{"id":31474,"date":"2024-02-03T20:12:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-04T04:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=31474"},"modified":"2024-02-03T20:12:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T04:12:01","slug":"ron-desantis-genuflecting-to-trump-says-more-about-the-gop-than-it-does-about-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/02\/03\/ron-desantis-genuflecting-to-trump-says-more-about-the-gop-than-it-does-about-him\/","title":{"rendered":"RON DESANTIS\u2019 GENUFLECTING TO TRUMP SAYS MORE ABOUT THE GOP THAN IT DOES ABOUT HIM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SAT, 1\/27\/2024 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON<\/a> (Occupy.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was once thought of by many political observers (including this author<\/a>) to be a serious threat to win not only the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but the general election itself. In a 2023 survey by pollster WPA intelligence<\/a>, President Joe Biden was projected to narrowly defeat former President Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup, but would have lost the Electoral College majority to DeSantis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, DeSantis ended his campaign after Iowa’s nominating contest, in which he lost to Trump by more than 30,000 votes<\/a> despite spending tens of millions of dollars and going all-in on a ground game that blitzed all 99 counties (also known as a \u201cfull Grassley<\/a>\u201d). Business Insider reported that between DeSantis and all of his allied PACs, he spent nearly $1,500 per vote<\/a> yet failed to win even one of those counties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rolling Stone reported<\/a> that Trumpworld was ecstatic about DeSantis suspending his campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAccording to sources familiar with Trump and others familiar with the situation, the former president has for months discussed his desire to detonate DeSantis\u2019 future prospects on the national Republican stage \u2014 unless the Florida governor moved to shutter his 2024 headquarters and start pleading for forgiveness,\u201d reporters Andrew Perez and Asawin Suebsaeng wrote.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAside from privately stating the necessity of DeSantis kissing \u2018a lot\u2019 of Trump\u2019s \u2018ass,\u2019 the 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner has told some close associates that if DeSantis is \u2018smart,\u2019 he will speedily endorse Trump and then beg the ex-president for absolution \u2018like he\u2019s never begged for anything before in his life,\u2019 according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter,\u201d the report continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The call by Trump\u2019s allies to publicly humiliate Ron DeSantis is straight out of the fascism playbook<\/a>. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in the Guardian last year, fascism \u201cdepends on organized bullying \u2014 a form of social darwinism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe ostensible goal of fascism is to strengthen society. Fascism\u2019s method of accomplishing this is to reward those who win economically and physically and to denigrate or exterminate those who lose,\u201d Reich wrote. \u201cFor the fascist, war and violence are the means of strengthening society by culling the weak from society and extolling heroic warriors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that DeSantis was so quick to not only end his campaign but endorse the man he once dismissed as a \u201ckeyboard warrior<\/a>\u201d who \u201clost the zip on [his] fastball<\/a>\u201d suggests that Trump\u2019s death grip on the Republican Party is even tighter than previously imagined. And the Florida governor\u2019s pitiful performance has a dark undertone: Most Republicans, and many independents, apparently have a craving for the unchecked lawless vengeance that Trump has promised if he wins a second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one hand, it\u2019s a good sign that DeSantis\u2019 anti-woke culture war campaign was soundly rejected by the same voters he spent $35 million failing to court. On the other hand, it\u2019s arguably even more worrisome that those policies were rejected in favor of Donald Trump\u2019s open pledge to use the power of his office to exact vengeance against the right\u2019s political enemies.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ONLY TRUMP SATISFIES THE GOP\u2019S THIRST FOR RETRIBUTION<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What makes 2024 different from all other previous presidential contests is the incredibly high stakes of the current political moment. As a criminal defendant named in four indictments in three separate jurisdictions (Georgia, New York, and federal), Trump is essentially running for president as a means of avoiding incarceration, as a conviction on any single one of the 91 felony charges he\u2019s currently facing would almost certainly mean the septuagenarian would spend the rest of his life in a prison cell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If he were to win the November general election, Trump would have to rend the rule of law almost immediately in order to stay in power. He\u2019s already openly called for the termination of articles of the US Constitution<\/a> on his Truth Social account. His constant drumbeat for absolute broad presidential immunity is a signal that his second term would be virtually lawless. And his comment to Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity that he would govern as a dictator \u201cbut only on day one\u201d comes off as less tongue-in-cheek when considering his argument that he should enjoy absolute immunity even for acts that \u201ccross the line<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revenge has been the overall defining theme of Trump\u2019s 2024 presidential bid. In a 2023 speech in Waco<\/a>, Trump told a crowd of supporters, \u201cI am your warrior, I am your justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor those who have been wronged and betrayed\u2026 I am your retribution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 45th president has not been coy about his plans for a second term. If sent back to the White House, Trump has indicated he would weaponize the Department of Justice<\/a> to indict and prosecute his political opponents, including Biden and his family. Under this rationale, it\u2019s easy to deduce that Trump\u2019s call for absolute broad presidential immunity would apply only to him. Kash Patel, who was a national security official in Trump\u2019s White House, said a second-term Trump would also include journalists<\/a> in his vengeance campaign. Should any protest movements arise to demonstrate against Trump, he has already hinted at invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the US military<\/a> as an anti-protest police force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump would have little to fear from civil service employees bristling at carrying out his legally questionable orders. The far-right Heritage Foundation has, under its \u201cProject 2025<\/a>\u201d presidential transition plan, already started screening potential employees to install in policy-making roles throughout Washington if Trump (or any Republican) were elected. While presidential appointees typically don\u2019t number more than a few thousand, Trump has already planned to issue an executive order dubbed \u201cSchedule F,<\/a>\u201d which would remove numerous employment protections for federal workers and give Trump the ability to install as many as 50,000 political loyalists throughout the most influential government agencies. It would effectively establish the so-called \u201cdeep state\u201d Trump has spent his political career criticizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that the former president has been so open about his plans for a brazenly authoritarian second term may be one of the key reasons why he is so beloved by the GOP base. Republicans who felt scorned and marginalized after losing the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms, the White House in 2020, and the US Senate in 2022 (and only reclaiming the House due to racial gerrymandering<\/a>) have been longing for a strongman leader who will unilaterally right all perceived wrongs and punish their enemies, even if it means breaking the law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it may be tempting to celebrate DeSantis\u2019 embarrassing defeat and public humiliation given the havoc he\u2019s wreaked on Florida\u2019s LGBTQ+ population, we should instead ask ourselves why so many Republicans were nonplussed about his candidacy. The ugly truth of Trump\u2019s coronation in the 2024 GOP primary has been laid bare: Not only does a second Trump term promise the same kind of state-sanctioned bullying DeSantis cultivated in Florida, but it would exact brutal vengeance on anyone who dares to challenge the absolute authority of the supreme leader. Making Donald Trump the 47th president of the United States would almost certainly be the death knell for democracy; not just in America, but around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carl Gibson<\/a> is a journalist whose work has been published in CNN, USA TODAY, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, Barron\u2019s, Business Insider, the Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Bluesky @crgibs.bsky.social.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAT, 1\/27\/2024 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON (Occupy.com) Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was once thought of by many political observers (including this author) to be a serious threat to win not only the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but the general election itself. In a 2023 survey by pollster WPA intelligence, President Joe Biden… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[509,335],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31475,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31474\/revisions\/31475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}