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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   38178 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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Richard Hanania thinks Desantis should challenge Trump to a boxing match. Desantis's campaign so far has been pretty pathetic. He's been afraid to really push back against Trump despite Trump lobbing almost daily attacks against him. Desantis is great on paper, with his victories against woke institutions in Florida, but he's failed to appeal to the Republican id so far. Many Republican voters care far more about appearance and physical vigor than policy positions, good governance, intelligence, etc.

I don’t think Trump can lose a Republican primary at this point. But if I were giving DeSantis advice, it would be to do the opposite of what Abernathy suggests. Republican voters love the stupidity, obnoxiousness, vulgarity, and simian chest-beating. While the conventional wisdom seems to be that Rubio and Cruz tried rolling around in the muck with him and failed, Rubio’s most vicious personal attacks in 2016 didn’t come until after Trump had won the New Hampshire primary and Nevada caucuses, that is, pretty late in the game. And Rubio wasn’t the guy to do it.

Instead of seeing Republican primary voters as concerned citizens seeking a voice, try to imagine them as chimps laying around under a canopy. They’ve chosen the alpha male. He’s the loudest, most obnoxious member of the tribe, and his power depends on the degree to which other apes are afraid of him and give him symbolic displays of respect, which in this case has meant saying, for example, that he actually won the 2020 election. What could break this spell? Not reasoned arguments, but signs of weakness. And no, not weakness in the sense that he might not be the most electable candidate — that’s counting on a level of thinking that is far too abstract for this population.

Rather, one needs to emphasize literal physical weakness. Notice how obsessed Republicans have been with the real and imagined physical and cognitive shortcomings of figures like Biden and Hillary. In many corners of right-wing media, “our opponents are old, fat, ugly” seems to get at least as much attention as actual issues, especially during election season. In 2020, we saw doctored videos of Pelosi slurring her words go viral on social media, and this shows not only how susceptible the Republican base is to fake news, but also how obsessed they are with physical and physiological correlates of health.

The Dylan Mulvaney hysteria is another demonstration of the red tribe being driven by the most base and primitive instincts. These people started shooting beer cans with assault rifles because a company sent a six pack to a guy who acts like a sissy. Good luck explaining to them the importance of going after higher education accreditation agencies.

You might think it’s strange for a group like this to have chosen Trump as their leader. But when he posts memes of himself as an Adonis or says things like he’s in better shape than Obama or Bush were while they were in office, and no one corrects him, that serves to only cement his dominance over the party. Trump’s perfect body is like the unreliability of Dominion voting machines. Shirtless Putin has a similar effect in Russia. Educated Westerners roll their eyes at his primitive demonstrations of vigor, but I suspect that, like Trump, he’s a much better student of human nature than they are. The conspiracy theories might have been false, but the Trump-Putin bromance was real, and no accident.

This means that DeSantis’ best shot is trying to emphasize that Trump is physically weak and he no longer intimidates others in the party. You can’t do this with words alone. DeSantis can call him fat, and Trump can reply everyone is saying that I’m in the best shape of any man who’s ever lived, and the voters will eat it up. The Florida governor needs a way to clearly highlight that he’s younger, stronger, and more physically courageous.

DeSantis should therefore challenge Trump to a boxing match. Trump will almost certainly refuse, at which point he can say that this shows what a coward the former president is. Or, DeSantis could say that, on further reflection, maybe it wasn’t fair to challenge an 85 year-old man (yes, lie and exaggerate, Republican voters love that too), and he understands that his opponent is too feeble at this point in his life to get into the arena.

DeSantis shouldn’t do this out of the blue. He could start by trying to bait Trump into saying something particularly nasty about him, or preferably his wife or kids. Then he can play the role of the justifiably angry patriarch. Every time Trump launches a personal attack, DeSantis can reply by saying that his opponent is a pathetic coward, and if he has a problem with him he’s already made clear that they can settle their differences like men. If he’s not willing to do that, then we can stick to the issues, at which point DeSantis can go on about whatever he did in Florida. At the very least, a challenge to fight will eat up all the energy and make sure no other candidate gets any attention, as one of the main things DeSantis needs to do is make the primary into a two-man race.

Right now, the DeSantis strategy is to try to get the Republican voter to ask questions like “who is more electable?” or “who has shown more focus in fighting woke?” Those are exciting questions to conservative intellectuals but way too boring for the Republican masses. They will never tell a pollster this, but they resent anyone trying to make them think too hard, which is part of the reason they hate liberals in the first place.

There are a lot of ways that this could go wrong, and it probably wouldn’t work. But I think people are still yet to truly understand that, if things proceed as normal, Trump is going to be the nominee. Making sure he’s not would require meeting Republican voters where they are, instead of continuing to wish they were something else.

Okay, I have to ask: who the hell thinks Hanania is an intelligent thinker and why do they do so? He's a Big Name in his own mind, having founded his own little thinky-tanky org and made himself Head Cheese of it, so that he can slap on "President of Important Sounding Place" to bolster his assertions to the unwary who read them: 'oh well if he's so high up in such an important sounding place, he must be special!'

So he wants DeSantis to chimp out, as if there are not already unironic references to DeSantis being a literal fascist and planning to bring about the fourth reich. He shows the same contemptuous sneering to ordinary people as did the Bud marketing mishap with his "Good luck explaining to them the importance of going after higher education accreditation agencies". Well, those dumb primitive base-instinct rednecks managed to get a boycott going that actually worked and is hitting InBev in the pocket. What have you done lately, Richard?

Plainly this guy thinks he should be High Panjandrum of the USA and rule by decree, but I think he's an idiot and, lacking understanding of the ordinary person, all his recommendations will fail as badly as Carrick Flynn's election campaign and for the same reason.

He’s unlikable, yes, but that doesn’t make him wrong

What is supposed to make him right? His arguments seem pretty hollow.

President Camacho, eh?

Is he playing the Scott Adams game? Was he always? By which I mean espousing positions for shock value.

His sneering contempt for "the Republican masses ...resent anyone trying to make them think too hard, which is part of the reason they hate liberals in the first place" makes me think he never got over being bullied at school for being a teacher's pet nerd. Which is why he's so hung-up on "Well, I'm President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, what have you achieved, Bob and Joe?" when Bob and Joe haven't thought about him in twenty years and have gone on with their ordinary, content, happy lives.

It probably doesn't help that his looks are... unfortunate. Ordinarily, I think noting someone's appearance in connection with political positions or whatever isn't a good thing to do, but since he's happy to make sweeping generalisations about people like me I'm happy to return the favour. Yeah, I know the boys were mean to you and the girls (who grew up to be Democrat voters) never even gave you the time of day, Dickie, but you gotta let it go. You're all grown up now. Reassuring yourself that they're all nitwits, chumps and nincompoops while your head has to be that big to fit in your enormous superior intellect is an immature way of coping.

I just realized today that Jeb Bush is the same height as Trump. It is maybe a testament both to the accuracy of Hanania's basic point and to the power of Trump's rhetoric that even though I watched a bunch of the Republican primary debates back in 2016 where Trump and Bush were on stage together, if you had asked me before today how tall I thought Jeb Bush was, I would almost certainly have said something much shorter than Trump's height.

pretty pathetic

DeSantis would be better inside the Trump tent. Not as VP, but as AG.

Trump, DeSantis and TBD VP campaigning together would be, the best campaign ever.

I don't think Trump as president for a second term would be a good idea, but yeah - the campaign is going to be amazing for the amount of frothing, sneeding and hysteria it will generate. The entertainment value alone will be fantastic.

I wonder who the Dems will run? Biden has definitely said he's going for the second term, will they break precedent and have an open contest for candidates instead of letting the sitting president have the second nomination uncontested? I think they're probably hoping Trump and DeSantis will attack each other so badly that neither of them will survive for the nomination and it'll be some nobody who they have a good chance of painting as "second coming of Hitler, no really we mean it" against Biden.

Hasn't the DNC already said no debates too? I can see why if Biden is the candidate, but still.

I'd like to see a Trump and DeSantis bromance. Like a mismatched Jack and Bobby.

I think they're probably hoping Trump and DeSantis will attack each other so badly that neither of them will survive for the nomination

LOL, do they expect a literal duel? Trump and DeSantis pummeling each other rhetorically won't reduce the chance that at least one of them gets the nomination.

Trump is almost guaranteed to appoint Ken Paxton as AG as a reward for his last minute attempt to change the results of the 2020 election.

If conservative policy victories are your priority, this is not bad news. He’s arguably more competent and more hardline than Desantis. He just happens to be unusually corrupt by the standards of American politicians.

Wouldn’t work. Trump’s ego is too big to work with genuinely competent people long-term. Same problem with Boris Johnson: ultimately he couldn’t bear to share the stage with Cummings. (Other problems too, but that was a biggie.)

If you want to work with good people, I think you have to be able to give public credit where it’s due, and you have to tolerate some genuine pushback from your advisors.

I have never been impressed by the claims for Dominic Cummings being Really, Really Smart and if, as by all accounts seems to be the case, he was relying on being Boris' Pal to get away with pissing off everybody else, including the electorate, then he should have known by BoJo's track record that it always came down to Number One for Boris and that he too would be thrown to the wolves when and as necessary.

He wasn’t that smart but he was certainly smarter than Boris.

Getting more general, I think that having a charismatic showman front for intelligent advisors is often proposed as the ideal combo but rarely works because the love of the spotlight that produces showmanship doesn’t allow you to recognise that your advisors know better than you.

Trump also needs Bannon as his chief of staff.

Richard Hanania thinks Desantis should challenge Trump to a boxing match. Desantis's campaign so far has been pretty pathetic. He's been afraid to really push back against Trump despite Trump lobbing almost daily attacks against him. Desantis is great on paper, with his victories against woke institutions in Florida, but he's failed to appeal to the Republican id so far. Many Republican voters care far more about appearance and physical vigor than policy positions, good governance, intelligence, etc.

Unless either of them is caught making a Nazi salute or soliciting for underage sex, or Trump is indicted and arrested for major crime, it's a horserace at this point until actual the primaries begin. it was like this at this time in 2015 too. It was close, and people still actually thought Jeb, Cruz, or Rubio could win . What makes it close is that they both have relative equal strengths and weaknesses. If wokeness is of paramount concern, then the choice is DeSantis. If you care more about immigration or economic nationalism , then Trump.

DeSantis not getting into a boxing match is the better strategy to appeal to the mass of the public, if he's serious about this campaign. Presenting himself as statesman-like and not getting into the mud to wrassle the pig is a better look for the undecided/swing voter. "He's not as populist as Trump, he's doesn't seem as bad as the Democrats are painting him, maybe I'll consider him".

If DeSantis is going to get into mud-slinging exchange, reserve it for Newsom. I think Hanania wants this kind of dumpster fire row because he has such hatred for the ordinary Republican voter, he thinks (and says) they're id-driven morons who know nothing and don't want to know, so he wants to be proven correct by having the two popular guys going at it like the abysmal beasts he says they are. That would prove him right to regard ordinary people with loathing and insult.

Relatedly, Trump just got indicted again.

"This time for sure!" one more time, eh?

yeah talk about timing. just minutes after my post.

To be fair, you did specify 'major crime,' and the current indictment appears to be deriving from the Mar a Lago raid. That was the one focused on taking classified documents from the administration... which occurred right before Biden was found to have documents in a literal garage from when he was Vice President.

Ultimately, I don't think this is an indictment that will change any opinions, especially given the contrast with Hillary.

If wokeness is of paramount concern, then the choice is DeSantis. If you care more about immigration or economic nationalism , then Trump.

DeSantis knows that "destroying wokeness," is a meaningless term that's simply throwing red meat to the base. What does that even mean in concrete terms, from a policy standpoint? Is he going to implement a national ban on gender studies or revoke gay marriage? If he's smart I think even he understands that he doesn't have much of a chance contending with Trump. Possibly, but his campaign may better serve his future odds of election, and this is just an attempt for name recognition.

Yet another "bake the cake, bigot!" case in favour of the Real Genuine Totally A Lady, this time a spa owned by a Korean and wanting to restrict attendance to women-only because the clients will be naked in the pool. Trans ladies can attend but they must be post-surgery. Twist to it is that the owner is not alone conservative but Christian.

"Women with dicks are valid too!" says activist, who then sues the spa and wins the case based on a phone call and not even turning up to attend and being refused.

Seattle District Court Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein on Monday upheld a discrimination ruling against Olympus Spa filed by local trans activist Haven Wilvich, who gloats about being “more woman” than many feminists who’re “only incidental.”

The traditional Korean Spa had maintained that its “women-only rule … is essential for the safety, legal protection, and well-being of our customers.”

It willingly accepted transgender women — but “only if they have ‘gone through post-operative sex confirmation surgery,'” the ruling noted.

Wilvich, however, “‘identifies as a woman’ but ‘is biologically male and has not undergone sex reassignment surgery,’” the court papers said, noting that the activist never actually went to the spa.

Wilvich told The Post on Friday that the complaint came after a phone call to the spa — not a visit — and being told that “pre-op trans women were not allowed.”

“They were breaking Washington state law and I reported that violation,” the activist said.

...Spa owner Myoon Woon Lee sued to reverse the decision, saying it defied his “traditional, theologically conservative” Christian values and put his clientele at risk.

Lee — who has owned the spa for 20 years — also “conveyed his fear that exposing female customers (especially minors) to male genitalia could subject Olympus Spa to criminal penalties.”

There had been “several” incidents where customers “noticed male genitals exposed ” in the spa — creating “humiliation, trauma, and rage,” a complaint by the owner said.

“Those patrons apparently demanded refunds and never returned.”

Lee claimed that the discrimination policy “requires them to service nude males and females in the same rooms,” forcing them to “choose between violating the law or their religious convictions,” his complaint said.

The cherry on top, if I may use that phrase, for me is this:

Meanwhile, Wilvich said she regrets that she was identified in the complaint, insisting that “my name never should have been part of the public record.”

She claims that the identification in the court documents is a “dangerous precedent to be set for minority people.”

So it's okay for Ms. Genuine Even Realer Woman Than Cis Women Haven Wilvich to remain anonymous while dragging the name of the spa and its owner into public view, which might get him into trouble, but I'm A Real Lady is endangered merely by being identified as the face-ache looking for cases to be offended by and go to court to force businesses to change their policies.

So much for downstream of "gay marriage will never affect you", eh? Trans rights activists took the game plan and ran with it.

Gosh, however can a reputation for "fighting wokeness" advantage DeSantis, you wonder?

The Bud Light and Target rows may be more pertinent now. Before, it was easy to paint DeSantis as fighting a stupid battle in Florida with Disney. But now? It's a national mood, baby! Companies not festooning everything with rainbows as much, DEI movie projects not doing so well - it's the pendulum swinging, and I think it really is down to "the children".

People will put up with a lot of stuff when it doesn't really impinge on their day-to-day lives. Oh great, the workplace has the Pride flag up on the wall for this entire month, whatever, I just put my head down and do my job.

But when it starts getting into schools, and when you have people arguing that six year olds do too know their own gender identity and it's genocide if you don't put twelve year olds on puberty blockers, then it starts hitting home. Then you have people going "Hang on a minute, I don't care what adults get up to, it's their choice, but what the hell do you mean I can't tell my kid there are only two sexes?"

DeSantis knows that "destroying wokeness," is a meaningless term that's simply throwing red meat to the base.

Really? There are lots of concrete proposals federally akin to what he's done in Florida.

  1. Schools. DeSantis narrowed curriculum requirements to stop giving woke teachers free range to teach whatever quack theories they wanted. Almost all student loans are now through the feds and are the lifeblood of universities. Make them conditional on total transparency on admissions, make them partially dischargeable after a number of years, and make schools financially on the hook for a portion of that discharged debt.

  2. Our of control bureaucrats. DeSantis, unlike Trump, has cultivated a corps of appointees he can port from FL to the US alphabet agencies.

  3. Transing the kids legislation is clearly a possibility under the gigantic federal medical bureaucracy. At a minimum, good appointments in the medicaid realm will stop federal dollars paying for such things.

DeSantis specifically talked about accreditation as a possible way to target wokeness in schools (also power of the purse with funding).

Also through SEC he can influence ESG standards.

Right. I had already stated above that there were things he's done, but how impactful it's actually going to be, I think is somewhat overstated. And on a federal level, what specific policies do his supporters think that 1) he's willing to propose and 2) is likely to get signed into law, that'll have the effect of "destroying wokeness?"

'build the wall' was almost equally meaningless and meat for the base

Oh definitely. I think he realized at some point he had to deliver something to show for it, even if it wasn't much. Equally, people like AOC and Warren's wealth tax, "eat the rich," Green New Deal was just as populist and unrealistic as "build the wall" was.

DeSantis has done lots to hobble woke indoctrination in education and also to energise citizens against it. That's been his most powerful point of leverage as as a state governor. The Presidency has different points of leverage.

Ironically Hanania has done more than anyone (except maybe Chris Rufo) to document how much of the modern woke-imperium is upheld by American law, especially civil rights law. Hanania is also the one who pointed out how much of that is actually done through executive orders. Any republican could deal a big blow to that, and their respective track records show DeSantis is likely to actually do it while Trump is not.

Trump didn't have an explicit aim to 'target wokeness' as a matter of his official platform, but I'd say he did the left far more damage as a matter of his public persona, than DeSantis could likely achieve by legal fiat. I think DeSantis has generated a much greater image that's incommensurate with the actual political impact he's had governing Florida. Sure, he's accomplished things, I'm not denying that, but I think far too many people who want to play up his qualifications largely discount the substantial media effect that the impact of his actions have actually had, in reality.

Trump just had to sit around as the establishment media wrung their hands and made complete fools of themselves, crying about this or that, demonstrating how little power they actually had.

Showing people what a complete farce the whole thing is, and leaning into it.

Sometimes I'd wonder if I was the only person on an island who thought the impact he had on the media was brilliant. The desperation with which they wanted to paint him as someone who was completely insane, left me with the sinking feeling that it was all projection that was true of the MSM itself. I sometimes get asked by people why I don't trust the media, and they look at me like I'm crazy; because it isn't something that can be explained in a 15 second elevator pitch, but requires extensive background. I think anyone who's even slightly educated as a layman under the whole 'manufacturing consent' framework for instance, can see the trappings of the American ideological system pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people. Especially when you look at something like western coverage of the Ukrainian conflict.

Personally, I 'loved' what Trump did to the media.

I don't think Ukraine is a great example, so I wouldn't lean into it, otherwise I agree with you.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1240540.shtml

We instigated the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

More comments

If republicans only cared about vigor, why are they aligned around a spetegenarian? Why is this plan centered around having Trump refuse? Is there anyone in the world who doesn't already believe Ron would beat an old man in a boxing match?

Is there some large demographic that would only be convinced (and also switch support) by having this demonstrated either physically or constitutionally? What a bizarrely stupid take.

Also, where is the evidence that 'Ron hasn't captured the republicans id?' he won Florida handily, and is pretty popular and would be the far front runner if Trump died tomorrow.

Ron can't beat trumps popularity is the motte to the bailey were being sold that he's not popular with conservatives.

If republicans only cared about vigor, why are they aligned around a spetegenarian?

Because Trump doesn't really come off as an old man. The NYT ran an article recently defending Biden's health after he slipped and fell (again) at some military graduation thing, in which they noted that voters don't think of Trump as physically unfit to the same extent that they think so of Biden, and sulkily attributed this to Trump's loudness and flamboyance.

Younger Republican challengers like Rubio and Cruz are all very wedded to the idea of courtly debate and dignified manner, which just codes as old. The main exception I can think of would be Chris Christie, who is desperate to paint himself as a Jersey tough guy, but I don't think anyone really regards him as a serious contender now or in the future.

vigor and age not the same

If republicans only cared about vigor, why are they aligned around a spetegenarian?

Because he shows more vigor than any other famous Republican.

Why is this plan centered around having Trump refuse? Is there anyone in the world who doesn't already believe Ron would beat an old man in a boxing match?

There probably are not many such people, but the point of challenging Trump to a fight would not be to convince them, the point would be to humiliate Trump in an entertaining fashion and make people see you as the alpha male. Kind of like shoving your enemy into a locker and making fun of him while the onlookers hoot and cheer. I think that Hanania is right that Trump's ability to deliver such displays formed a large part of his appeal in 2016.

Republican voters love the stupidity, obnoxiousness, vulgarity, and simian chest-beating.

Instead of seeing Republican primary voters as concerned citizens seeking a voice, try to imagine them as chimps laying around under a canopy. They’ve chosen the alpha male.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot of words, but Hanania may as well have written, "ooga booga you dumb" for all he's said. Wojak is at the Republican primary, standing in the corner, his feet hurt, I bet they don't even know how I've transcended simian instincts. This is just dumb, Hanania is arguing against a cartoon Republican he just made up in his head.

In 2020, we saw doctored videos of Pelosi slurring her words go viral on social media, and this shows not only how susceptible the Republican base is to fake news

Good morning, it's Sunday Morning.

These people started shooting beer cans with assault rifles because a company sent a six pack to a guy who acts like a sissy.

This is exceptionally dumb. In one paragraph Hanania is kvetching about media hyperreality, and in the very nexy sentence Hanania is using some video of some person shooting a beer can to characterize the whole Republican base. This is not an argument, it's gesticulsting, and it's not even well-informed gesticulating. (The word "imagined" is doing a lot of work in his argument: I can trivially find examples of Biden, Hillary, and Pelosi all having senior moments.)

If this is Hanania's usual stuff, then he's a pseud and deserves to be ignored.

a guy who acts like a sissy

Who was invited to the White House. When was Richard invited to the White House? And if he thinks describing the "trans woman" as "a guy who acts like a sissy" is an accurate description, then why is he objecting to the objections? Is it that he thinks this is how "these people" speak of it, but he himself is totally "trans women are real women" unlike the sub-human knuckle-draggers?

What is Hanania trying to do, and is he speaking out of both sides of his mouth? I don't think Dylan is she but I'm not going to give any hostages to fortune by describing them as "a guy who acts like a sissy". If Hanania is attacked for using tat kind of language, who are the people going to defend him? Well, he's just insulted them all and shown his scorn for them, so why should they help him out?

Wojak is at the Republican primary, standing in the corner, his feet hurt, I bet they don't even know how I've transcended simian instincts.

Way to prove him correct. Did you feel clever when writing it? Or did you feel Based?

This is just dumb, Hanania is arguing against a cartoon Republican he just made up in his head.

No, he is not. In fact he isn't arguing at all. He is trying to normalize shaming of Trump loyalists as low-status, trash, unserious Republicans, to divert the remaining talent to a candidate with better chances – both of winning the election and of prosecuting a desirable policy.

We still have tons of Trump loyalists even on this relatively sophisticated sub, for all the good this loyalty has done for them. Hanania is very mean, sure, but his meanness is sensible. What would it take for them to abandon Trump, if his demonstrable political ineptitude, lack of gratitude or respect for his base, ugly and self-defeating tantrums, immaturity so pronounced one has to suspect it's affected etc. – did not?

I think he's correct that it's only humiliation of Trump as a man. But it doesn't really matter. The sad truth is that very many people do not even have a simian idea of political worth. It only matters for them whether voting for Trump is Based or Chringe.

a candidate with better chances – both of winning the election and of prosecuting a desirable policy.

Like Mitt "the Mormon Theocrat" Romney? Being nice and clean-cut never stopped the attacks from the Democrats, why do you think Trump became so popular? He drove them mad, but the usual attacks rolled off him like water off a duck's back, and they couldn't stop him getting to the White House instead of the anointed empress.

You don't have to like Trump or think he was a good president to appreciate "he drove the people who hate us absolutely foaming at the mouth mad" and enjoy that.

Thank you for providing an example. Yes, the point of voting Trump is to Own The Libs, drive them mad. This is exactly what Hanania is talking about.

Like Mitt "the Mormon Theocrat" Romney? Being nice and clean-cut never stopped the attacks from the Democrats

I suppose we will never know how well Romney would've handled those attacks were he to become POTUS.

Or he didn't become POTUS because of the way he handled those attacks. Which might explain why Trump supporters prefer owning the Libs even though the strategy is passed it's expiration date.

What would it take for them to abandon Trump, if his demonstrable political ineptitude, lack of gratitude or respect for his base, ugly and self-defeating tantrums, immaturity so pronounced one has to suspect it's affected etc. – did not?

The only one here disrespecting Trump's base is Hanania. Why would Trump supporters care what Hanania thinks when he's expressed nothing but contempt for them? By the same logic, why should I care what you think of me?

Way to prove him correct. Did you feel clever when writing it? Or did you feel Based?

It's fair game if this is how Hanania wants to play. We need to trick Trump supporters by looking masculine and tough? OK then, Hanania is a pale nerd who looks like he could barely bench the bar.

Oh, right, Hanania doesn't believe that applies to himself because he and his audience are the smart crowd, teehee, we're not boorish and vulgar like those populists. That's the problem, Hanania's argument isn't an argument, it's contempt disguised as an argument. There is no intellectual content, it's all attitude, it's about looking like an intellectual, by looking down on people who aren't trying to look intellectual.

The hell does any of that mean? Let's go step by step:

Why would Trump supporters care

Does it look like he's talking to Trump supporters even to express contempt?

what Hanania thinks when he's expressed nothing but contempt

Because arguments are to be considered on their merits, for one thing, and there is demonstrably some merit to DeSantis but zero merit to Trump as a political representative? Because this attitude makes you extremely vulnerable to trivial manipulations?

By the same logic, why should I care what you think of me?

What logic exactly?

And why would I care whether you care or not? Scratch that, what even is this inane macho train of thought about caring or not caring, this one-upmanship? Hanania talks of Trumpists from a zoological perspective; I am using you as a reference point. You are demanding gestures of unconditional respect for your position as advance payment for deigning to engage at all. But this precludes the possibility of any conscious change on your part, thus makes debating you a waste of time.

Still. Let me elucidate my opinion: the point is not to convince you of anything. The point is to convince those on the margins of the Red Tribe that your kind is a lost cause, that you are completely impossible to rescue from your self-satisfied vulgarity, your boomer Facebook group Qanon fetishes, your perverse addiction to throwing tantrums and toothless LARPing.

Hanania probably does believe that, hypothetically, you may be enticed by an alpha male chimp who physically assaults Trump, or by some other bait. This is all peripheral. At the core of that piece is Hanania's desire to have smarter Republicans – not just RINOs, but every Republican with more brains and greater self-restraint than an average Chechen teenager has – join him in losing compassion for you, for their own family and culture, and plot for disenfranchising you from here on out. It is a long-term agenda that is meant to outlive Trump as a political figure, regardless of how well he does in 2024.

The point is to convince those on the margins of the Red Tribe that your kind is a lost cause, that you are completely impossible to rescue from your self-satisfied vulgarity, your boomer Facebook group Qanon fetishes, your perverse addiction to throwing tantrums and toothless LARPing.

I'm not really seeing that expressed in that piece. Okay, he does think Republicans make tons of mistakes, systematically, because they're not trying to address root issues. But most of the piece just seems like he's saying that Republicans want to be entertained. And he's lumped himself among that to some extent, he's clearly enjoying the whole show, writing that piece etc. It looks to me more to be a mix of just a suggestion of the style of thing that Desantis needs to do to win people over—the professed purpose, may be some, at least, of the actual purpose—and secondly, to talk about what he thinks the appeal of Trump actually is to people.

Hanania is also here endorsing some of the tactics that you seem to be saying he actually is trying to oppose. My current read on him is that he likes the show, and cares about policy and accurate analysis.

Because arguments are to be considered on their merits, for one thing, and there is demonstrably some merit to DeSantis but zero merit to Trump as a political representative?

If arguments are to be considered on their merits, than Hananias argument is garbage even when there's more merit to DeSantis as a representative.

That's the problem, Hanania's argument isn't an argument, it's contempt disguised as an argument. There is no intellectual content, it's all attitude, it's about looking like an intellectual, by looking down on people who aren't trying to look intellectual.

Well, there is some intellectual content. It can be summed up in one sentence and the rest of the article is just delivering that one bit of content in an entertaining way. But overall I agree with you that there is not much intellectual content there. However, why is that a problem for you? Is it the contempt? The lack of intellectual content? The fact that it was posted here even though it would probably have gotten modded had it been posted here by Hanania himself? Something else?

However, why is that a problem for you?

Where do you perceive there is a problem for SlowBoy?

This is a discussion forum. You don't need to have a problem with something to weigh in with an opinion on it. An article was posted for visibility and at least implicitly soliciting opinions on it. Slowboy shared his. When people engaged his opinion, he elaborated back.

That is his angle and it works. Many of his readers span the spectrum of the rationalist-right and center-right, who share a large overlap of readership with similar blogs . Hanania is not catering or speaking to to the Fox News demographic or the 'Republican base'. There is a huge and underserved audience of centrist and rationalist conservatism, who reject Fox News low-brow or populist conservatism. Had he parroted stale trad or mainstream-con talking points, his blog and Twitter-pundit career would have been DOA. he would need to go on TV instead.

His argument is dumb, and the idea that Ron DeSantis could challenge Trump to a boxing fight is dumb. People are not going to look at all five-foot-nine of Ron DeSantis proposing a boxing match as a political stunt and think, "Wow, this guy is the real alpha, now I like him more than Trump". It's facile. Is this really what people want? Dumb arguments dressed up in rationalist costumes?

I do not think that Hanania's article is wearing any rationalist costume. It is simply vicious political criticism/satire in the style of H. L. Mencken or Hunter Thompson. I guess Hanania is vaguely associated with rationalism for some reason (I don't know much about him), but this article has zero pretense of being rationalist.

People are not going to look at all five-foot-nine of Ron DeSantis proposing a boxing match as a political stunt and think, "Wow, this guy is the real alpha, now I like him more than Trump".

I agree that it would just seem silly if DeSantis is actually 5'9", given that Trump is 6'3". It is hard to figure out DeSantis' actual height though. I've seen figures of up to 5'11".

Anyway, I am not sure that Hanania really thinks that DeSantis challenging Trump to a boxing match would help DeSantis. You might be interpreting Hanania's article too literally. His main point is not to give DeSantis advice, it is to point out that the Republican base wants machismo and owning the libs, not policies or speeches.

It might seem silly, but DeSantis is 44, Trump 76. The young, small guy would beat the senior citizen. Trump could potentially turn things around and say that DeSantis is just a liar and a braggart, beating up on a fit old guy or some crap like that. Then he can say DeSantis has a Napoleon complex, if he really is 5’9”. Even at six feet, DeSantis might have a hard time doing this.

There is a huge and underserved audience of centrist and rationalist conservatism, who reject Fox News low-brow or populist conservatism.

I can't say how huge, but this is a point that I've tried expressing to others, only to get met with a fairly perplexed look. The conservative mainstream (i.e. Republican) is always desperately going to try and gatekeep the term to maintain as much of the political marketshare on the right-wing that they can. But I remarked to a friend back in 2016, that there were a lot of different conservative voting blocks that all thought they were going to get what they impressed onto Trump. The Jared Taylor faction thought they were going to get their white nationalist into power. Libertarians thought they were going to get their free market utopia enacted. A disgruntled Democratic voting block wanted to thumb its nose at the party for sidelining Bernie. Everyone thought they were getting what they wanted with Trump.

Yes, I still remember some of the contortions that some libertarians I argued with about Trump would put themselves through to explain to me why Trump was libertarian despite his clear authoritarian/"get things done by any means necessary" streak and the fact that he implied multiple times that Edward Snowden should be executed for treason.

The smarter ones of the bunch at least realized that Trump was not actually libertarian and instead tried to convince me along the lines of "well yeah we know but he's better for libertarianism than Hillary..." Although I am pretty sure that at least half of those types were actually smitten with Trump on an emotional level and were just saying what they thought it would take to convince me, not what it was that had actually convinced them.

The smarter ones of the bunch at least realized that Trump was not actually libertarian and instead tried to convince me along the lines of "well yeah we know but he's better for libertarianism than Hillary..."

Through accelerationism? The more autocratic he gets, the better for the libertarian movement?

No, their arguments were more along the lines of "At least Trump will protect gun rights and capitalism and will prevent third world people with anti-libertarian politics from moving to the US".

Trump was always going to be a self-absorbed individual before he would ever become an ideologue with a 'vision' to carry out. I think the people that ended up being the most disappointed with him were the ones that had the most unrealistic expectation of who he was. And even in retrospect, I do think he was better than what I think it would've likely been with Hillary. And in 2020, I maintained that he would've still been better than Joe Biden. I'm not saying Biden hasn't done good things that I would agree with, because he has. But people overwhelmingly focus on the wrong thing where it concerns Trump, and that's his outward personality instead of what he does in his capacity as President. If I want a sobering assessment of Donald Trump, I'll try and see what Noam Chomsky has to say about him. The irrational TikTok tirades of the left and disaffected right-wingers that feel he betrayed them, have nothing worthwhile to offer me as far as critique goes.

The smarter ones of the bunch at least realized that Trump was not actually libertarian and instead tried to convince me along the lines of "well yeah we know but he's better for libertarianism than Hillary..."

I would have said this but still recognized that the libertarian candidate was far superior, I would vote for them, and they would definitely lose.

I didn't push the red button labeled "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT" when at the polls but it was funny when others did.

People do not have to be stupid in order to enjoy and be swayed by visceral displays of dominance. Even in smart people, intelligence is uneven. We are still apes and it is hard not to be influenced on some level by the same kind of crude stuff that worked back in the day of ape politics.

This is not an argument, it's gesticulsting, and it's not even well-informed gesticulating.

Yes, Hanania is not trying to write a well-reasoned logical argument. He is trying to shed some light on things by exaggerating and mocking. It is not logically airtight but it still works to reveal some truths.

Maybe the lights are on -- but nobody's home!

Come on, I've seen videos od Joe Biden saying that America "could be defined in a single word," Hillary Clinton having a seizure, and Nancy Pelosi rambling about Sunday Morning. Hanania wants to pose with some tough love tells-it-like-it-is bravado, but it's all an act. He's clearly ignorant of what he's talking about.

Just because Hanania thinks that the Republican base is stupid does not mean that he thinks the Democratic base is smart.

One of his examples for how the Republican base is stupid is that they're imagining elder moments in Democratic leadership. But these moments aren't imagined, they're famous! He's wrong about basic things while he tsk tsks others. That's gaslighting or that's glib.

He wrote:

Notice how obsessed Republicans have been with the real and imagined physical and cognitive shortcomings of figures like Biden and Hillary. In many corners of right-wing media, “our opponents are old, fat, ugly” seems to get at least as much attention as actual issues, especially during election season. In 2020, we saw doctored videos of Pelosi slurring her words go viral on social media, and this shows not only how susceptible the Republican base is to fake news, but also how obsessed they are with physical and physiological correlates of health.

Note: "the real and imagined". Clearly Hanania agrees that some of the shortcomings are real.

And he also provides an example of an, according to him at least, doctored video that Republicans believed was real.

The "doctored video" was a short clip of Pelosi that underwent compression that few people saw until the press seized on it as a "doctored viral video". It's a silly story because Pelosi has had voluble senior moments already, and the "doctoring" in the "doctored video" was minor stuff.

It's a very weak argument. Hanania adduces one (exaggerated, I think) example to show that the Republican base is susceptible to fake news. And Hanania isn't?

Fair enough, if he used a bad example he used a bad example. It does seem pretty clear to me, though, that a pretty large subset of voters are gullible and have difficulty understanding how reality works. This includes both Democrats and Republicans.

More comments

Peer review and academia is the high-IQ equivalent of politics and celebrities for average-IQ people. Same sort of appeal to authority.

Hanania was asked to speak to the Yale Federalist Society, i.e. a bunch of future red state judges and clerks, about his 'Woke Institutions are Civil Rights Law' hypothesis. While he seems remarkably devoted to biting the hand that feeds him by expressing his contempt for the conservative base he is not without influence.

Hanania isn't fed by "the conservative base", he is fed by "intellectual" right wing think tanks and the like, the difference of which to the conservative base is like the difference between man and monkey (I exaggerate, but only slightly).

the base is irrelevant. Hanania is smart enough to know that real, lasting change comes from the legal system, and other influential people and institutions, not the bottom-up.

Both parties have a large contingent of dumb or midwit voters, either because they're low-intelligence or simply because they don't pay attention to politics that much and as such have simplistic opinions, e.g. a "guy who just wants to grill" making voting decisions by "going with his gut". This isn't a boo-outgroup screed, but rather a proper understanding of reality. It's utterly fanciful to pretend these people don't exist or have that they don't have a massive impact on vote tallies.

People become politically active in the same way they watch the Olympic games, once every four years. I'm constantly torn and at odds with myself about what to think about voters. On one hand they're the collective ignorant, and on the other, they're smart enough not to bother wasting their time with the false display of a decision making process that they don't believe will benefit them, no matter who they elect.

Politicians are rational actors in the sense that politicians do whatever gets them elected. If they do stupid things that attract the support from voters, who's to blame? On the other hand, more informed people won't vote because their preferred candidate has no platform. It's a paradox of sorts.

Hanania can't credibly complain about the stupidity of the electorate if his argument is this stupid. OK, apparently the Trump people are stupid, but who else? I don't see Hanania saying that Biden voters are dumb, so Trump should speak to them by wearing a pantsuit.

Calling a specific group of people dumb, and then defending that by saying that everyone is dumb, is an extreme example of a bailey and motte.

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives...

I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position as at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party . . . There is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power."

-John Stuart Mill

Hanania can't credibly complain about the stupidity of the electorate if his argument is this stupid.

Sure he can. I doubt that Hanania is not smart enough to write a logical argument if he wanted to write one. He is exaggerating and mocking people because it is fun and it gets him views. And it also most likely also reaches a much broader audience than a more carefully reasoned argument would.

But even if he actually was stupid, why would that mean that he could not credibly complain about other people's stupidity? I do not see the connection there.

Sure, maybe Hanania was Just Pretending To Be Retarded. But it wouldn't be a very good defense of what he's written. Either he's stupid on accident, or on purpose!

I do not think that he is being stupid, I think that he is being an over-the-top and exaggerated satirist.

Is the Republican base quite as stupid as he implies they are? Probably not. Is the Republican base in many ways stupid? Yes.

The Democratic base is also to a large extent stupid. As I am pretty sure Hanania would agree.

If you believe Hanania thinks leftist voters are all geniuses... you're not very familiar with his work. He's gone into what he thinks of left-leaning voters before I'm sure, but this article isn't about "R voters are uniquely stupid", so he didn't deem it relevant to bring it up.

It's not a motte and bailey because it's not a central point, or even an argument (as you presented) that he believes in at all. The real point is about Desantis. Desantis would be crushing Trump if the R electorate was completly made up of themotte posters and National Review type right-wing intellectuals, but it's not, and it's ludicrous to expect them to be. Desantis' pitch of "Trump but competent" won't land with less engaged, less interested rightwing voters.

Desantis would be crushing Trump if the R electorate was completly made up of themotte posters and National Review type right-wing intellectuals

Yeah, maybe, but the conservative base is extremely frustrated with "National Review type right-wing intellectuals" which doesn't mean that they're:

less engaged, less interested rightwing voters.

I mean, if you imagine yourself being like National Review pundits, I sincerely hope you pick higher ambitions.

‘National Review’ type intellectuals doesn’t mean anything. Some of the above supported Trump, some didn’t. The Flight 93 Election article was written by a Trumpist intellectual.

It means something, and not anything good.

NR is now a byword for Conservative, Inc grift.

They're hated not just by the base. They live almost entirely within the moral framework set up by their enemies, which means they cannot possibly succeed.

Richard Hanania thinks Desantis should challenge Trump to a boxing match.

If Desantis is going to challenge anyone to a boxing match, he should challenge Joe Biden to a boxing match. Going after Trump directly is less likely to get him Republican votes than showing he knows who the enemy is.

Challenging Biden doesn't do anything. anyone considering voting for Biden isn't doing so for the reasons outlined in the piece, and Biden makes no attempt at acting like an Alpha male.

His crusade against woke in Florida shows he clearly knows who the enemy is. The problem is he needs to get through Trump to take on Biden. I'm sure there will be plenty of Biden-bashing in the R primary, but that's just standard fare. Desantis really needs to fight against Trump right now to actually win the nomination, but he's been too meek to do so.

If I was the Republican Party, I wouldn't want to draw media attention to a division between Trump and DeSantis that gets personal and dirty. It's precisely that kind of in-fighting that partly explains the chaos within the Democratic Party, as a political front. I get that that's Trump's gig, but that's more of a general function of his personality than it was a desire to burn the Republican Party to the ground.

I can’t believe this shit. The front running candidate is probably going to be in jail on election night, and the challengers are scrambling to find an angle of attack. It’s right in front of you ya imbeciles.

It’s right in front of you ya imbeciles.

What good is hammering Trump for being the victim of obviously politicized prosecutions?

According to supposed experts interviewed in radio shows I listen to, these court cases proceed so slowly that Trump will very much not be behind bars as of the upcoming presidential election.

You may well not buy it, but many of the people that will be voting in Republican primaries (me included) regard prosecution of Trump as a purely political act and jailing him would increase my likelihood of voting for him. This may sound insane to you, but consider what your position is on leaders that have been made into political prisoners. Should the people on the same side as the political prisoner attack him and embrace the regime, or are they in a bit of an awkward position?

Look, I get it. The prosecution seems unfair and you want to struggle against it and fight back. Here’s the problem:

It’s a trap

They want you to vote for him in the primary. You really think the best case they can come up with is misreported hush money payments to his mistress? No. They’re hoping the Republican base bets all their political capital on Trump, secures him the nomination, and then they’re going to drop the hammer and make Republicans look like treasonous buffoons for supporting the guy again instead of adopting any meaningful policy platform.

You don’t have to throw Trump under the proverbial bus (like he did to his supporters on January 6), you just have to not nominate him to be the Republican candidate for President of the United States.

EDIT: Well well how the turntables. I suspect that these charges are at least legally sound, if not "fair". The argument that, "Everyone does it. These felony charges are bullshit." would be a lot stronger if we didn't all see over the last 8 years how differently Trump acts from normal politicians. You don't have to nominate this guy. DeSantis can run on an, "I'll pardon Trump, but he shouldn't be president," platform.

You really think the best case they can come up with is misreported hush money payments to his mistress? No.

Actually, yes. They didn't come up with anything better in 2016 or 2020, why would they suddenly become good at muckraking now?

They’re hoping the Republican base bets all their political capital on Trump, secures him the nomination, and then they’re going to drop the hammer and make Republicans look like treasonous buffoons for supporting the guy again instead of adopting any meaningful policy platform.

I don't believe anything the swamp creatures tell me, they're not going to make themselves more credible by being more lurid.

Obviously. I'm currently hoping for DeSantis. But the Democrats are having Trump arrested and indicted, banana-republic style, to try to get Trump as the primary challenger. If it works, I can only hope it works so well it propels him through the general election as well, in which case whatever retribution Trump is able to dish out will be 100% deserved.

Listen, I’m all for the American electorate switching to effective candidates instead of the loudest ones. That’s not going to happen because of some nebulous kompromat. Why wouldn’t they have deployed it in the first election? Or the impeachments, or the second election, or the three-ring circus of hearings after the Capitol riot. That last one is the closest we’re going to get to “dropping the hammer.”

I've got to say, the idea that there are some powers that be that actually have the goods and they're just waiting for the right moment to spring them is the most Muellerpilled take I've heard in quite some time. My alternative explanation would be that the reason the actual charges look pathetic and political is because the only available charges are pathetic and political.

the goods

These don't have to be some new case; it just has to be enough drip-drip-drip of legal proceedings, bureaucratic reports, and other assorted smears to convince "independents" to vote Biden instead of MAGA. (Oh by the way, Alvin Bragg has set Trump's goofy-ass Stormy Daniels trial for early 2024. Oh by the way, Jack Smith, the Mar-a-Lago documents special counsel also will be releasing a report justifying his charging decisions, and I'll bet any amount of money you care to name it'll be at a politically-advantageous time).

The Democrats' goal here is not really to have Trump executed or whatever; it's to get and keep power so they can push their policies and reward their friends. The point of persecuting Trump is that the Dems can use his unpopularity among their base as a pinata for heightened turnout numbers and negative press about the GOP they can wave in the faces of status-conscious moderates and independents. They also happen to get the perverse side benefit that the more they target Trump, the more popular he gets with the core GOP base, locking them into a candidate who the Dems are confident they can beat.

I understand why this is viscerally frustrating - the Dems are pulling a lot of really nasty lawfare stunts on Trump (though he is also bad at avoiding unforced errors and bad at defending himself), and it feels extremely wrong to abandon him and let them get away with it. But tactically it is playing into the Dem's hands more than a bit.

It's an uphill battle to manage to attack him while not managing to keep yourself firmly out of being perceived as part of the outgroup. Attacking Trump needs to be in ways that don't look like you're left-leaning, and the past 8 years have immunized Trump to whole classes of attacks, as they're often considered (not necessarily unjustifiably) to be politically motivated, and maybe lacking substance.

Attacking Trump for his legal troubles is a sure way to lose the Republican primary.

I don’t think “he’s a loser, and he deserves to be in jail for being a pathetic loser who failed so badly his enemies could send him to jail” is a terrible argument. But agreed, it’s probably above the median GOP primary voter.

I think given how closely Trump's supporters have identified with his rhetoric, attacking Trump's legal cases would amount to alienating some sizable chuck of his constituency.

The legal issues related to Trump don't seem particularly troubling. Trump has always been in a legal gray area with stuff like the Russia investigation, but Mueller cleared Trump of collusion when most of the media thought he would go down for sure. Counting on a legal issue to bring down Trump seems like a bad bet unless he does something particularly egregious.

I might be surprised, and this could turn into the speediest trial ever, but I'm guessing this is unlikely to end up in a conviction quickly enough to "bring Trump down", at least in terms of preventing him from getting the nomination. However, what is the argument for the various indictments swaying folks who would have otherwise voted for him? With the NY indictment, paying off a porn star for an affair was already baked in to at least his 2020 results, so that part won't do him much worse (and that election was quite close). The actual business records/campaign finance charges are ticky tack, strained, and at best barely technically supported. Regular Joe is barely going to be able to understand what the big deal is supposed to be. With this latest indictment, I think a lot revolves around, frankly, demographic change. 2016 was eight years ago. Most rightists who were politically mature back then are going to remember "but her emails" and remember how the narrative shifted on classified information and prosecuting political candidates, so it might not shift them much.

...and right as I was about to write the next sentence, I had a change of direction. I was going to say that Republicans are still more traditionally pro-nat-sec/military/etc. and would be more concerned about classified information. It would make sense politically that this issue would have more of a chance to sway some of those folks. However, I realized as I was writing the above, that the older righties will likely remember the "but her emails", and while the younger righties might not remember, they're generally much more skeptical of the nat-sec/military/etc., uh... "industrial complex". They grew up on the narratives of Assange and Snowden and think that a lot of that is bullshit anyway. So, maybe it won't really sway any of the right's voters, but perhaps for different reasons.

I might be surprised, and this could turn into the speediest trial ever, but I'm guessing this is unlikely to end up in a conviction quickly enough to "bring Trump down", at least in terms of preventing him from getting the nomination

My question here is, even if they pulled it off, could it backfire if Trump went full Prisoner 9653 for President?

The media in no way was some innocent or indifferent spectator, or had any impartial interest in the case. 'Russiagate' was a media driven campaign that was false, and people on the inside, in particular those like Rachel Maddow knew they were peddling bullshit from the get-go.

Hanania is far and away my favourite US politics blogger right now. This piece somehow managed to be both hilarious and insightful. He manages to describe Republican primary voters in a way that should to any rational reader code as contemptuous and disparaging, and yet he comes across like he's giving a purely descriptive analysis. Potentially the American Dominic Cummings?

Potentially the American Dominic Cummings?

I think so, but not the way you mean it. Cummings too was contemptuous of the ordinary person, 'rules are for little people', he relied on having powerful friends to get him into the unelected positions where he could wield influence and pissed off the civil servants running the place, then he managed to piss off the public - and more importantly, Johnson's girlfriend - enough that Boris found it expedient to throw him under the bus.

So all the big talks and plans came to nothing in the end.

I can see the exact same with Hanania.

I'm not american nor would I vote rep if I were, but this piece does come across to me as mainly contemptuous and disparaging. In combination with his other recent writing, it seems obvious to me that Hanania mostly despises the average republican and only has a very limited policy overlap with them.

some his articles are good, such as about the differences between liberals and conservatives, but other times he seems to have major confirmation bias or ignores obvious countervailing evidence. Regarding a recent article about how crime is out of control in America, completely ignores the work of Pinker. Regarding obesity, no mention of studies showing the low long-term success rate of diets. Not saying I am an expert , but such counterexamples are obvious to anyone who has done even a cursory examination of the literature.

Agreed, Hanania's great. He's kind of replaced Scott for me since Scott doesn't write much about politics any more.

Desantis's campaign so far has been pretty pathetic.

This seems to be the Trumpian line, but doesn't seem to be matching up that well with reality. Desantis is gaining ground in the early primary states pretty significantly and nationally has gained ground as well.

nationally has gained ground as well.

Flatly wrong. He went from 30% after the midterms to 20% now. He's down in both the polling aggregators like 538 and in betting markets. He's up maybe a point or two from his nadir, but that doesn't come close to catching Trump, or even to reversing his spring/summer slide.

Really unclear why he ran instead of letting Trump immolate himself and run next term.

Maybe he thought to strike while the iron is hot or, at worst, the GOP base won't hold a grudge even if he reran 4 years later? That slump doesn't really augur well in that regard...

He'd have a lot more trouble keeping the COVID->conservative legislation->destroying reelection momentum if he spent another 4 years just hanging around since he is term-limited as Gov.

The reason that he's running now is because the GOP establishment need to provide a candidate who can sabotage Trump. From the perspective of the GOP politicians currently in power, their preferred outcome is to continue to lose forever because that allows them to never actually carry out the promises they make towards their base, which would interfere with the money they receive from wealthy donors. Desantis is running now because attacking and damaging Trump is the entire raison d'etre of his political campaign - if he was actually trying to achieve conservative policy goals and govern effectively, he'd have to recognise the obvious reality on the ground (the Trump voting base, which conservatives cannot win elections without, is loyal to Trump and not the GOP brand) and work with Trump rather than against him.

their preferred outcome is to continue to lose forever

They were doing a lot of winning down ballot prior to 2016 for a bunch of people who like losing.

In fact, most of the losing they've been doing has been from 2018, onward.

Presidential aspirants are highly incentivized to run whenever they see an opening. Losing a primary is not a political death sentence by any means. Romney lost 2008 before winning the R nom in 2012. Biden flamed out twice before winning the D nom in 2020. On the other hand, staying out could mean they miss their shot forever. Plenty of people said Obama should have sat out in 2008 with the logic that it was basically "Hillary's turn". There's a good chance Obama would have never been president if he didn't run in 2008. Chris Christie lost his best shot when he didn't run in 2012

Fair to both posts. It's easy to say the GOP is a Trump personality cult but hard to stay out with 30% of the vote and the guy having his...issues.

Really unclear why he ran instead of letting Trump immolate himself and run next term.

Where else would he park himself? He's term-limited out of the Florida governor's office.

Richard Hanania thinks Desantis should challenge Trump to a boxing match.

Precedent is strong here.

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