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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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You know things are bad when even liberals are despairing at DeSantis' poor performance. I think her analysis is mostly correct. Voters don't really care about issues so much as who is the strong candidate. Trump is funny but also strong. DeSantis is neither - despite being the actual principled conservative by comparison.

Given Kamala's own exposure as a weak air-head, it seems almost inevitable to me that we will see Biden vs Trump once again in 2024. I try not to be ageist but American politics is really becoming a gerontocracy. The refusal of Dianne Feinstein to step down is par for the course.

That said, while I believe the author is right about the primal nature of Trump's appeal, it's probably a mistake to ascribe his popularity entirely to it. I suspect many in the media still haven't understood that he rose as a consequence of structural changes that will outlast him. Seeing the GOP as the more anti-war party would never have crossed my mind during the Bush era when accusations of insufficient liberal patriotism was rife. Now it appears to me that the veneration of the CIA, Pentagon and FBI are all highly liberal-coded.

The NYT is sad because they want a Republican civil war. DeSantis knows that he needs Trump's voters and supporters, and that he can't afford to alienate them by attacking their perfect prince. But the fact is he doesn't need to. He's far younger and will live to see the end of Trump.

Why does DeSantis need to wait eight years? I don't see any reason he can't run in 2028 or 2032. Particularly because there's no obvious successor to Biden. Harris is unpopular.

You know things are bad when even liberals are despairing at DeSantis' poor performance. I think her analysis is mostly correct. Voters don't really care about issues so much as who is the strong candidate. Trump is funny but also strong. DeSantis is neither - despite being the actual principled conservative by comparison.

DeSantis has the advantage of not having any obvious weaknesses and following the same formula/playbook as Bush and Reagan, by getting a huge evangelical turnout and conveying populist culture war appeal.

Perhaps, but evangelical turnout isn't the same as it was in the eighties or nineties. During Trump, a portion of the "moral majority" or whatever we're calling religious voters these days, went "NeverTrump" and got run through the BLM, Covid and Trans splits. Not certain they'd come back for DeSantis.

The moral majority is dead, but there seems to have been an upwell for the trads lately.

Perhaps. Time will tell, but I'm not staking any bets on them shifting the next national election.

Why is Trump a stronger candidate than DeSantis? It seems to just be a matter of charisma.

Trump can't make things happen. Even if he wanted to, which is dubious, he doesn't have the ability to manipulate the organs of state and get things done. DeSantis does. DeSantis is younger, smarter and more capable. DeSantis just isn't so exciting. For example, I could get behind this policy platform from Trump: https://twitter.com/loganclarkhall/status/1631725952395878416

  1. use federal land to build new cities
  1. develop flying cars
  1. revitalize rural industries
  1. launch a baby boom with bonuses for young parents
  1. beautification campaign, get rid of ugly buildings

But I know that he doesn't have the ability to implement it. Consider that in the first part of his presidency they had both parts of the legislature and executive. He got nothing done with all that! He tried and failed to build a border wall. He succeeded in lowering taxes and assisting Israeli foreign policy goals. He failed to win culture war battles or break the power of the US administrative machine. It looks much more likely that the deep state is going to break him.

Trump is a stronger candidate in that he is still an outsider. DeSantis is just another bog-standard Republican, and that's what you're selling him as. He'd be competent (maybe), he knows how to work within the system etc. The fact that Trump isn't like this is what made him popular. He can't compromise, everyone hates him too much.

even worse, when he signed the bump stock ban he actively went against his base.

Didn't the NRA actually support that one?

If they supported it is besides the point. It would only modify my statement to include 2 traitors instead of just one.

Yeah, I love reminding the crusty Republican Fudds about this at the shop. They've mostly memory-holed that as hard as Democrats did Obama's drone campaign.

What would a Fudd care about a bump-stock ban? You don't need a bump stock for hunting deer. (Unless this is a less-negative use of Fudd than I've usually heard)

Fudds are all on the hysterical and paranoid NRA mailing lists. They're always wound up about some state bill in Illinois or something that doesn't affect them in the slightest.

Fudds are all on the hysterical and paranoid NRA mailing lists. They're always wound up about some state bill in Illinois or something that doesn't affect them in the slightest.

"Fudd" used to be derogatory name for people who would say "Waiting periods? Magazine sizes? Scary black assault murder rifles? Hand guns? I do not care, let me alone with my shotgun, I want to shoot wabbits."

Not any more. Even the "fudds" now learned that all these things affects them, that the other side does not care about saving lives, is not interested in any "reasonable gun control", but wants to take all guns without exceptions (and then proceed to sharp instruments, including kitchen knives), and yielding to their pressure is inadvisable in any circumstances.

Consider that in the first part of his presidency they had both parts of the legislature and executive. He got nothing done with all that!

As you note, he made a major tax reform which eliminated loopholes that funnel money to high income Democrats. He ended the PATRIOT act. His supreme court hit rate is 100%, resulting in ending Roe vs Wade, compared to the 50% hit rate for all Republicans since the 80's [1]. He started 0 wars.

He also made Operation Warp Speed happen, saving millions of lives by routing around the regulatory state.

Now I'd prefer DeSantis to Trump. But lets not pretend Trump did nothing; he certainly did far more than I expected, and far more good things than the swamp dwelling Republicans he was running against.

And realistically speaking he also made other Republicans better. In a world without Trump putting wokeness on our radar, would DeSantis be anything other than a generic Republican?

[1] Bush Jr: Roberts and Alito. Bush Sr: Thomas and Souter. Reagan: O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Kennedy.

Trump's tax cuts for the rich weren't especially great for rank-and-file Republicans. His SCOTUS appointments could have been accomplished by any R president with a heartbeat. The fact that they're more reliably conservative is more thanks to McConnell and negative partisanship leading to fewer compromise candidates. Trump actually seethed about how "disloyal" his SCOTUS appointments were, as he would have preferred lapdogs rather than principled legal scholars, but thankfully McConnell outmaneuvered him.

I definitely agree that Trump made other Republicans better though, as their MO before him was essentially "chain-surrender on cultural and social issues in order to fellate transnational corporations as much as possible". Trump wasn't as much of a break with that as some people imply, but he at least moved in the right direction.

His SCOTUS appointments could have been accomplished by any R president with a heartbeat. The fact that they're more reliably conservative is more thanks to McConnell and negative partisanship leading to fewer compromise candidates. Trump actually seethed about how "disloyal" his SCOTUS appointments were, as he would have preferred lapdogs rather than principled legal scholars, but thankfully McConnell outmaneuvered him.

This is one of the great ironies of the religious conservatives on the Trumpist right. They hate McConnell for not being a loyal Trumpist and for being a DC insider, while also praising Trump for not fucking up the culmination of McConnell's patient long-term project of assembling a philosophically anti-Roe court. The way Roe was overturned is why we need systemic politically savvy game-players like McConnell. Trump just happened to be there when it hit the tipping point (to Trump's credit, he stayed out of the way).

Now, it looks like Trump might have one more problem on this front, with his squeamishness on the issue raising the hackles of at least one venerable pro-life group: https://nypost.com/2023/04/23/trump-touts-pro-life-record-to-iowa-voters-after-criticism-from-anti-abortion-group/ If this creates a schism in his base, DeSantis looks like a safer pro-life bet.

As you note, he made a major tax reform which eliminated loopholes that funnel money to high income Democrats.

This is the first time I hear about this. All the talk I've seen (predictably) focused on "tax cuts for billionaires". Could you elaborate a bit?

The SALT deduction cap made high-income blue staters and Texans(Texas is the main red state with the level of local taxes that the SALT cap affects) very angry, because high state taxes now had to be paid in full instead of deducted from one's federal tax bill, and ending or raising it is regularly if unsuccessfully demanded by democrats representing high-net-worth voters in blue states.

SALT tax deduction was a way that blue states could raise taxes without making their high income taxpayers angry. Trump capped it, meaning now a rich NYer has to actually pay the high state taxes he advocates for.

Also mortgage interest cap impacts people with multimillion dollar homes who itemize.

OP is probably talking about the SALT deduction cap.

Tangent on those policy proposals -

New cities: Maybe a good idea, but the goodness leans very heavily on details and execution. And explicitly bypassing whatever issues current big cities have, and whatever prevents smaller cities from growing a bit. There's also the perception-reflexivity effect - to make a new big city work in a very short period of time, you need to get a lot of people to invest in an uncertain project. Not that any of that is impossible or even 'hard', every country has done it many times. But I'm not a planning expert, so the first sentence means I can't say much of use about it.

Flying cars: multiple existing companies already sell flying cars, they're just not useful for anything other than a gimmick. Having the same components transform from car-form to plane-form and function to standards in both is just unnecessarily costly. Drive your car to a small plane or helicopter and get in it. And even then, few people use small planes or helicopters, they're just not that useful. I'm not sure if the VTOL startups went anywhere, but that's plausible in a way flying cars isn't.

Rural industries: The words 'revitalize' and 'industry' don't suddenly create industries. Which industries? How? Would that correspond to a significant price increase for normal consumers because they can't buy chinese/vietnamese clothing/chips/trinkets anymore?

Baby bonuses: Just aren't that effective in terms of cost/benefit. And compare to the increase of this, which happened under biden. (Just like welfare, baby bonuses incentivize lower income people more, necessarily)

Beautification campaign: Despite appreciating the 'modern building bad. ancient building good. truth, beauty, wonder. our civilization is in decay' more than a bit, I'm not sure anyone will notice. One reason so much effort went into statues and buildings and paintings, historically, is that there wasn't much else to look at. But now that we have pictures and movies and computers, the interestingness of building aesthetics correspondingly declines. I'm not too familiar with the aesthetic motivations behind modern art and architecture, but I believe that was deeply related. Plus, there are just a ton of buildings, and replacing 1 in 10k core buildings with new ornate architecture won't really change the actual 'feel' of cities as people walk through them very much. A more effective path might be a combination of the YIMBY making building, generally, much easier/more common, and then somehow have most of the new buildings be 'nice'. I'm not sure what the curve of 'ornate tradness' vs cost looks like, but I'd expect costs to be significant, given that labor and material costs of construction are still high (hence it resisting automation), and how much of past cost reductions are in the specific materials and techniques used. Of course, a rich and advanced society could 'pay the cost' and allocate 2% more of its population to making buildings look pretty if we wanted.

Precisely, all of these things are ambitious goals and the devil is in the details. Does anyone trust that Trump can make them happen?

You should check out 'where's my flying car?', he makes a good case for why flying cars would be useful in letting people live much further from workplaces and reducing commuting time. He lays the blame on ridiculous, luddite regulatory systems for suppressing the technology. But he also goes off into all kinds of other tangents, it's not a well-structured book.

I think it's not just that they're ambitious goals with tricky details, it's also that I'm not even sure we want them, due to opportunity costs.

New cities: what's wrong with the current ones, and why can we expect the new ones to be better? I don't see why this wouldn't just be a big waste of resources.

Flying cars: What is wrong with the current system? Proliferation of private flying cars, if they can be made to work, seem like they could be pretty dangerous, both to the people in it, anyone else in the air, and the people on the ground. Is there a reason that wouldn't be true? I suppose also the numbers would have to be run on how much development costs vs. benefits could be expected to behave.

Rural industries: This will require some care as to what exactly "revitalize rural industries" means. If they are doing economically worse than they should because of government regulations or due to externalities, that's great. But if the market is the cause in an unbiased way, then aiding them is at the cost of better use that that money could be put to elsewhere in the country. Subsidies and similar seem dangerous.

Baby bonuses: this one might be worth it, but the numbers would have to be run.

Beautification campaign: the previous comment was good about there being a somewhat lesser value to ornateness now, although I agree it is uglier. But improving everything would be expensive, and I would imagine it would have to be done judiciously to be worth it. So I suppose here it is more clearly an example of the devil being in the details.

New cities could be a way to expand with new forms of government, and let people that have different political opinions from mainstream big cities see if their ideas work.

As the US spread West this type of city formation driven political change was crucial. It kept eastern US societies more stable as well since there was a place to send the misfits.

what's wrong with the current ones, and why can we expect the new ones to be better? I don't see why this wouldn't just be a big waste of resources.

Well there are all kinds of traffic problems with extending urban sprawl, if you want to build anything it costs you a lot of money digging through all these cables and pipes from hundreds of years. And there are many powerful nimbies. Far better to just make new cities with all the necessary infrastructure, insulation, have it all up to standard. Economies of scale in construction, fewer costs from blocking off important infrastructure people need. The Chinese did a good job building extra cities and then filling them up later, they think ahead. But I agree that it would be a waste of resources if Trump was doing it - he'd probably just sign some bills, get some press coverage and move on.

What is wrong with the current system?

I was rereading parts from 'Where's my flying car' and he points out that insurance costs for his light aircraft (made using 1970s technology because investment and development's been crippled) are roughly equal with car insurance. So logically, if most people with flying cars are rich clever people like him, (which they would be since flying cars are still going to be expensive), insurance costs and damage caused should be similar. It'd be less with a better regulatory system and more efficient control technology - excessive regulations mean that aircraft are so expensive many people build their own instead of buying off the shelf planes.

Horses were OK but cars were better and flying cars should be better still. It's like a better, cheaper helicopter.

Rural industries

Subsidizing and supporting industry can be helpful in the long run. If Korea didn't support its domestic car industry, how could they have developed one from scratch when they were so outclassed by the US in technology, market size and experience? If they stuck to Economics 101 Comparative Advantage Good, South Korea would still be an agrarian economy. And why did semiconductor production move to Taiwan and South Korea when the US invented the whole field? Support has to be done in the right ways of course but it's still a good idea. Big countries should have the full range of critical industries like steel, chemicals and so on. You don't want to put a giant steel mill in the heart of New York. I suppose Trump is also happy to develop oil and pipelines in rural areas, contra Biden. In principle it's possible to do this correctly but in practice?

Baby bonuses

Well what is the alternative? Mass migration unravels the nation. Human cloning is not well-developed. My favoured policy of social engineering and affirmative action for parents is not exactly popular. Do we just wait for AGI?

cities

Good points about economies of scale and so on, obstruction by the current status quo, and so on. I'd still have to be persuaded whether or not is sufficient to outweigh the infrastructure already built up in cities, but it now doesn't seem entirely pointless.

flying cars

Maybe that's true now, but if flying cars became normal, there would be a much fuller airspace. I would find it hard to believe that that would not adjust the insurance rates. If a sizable amount of the population owned flying vehicles, crashes and near misses would become much more likely. Of course, 3 dimensional space would help, but desired destinations would concentrate traffic, at least at beginnings and ends of flights. There's probably a stronger case for some usage of flying cars making sense than widespread usage.

Rural industries

That's a good point. I suppose that doesn't account for it needing to be rural, but I think you're right.

Baby bonuses

Yes, I think aiming to raise fertility would be good. There might be more effective options, though.

I think the policy recommendations and critiques found in pronatalist.org's FAQ might be worth looking into. (under "what pronatalist policies are most effective")

Among the things mentioned is more doing cultural things. A tax cut gives financial incentives, but doesn't necessarily convey the message it's trying to send on a cultural level very well.

But I know that he doesn't have the ability to implement it. Consider that in the first part of his presidency they had both parts of the legislature and executive. He got nothing done with all that!

Paul Ryan and John McCain and the rest of the neocon Nevertrumpers stymied him from the beginning, all the way to the vote to cancel Obamacare and the McCain “FU I’m dead anyway” move. The wall was getting built, and until COVID, all of the economic indicators were nice.

Like Mitt Romney? John McCain? Bob Dole the former Senate majority leader? Ron DeSantis is another in this line, from Trumpsters’ perspective.

The people wanted an outsider who would buck the system. They wanted someone who would tell them the truth about how moneyed interests were selling out America. They were denied Bernie, so they chose Trump over Hillary. Then they voted out the legislators who stood in his way. It may have been bad gamesmanship, but so is getting second place perpetually.

Well the whole point was to defeat them - instead they defeated him. The US military went around his back to keep troops stationed in the Middle East. He did not have a firm grip on the judiciary or the instruments of power - they mangled his policies. He was on the defensive most of the time. A strong president would've gotten Hunter Biden imprisoned for corruption, he wouldn't have gotten impeached for it. A strong president would've delivered more tangible results with a trifecta. A strong president wouldn't have been 'monitoring the situation' as his supporters were swept out of twitter and reddit, he would've forced the social media companies to back down. Trump kept bitching and whining and complaining, he didn't use the methods available to impose his will. He could've ended the 2020 riots by deploying troops - if he had ensured that he had a reliable and loyal officer corps.

Everyone treated him with contempt because they knew he was weak. If he spent less time golfing and more time governing, he would've gotten more done.

The task is very difficult and surely needs more youth and energy. I don't know why people expected that from a man in his 70s.

A strong president wouldn't have been 'monitoring the situation' as his supporters were swept out of twitter and reddit, he would've forced the social media companies to back down.

Actually yeah, what the fuck. The largest pro-trump community on the internet was completely wiped out before the 2020 election, and we didn't even get an angerly-worded speech about it. It wasn't on Fox News so he didn't give a shit.

Best evidence there was never a Q euspiracy.

Is this /r/thedonald? Oh man we had fun times there back in the day. That subreddit was the whole reason I voted for Trump in 2016.

It seems to me that a strong candidate is one that wins by 20%; not someone who loses.

DeSantis was very strong during covid. Trump was weak (wouldn’t even fire Fauci). This whole “DeSantis is weak” thing seems astroturfed.

With all of that said, the Republican primary may be brutal. Even if DeSantis wins, Trump will decry the result and could make the general untenable.

If DeSantis loses, does he have a viable path in 2028? Romney went from runner up to nominee in 2012 but who knows.

If you’re RD, do you sit out the 2024 and go for it in 2028? Win or lose this is Trump’s last campaign. If Trump wins, his VP may be popular. If Trump loses, you have a relatively easy lane if you don’t make big mistakes over the next few years.

Honestly, best case for the Republican Party is Trump having a health scare, quitting the race, and throwing support behind RD.

Showing a young executive like RD next to a frail Biden will be quite the contrast and I doubt Biden will be Reagan like with quips about not taking advantage of his opponent’s youth and inexperience.

It's funny how Trump is worse for the Republicans than he is for the Democrats.

A geriatric Biden can only beat 1 candidate, and that candidate is Trump. Trump sucks the air out of any room he is in. An election with Trump is an election about getting a democratic candidate who can blend into the background, and allow the hate train to build on its own. An election with DeSantis it becomes about the issues. Biden would have to actually speak during the debates to beat DeSantis. Would allow Biden to speak, and Biden would absolutely dig hos own grave faster than Desantis.

With Trump, Biden could piss his pants in a debate, and people wouldn't even notice it. Democrats and Republicans alike will only be looking at Trump, with their minds warped to imagine dreams/nightmares that no reality could match.

Showing a young executive like RD next to a frail Biden will be quite the contrast and I doubt Biden will be Reagan like with quips about not taking advantage of his opponent’s youth and inexperience.

Agreed. I see a rock paper scissors scenario opening up.

Biden > Trump > DeSantis > Biden

An election with DeSantis it becomes about the issues.

And one of those issues is the six week Abortion ban he signed into law. If DeSantis had held the line at 15 weeks he would have had a really good shot but this will be the first post-Dobbs presidential election and there's no way for DeSantis to occupy a more popular middle ground position on abortion with any credibility after that.

I'm not sure that early abortion bans are Kryptonite for republicans in the same way everyone seems to assume. Even granted that they're unpopular, Abbott, Dewine, and Kemp all got reelected with unusually good margins while having recently passed fairly strict abortion laws. In the case of Abbott there is literally polling showing that Texans preferred O'Rourke on abortion and not other issues, while Abbott claimed multiple times on live TV(albeit not widely watched TV) that the most important issue for him was keeping abortion 100% illegal. Dewine had a major news story about a pregnant 10 year old rape victim who couldn't get an abortion because of his policies.

Granted that the electorates in Texas, Ohio, and Georgia are probably more pro-life than average, but they're not that much more prolife. Desantis is also better at message discipline and media control than average.

"I have no intention of pursuing a federal abortion ban as that matter is best left to the state level legislatures, as the Supreme Court made clear."

Man, that was easy.

I'm sure that's what he will say I just don't think the public will buy it. 'I think abortion is baby murder but you can trust me not to do anything about it' isn't particularly trustworthy after the 'Roe is settled law' judges went mask off with Dobbs.

"This is clearly a lie, as we can see from his previous behavior, supporters, and party platform" followed by a bunch of clipchimping and scary music.

Anybody who is on the prochoice side is incredibly ready to believe that republicans want a federal ban, because lots of them do and say so.

Doesn't even matter if it's not true; it's republican Death Panels style of thing.

The problem is of course, I'm sure ole' Meatball Ron has voted for restrictions multiple times on the federal level while he's in Congress, will be endorsed by numerous groups that want pro-life restrictions on the national level, and I'm sure the 2024 GOP convention will endorse national pro-life legislation.

More importantly, there's about .01% of the population cares about federalism - all they'll know is the GOP candidate signed a restrictive abortion law. Plus, the Liberal Media and SuperPAC's will have plenty of time to talk about the GOP's long history of supporting federal abortion bans and basically push the idea, "do you trust what Ron DeSantis says or what the Republican Party has said for 40 years", or whatever a smarter person than me can write.

Plus, there's just a decent chance that to try to win over evangelical voters in Iowa, he'll just go ahead and endorse federal restrictions to try to win a caucus.

I've been baffled by the sudden media deluge of people proclaiming that DeSantis can't beat Trump. DeSantis hasn't even declared he's running yet. It would be one thing if he had a sudden gaffe or something that got everyone talking, but I'm seeing articles, videos, tweets from "personalities" left and right beating DeSantis with any stick they have handy and declaring that he's already lost when the contest hasn't even begun. This strikes me more as an attempt by those who want Trump to be the Republican candidate (both on the right and on the left) to either pre-emtively take the wind out of DeSantis's sails or convince him not to run.

Chill out people. The primaries are a long way away, this is way to early to declare winners and losers.

This comment reminds me of this internet comic. Of course there's still a long way to go, but polls early in the primary are still fairly predictive of the ultimate outcome. For all intents and purposes Desantis is already running with the Florida legislative session just being an extended PR stunt of "what I would do if I got into federal office!". The fact that Desantis is losing support even this far out still isn't a good thing. Desantis will need to pull off an Obama vs Clinton in '08 feat to surpass Trump. The weaker he looks, the more likely other candidates are to jump in and bite into his chunk of the pie. His pseudo campaign so far has been pathetic, as it's clear he's terrified of directly attacking Trump when the reverse isn't true in the slightest.

Jesus Christ THIS.

Desantis hasn't officially declared. If (when) he does he's going to come out with a bevy of pre-arranged endorsements, and likely a massive set of ads and an actual, you know, campaign. Merely announcing he's running will boost his immediate popularity.

He's no stranger to fighting close electoral battles. He's not flying blind here. So maybe try not to be premature in assuming the current situation is representative of the future outcome. Or, if you are, lets place some actual bets.

I watched Desantis blow even the elevated expectations he had going into 2022 election season out of the water. I'll gladly accept 50/50 odds of Desantis clinching the nom right now.

Anyone who is pretending to know that Desantis is too weak to go the distance, at this point in the game, is giving away their own wishful thinking.

On the one hand…yeah, this is endless horse race nonsense. Gotta churn up page views and eyeballs, let’s make up some Trump vs. DeSantis drama.

On the other hand…a lot of Florida lawmakers endorsed Trump. Which is part of a growing drumbeat of stories that DeSantis is really quite the unlikeable asshole. A very loud drumbeat. A very, very loud drum beat with lots and lots of anecdotes that DeSantis has terrible people skills, and with very few stories of how he’s a swell guy.

I don’t know. Everyone seemed to like DeSantis when they knew his policies…but now that he’s more in the public eye and people can actually hear his voice and see how he interacts with people…dude doesn’t have a lot of charm, and Trump, god help me for praising Trump, but Trump does have a certain rakish charisma.

Which is part of a growing drumbeat of stories that DeSantis is really quite the unlikeable asshole. A very loud drumbeat. A very, very loud drum beat with lots and lots of anecdotes that DeSantis has terrible people skills, and with very few stories of how he’s a swell guy.

More stories than there have been over the last seven years about Trump being unlikable and hard to work with?

Which is part of a growing drumbeat of stories that DeSantis is really quite the unlikeable asshole. A very loud drumbeat. A very, very loud drum beat with lots and lots of anecdotes that DeSantis has terrible people skills, and with very few stories of how he’s a swell guy.

You really think Trump will defeat DeSantis because DeSantis is too much of an unlikeable asshole? Are we talking about the same Donald Trump here?

Anyway, this is politics. If you hear a drumbeat, think Foley artists, not restless natives.

Compared to DeSantis? Yeah.

Trump is an omega-level asshole…but he can schmooze. He can work a crowd, and he can do interviews. I have seen no evidence yet DeSantis can do that. Have you actually heard him speak? He has zero charisma—none. Trump has a toxic, used car salesman charisma, but at least he has it, whereas DeSantis is an awkward blank.

How did DeSantis win Florida?

Originally, Trump endorsed him, then the Florida Democrats were the Florida Democrats they've been since the 50's (after all, they were one of the first Dixiecrat parties to lose power to the GOP within the South) outside of Lawton Chiles and Bob Graham, then piggybacking off the rise of Spanish right-wing radio, general ambivalence toward COVID restrictions in a tourism-friendly state (note the only incumbent Governor to lose in 2022 was Sisolak in Nevada), and lots and lots of free money from the government via the COVID bill to pay for tax raises, and not being totally incompetent when it came to the hurricanes.

At the same time, Rubio won by almost the same amount DeSantis did, without all the Culture War stuff.