From today’s Bullwerk and JVL on whether DeSantis would be better, worse or the same as Trump. You could probably ask the same of other GqOP hopefuls
The answer is a complicated. I could make three different cases for you:
DeSantis would be better than Trump.
DeSantis would be the same as Trump.
DeSantis would be worse than Trump.
Let’s take them in order.
Better than Trump. In some ways, DeSantis would likely be less dangerous. For instance, I do not imagine that he would order an armed mob to storm the Capitol in an attempt to hang his vice president and disrupt the counting of electoral votes.
Low bar? Sure. But also—it’s not nothing!
The same as Trump. Whatever his personal preferences, DeSantis would be subject to the same pressure every Republican politician is these now: Their voters want authoritarianism.
What does that mean in practice? Let’s just limit this discussion just to elections and not governing.
If Ron DeSantis lost the 2024 election, would he attempt an Eastman-style “legal” coup? Whatever his own wishes might be, his voterswould certainly demand that he try it. So in order to do the thing that all normal Republicans did up until 2016—concede his loss and wish the next Democratic president well—DeSantis would have to buck his base.
My question: What in the history of Ron DeSantis leads you to believe that he is capable of bucking his base?
Worse than Trump. Which leads us to the possibility that, should he lose, DeSantis could carry out the maneuvers for a “legal” coup more competently than Trump and thus succeed where Rudy, the Pillow Man, and Kraken lady failed.