes and links from the bill as well as explaining how the process works. At least on one website, the author has stopped doing that misreporting.
@ Gregory Harper , Eeyore
• Nice work.
• 100% agree.
***
“Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.”
The dog did not bark ^^
• Besides some pro-DeSantis bloggers, have not found any examples of DeSantis claiming his Aug 7 comments about the 2020 election have been presented unfairly (e.g., his campaign site, social media).
• Strikes me that if DeSantis felt he had been victimized by a MSM “loaded” question – which he has proven in the past to be adept at avoiding – he would have attempted to correct that “mistake” by now.
• I’ll add that during the recent WMUR NH Town Hall DeSantis demonstrated the ability to answer “loaded” MSM questions in a way that could or could not generate a negative Trump headline.
• For example, the moderator asked a “follow-up” question – not related to audience question – ‘How handle Trump belittling him’ and DeSantis, launched into a 100% disingenuous four-part ?statement that generated headlines like ones below. Yet later on when the moderator asked another “follow-up” question – not audience question – ‘Did Trump encourage J6’, DeSantis avoided more headlines by stating that Trump encouraged citizens to go peacefully.
– DeSantis blasts Trump for not ‘draining the swamp,’ adding trillions to national debt
– DeSantis At NH Town Hall: Trump “running in 2024 on the things that he promised to do in 2016 and didn’t do”
• Strikes me that DeSantis is getting the headlines that he wants.
^^ = “Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention? To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. The dog did nothing in the night-time. ‘That was the curious incident, remarked Sherlock Holmes.”
Eeyore @5:07pm,
Were they still laughing when Trump ran his own campaign and cobbled together a miraculous and thin margin of counties and states to carve out an electoral college win no one had even imagined?
The experts are right. Until they aren’t.
Gregory Harper,
If Trump still has extraordinary pull with working class voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania where we they in the mid-terms and why didn’t his chosen candidates win? I think Ron Johnson in Wisconsin was his only choice that won in those three states. He couldn’t even get Mehmet Oz past Fetterman in PA!
because fetterman was the honest victor,
this character out of young frankenstein
now in georgia, they busted two banks to get warnock re elected, ftx and svb if memory serves as well as the rest of the 400 million dollars spent, *curious how all the campaign charges were dropped there,
you want to buy a bridge, how about what happened in maricopa county,
Like Donald Trump or hate him, or somewhere in between; the one thing that amazes me when people quote Trump is that they quote Trump as if his statements have any meaning.
Donald J. Trump has said every possible thing about every possible subject from every possible angle. He has been running his mouth in public for decades. Yes, sometimes some things he states happen, but more often than not they don’t. The only real consistency is whose side the person he is speaking with is.
During his Presidency, when DeSantis was the Governor of the state Trump still chooses to lives in, Trump couldn’t praise him enough. DeSantis was working to get Trump Florida’s electoral votes and all was good. But, all of a sudden, the same exact man who did the same exact things is now the spawn of satan.
Kayleigh McEnany did a phenomenal job as Trump’s Press Secretary. She went out there ever day, incredibly prepared and took immense heat while always having Donald Trump’s back. Two years later she does one TV appearance where she states something less than enthusiastic about Trump in a poll and Trump attacks her like she just stole his wallet.
miguel cervantes @8:22pm,
So, we are in agreement. Trump cannot win Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin or Michigan.
not unless we can compete with an unlimited unverifiable number of ballots,
those are the real electors, ‘come on man’ but they are punishing electors who followed the actual rules
just like Fox denies the truth, to it’s audience
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1689783814594174976
It just shows that DeSantis is not ready for prime time. He should have just stayed in FL where he’s doing good work.
Marisa:
It shows nothing of the sort. You don’t seem to have understood either of my posts on the subject.
Without reading other comments:
Movie described as “Awesome… A masterpiece” could in fact be “An awesome display of mediocrity. The director’s commitment to dreck was a masterpiece of misdirection.” Or worse.
I was fortunate to attend a state college where such tricks were still pointed out as things to look out for, rather than as techniques.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Agreed on Trump’s ability to turn on a dime in order to viciously attack people he once praised. The Kayleigh McEnany incident was a real turning point for me in terms of my sense of how Trump is losing it and alienating even many voters who previously supported him. At least the attacks on DeSantis were attacks on someone now running against Trump – which in Trump’s eyes makes him an enemy fit for destruction. But McEnany did nothing except help Trump tremendously. She was phenomenal.
Neo, I too saw that comment. I was going to comment but thought “Why, his mind is made up and he will not change with the truth”. Much like my best friend, My Other Brother, who believes the narrative about Jan 6. Yet he is fairly conservative and hates Biden, but will not vote for Trump again.
Rufus T. Firefly:
“If Trump still has extraordinary pull with working class voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania where we they in the mid-terms and why didn’t his chosen candidates win? I think Ron Johnson in Wisconsin was his only choice that won in those three states. He couldn’t even get Mehmet Oz past Fetterman in PA!”
I don’t think Trump’s appeal necessarily transfers to other candidates. I also think the economy would have to get worse for Trump to have a chance. But I also think that Trump’s appeal to working class voters that don’t typically vote for Republicans (or vote at all) is real and is a phenomenon that is overlooked by too many political pundits. Ohio used to be a swing state and Trump carried it easily both times. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan did not used to be competitive. They are now. Election fortification/rigging/fraud makes winning these states very difficult but I don’t think impossible.
On a personal note, I was volunteering at a Republican club booth in a county fair in my adopted state of West Virginia. We had a cardboard cut out of Trump as a display and it was interesting to me the number of people that wanted to take their picture with cardboard Trump or just let us know he was their man. These weren’t necessarily people you would think of as typical Republicans. Trump does have a connection with a lot of people who feel they have been abandoned by almost everyone else.
that guy:
I doubt that DeSantis is reading many blog comments or all the blogs on the right and then answering every distortion. That would be a more than full-time job in and of itself. Candidates are continually being misrepresented in the press, in blogs, and in comments, and the game of whack-a-mole they would have to play to answer them all, or even the majority of them, would be impossible to win or even to play. Not only that, but to say “I didn’t say that!” ends up calling more attention to the misrepresentations, not less, and opens the candidate up to accusations of flip-flopping and the like. Happens all the time, and not just to DeSantis.
DeSantis’ remarks were actually quite clear and he said exactly what he wanted to say, including strong criticism of the way the 2020 election was handled and how mail-in ballots in particular are untrustworthy. He also meant to blame Trump for the COVID lockdown and for signing the bill that funded more mail-in ballots. And in my opinion what he said about how the evidence that Trump lost that election is that Biden is president was correct. Trump can argue all he wants about it, but he’s not president and Biden is, and Trump and the Republican Party failed to secure the voting by being successful at challenging the new rules. And that is simply the truth.
How it’s done:
Vivek Ramaswamy Asked Point Blank If Joe Biden Is A Legitimately Elected President
Note he doesn’t answer point blank because he seems to know that a “yes” or “no” is not needed when shenanigans make the popular vote unverifiable. The proper legal response by a state legislature in such a case is to decline certification and do their constitutional duty by voting for electors free of influence by the tainted popular vote.
Ramaswamy’s answer is similar to the governor’s, but nuanced in a way that avoided the baited bear trap that DeSantis stepped in.
DeSantis is just not very good with hostile media.
“My Other Brother, who believes the narrative about Jan 6. Yet he is fairly conservative and hates Biden, but will not vote for Trump again.”
He deserves Joe Biden as President…especially since he believes all the propaganda the left and the GOPe put out about January 6th. Watch the Tucker interview with ex Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. It will blow your mind.
desantis has had a good learning curve, but it took him a while to see through the tripwire that fauci and the tech companies had rigged, all the parties involved in that 2019 wargame, along with outside players like ftx
“I doubt that DeSantis is reading many blog comments or all the blogs on the right and then answering every distortion.”
• 100% agree.
“…but to say “I didn’t say that!” ends up calling more attention to the misrepresentations, not less, and opens the candidate up to accusations of flip-flopping and the like.”
• 100% agree.
• It is true that Trump had done that many times – e.g., ‘Fine People’ – with the result being some citizens know the truth beyond the MSM headline and some citizens do not.
• It is also true that DeSantis has done that many times – e.g., ‘Don’t Say Gay’ – with the same results that Trump has had.
• It is also true that Trump is widely seen as the first Republican office holder in generations to demonstrate the importance & value of pushing back on the MSM headlines & narrative.
“DeSantis’ remarks were actually quite clear and he said exactly what he wanted to say,…”
• 100% agree.
• It is true that none of the headlines generated from DeSantis’ recent national interview & local town hall ^^ generated positive Trump headlines – even though DeSantis provided material that could have generated a positive Trump headline.
^^ = provided material in the local town hall that was 100% disingenuous and was used to generate negative Trump headlines – locally & nationally.
• It is also true that DeSantis is no stranger to how the MSM “reports the news” (e.g., headlines generated).
• To be fair, if DeSantis did not pushback on the recent headlines it is reasonable for citizens to conclude that DeSantis is getting the headlines that he wants – which was my key point.
Hope this helps.
he never said that, lets be honest about things, shall we,
instead of instructing children about reading writing and rithmetic, the borg that is the education wants to turn out baizuo ‘snowflake’ zombies, I don’t call them ‘woke’ you have to be aware to be woke
likewise there is a straightline between what happened at charlottesville and what happened to chamberlain in boston, and lincoln’s church in dc, three years later,
that guy:
No, it is not reasonable to conclude that. That was MY key point. There are plenty of other explanations, which I offered.
Rob:
Actually, in Florida as governor, DeSantis was especially good with hostile media. I agree, however, that in this case his response left himself open to criticism. He should have called her on a “gotcha” question.
@ Neo
• Let’s see if we can agree that you believing the headline is unfair, is not necessarily the same thing as DeSantis believing the headline is unfair ^^.
^^ = “…have not found any examples of DeSantis claiming his Aug 7 comments about the 2020 election have been presented unfairly (e.g., his campaign site, social media).”
Hope this helps.
I don’t disagree much with neo about Trump’s efforts to belittle DeSantis. However IF the polls are correct – a very big “IF” certainly – then I think RD’s failure to gain traction is not due only to Trump. While there is obviously a significant number of “everTrump” Republicans they never would have supported DeSantis anyway and he should have been able to make more headway with the rest. He is certainly not lacking name recognition at this point.
FOAF:
I’ve listed some of the other things I think are going on with DeSantis. The first is of course the Trump loyalists, who constitute about half the party or even more. As for the rest, I think it’s a combination of these things:
(1) Propaganda from the press and from Trump loyalists about DeSantis being some sort of back-stabbing RINO.
(2) Many people are just not paying attention yet, and not really familiar with the other candidates. I’ve seen polls with a rather high “undecided” or “don’t know” counts.
(3) Speaking of polls, most show Trump at around 58% or so and DeSantis at around 15%. There are outliers, but that’s the general trend on average. Everyone else is at 6% or below, with “undecideds” at about 8%. So DeSantis is getting a large percentage of the non-Trump votes, and a lot of people are undecided, but Trump’s lead is and always has been enormous, and it grows with every indictment. The Democrats know that and are playing on it and counting on it.
(4) People have gotten used to the excitement of Trump, and DeSantis seems dull in comparison. DeSantis is in government, and people now seem to like outsiders as well.
I really think that in a couple of months things will be more clear. But I also think that Trump is the inevitable nominee, and I believe that will guarantee Biden’s re-election (or the election of whatever Democrat replaces Biden).
You are right neo that it is early, we will know more in a few months, not to mention unforeseen events. DeSantis does not seem quite as sure-footed campaigning as he has governing FL. But it is a very tough row to hoe, opposing Trump without alienating his base. Maybe impossible. The rest of the candidates are in the easier space of just promoting themselves.