David Frum, previously a Republican speechwriter however now a By no means Trumper, writes within the Atlantic that Ron DeSantis has found out the best way to woo the Republican base however not the best way to win a nationwide election.
DeSantis spoke out on the Tucker Carlson present in opposition to help for Ukraine as a result of the battle is nothing greater than “a territorial dispute” that doesn’t concern us.
By no means thoughts that the US, NATO, and the UN have an important stake in defending a rules-based worldwide order the place one sovereign nation doesn’t invade one other as a way to extinguish its nationwide identification.
By no means thoughts, as Frum wrote, that DeSantis “was on report, in 2014 and 2015, urging the Obama administration to ship each “defensive and offensive” weapons to Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea.”
DeSantis is courting the bottom by imposing a nearly-complete ban on abortion, limiting it to the primary six weeks of being pregnant, earlier than ladies know they’re pregnant. However a majority of voters in Florida oppose the ban: “That invoice is opposed by 57 p.c of these surveyed even inside Florida. One other ballot discovered that 75 p.c of Floridians oppose the ban. It additionally confirmed that 77 p.c oppose permitless hid carry, which DeSantis helps, and that 61 p.c disapprove of his name to ban the instructing of important race principle in addition to variety, fairness, and inclusion insurance policies on school campuses.”
How will DeSantis’s hard-right views play exterior Florida?
Extra harmful than the unpopular positions DeSantis holds are the favored positions he doesn’t maintain. What’s DeSantis’s view on well being care? He doesn’t appear to have one. President Joe Biden has delivered low cost insulin to U.S. customers. Good concept or not? Silence from DeSantis. There’s no DeSantis jobs coverage; he hardly speaks about inflation. Homelessness? The atmosphere? Nothing. Even on crime, DeSantis should keep away from specifics, as a result of specifics would possibly remind his viewers that Florida’s murder numbers are worse than New York’s or California’s.
Frum believes that DeSantis may win the GOP nomination however has no sensible path to profitable the presidency.
I hope he’s proper. DeSantis has no respect for the very concept of a two-party system. He needs a one-party state, led by an omnipotent autocrat. As he bragged in Nevada, no member of the Democratic Social gathering gained any statewide races. His choice is to haven’t any opposition, no criticism, no free press. He’s harmful. He has a fascist intuition.
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