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I wonder if the online right intellecto-sphere will ever figure out that Trump wasn't for them.
Trump was needed to show that "the narrative" could be countered on the biggest stage, which would inspire craftier right-ward politicians in the future who better understand how to leverage political mechanisms in their favor. The question that remains to be answered is: Will a smarter Trumpism appeal to the same wide base that loves Trump, or do they uniquely love the "dumb" version that is Trump's persona?
I know very smart college-educated people who loooove the way he trolls and, rather than looking forward to the smarter next-gen Trumps, look suspiciously on anyone who isn't exactly in the Trump mold. These people have already largely lost any faith in saving the western political system, so they aren't concerned like I am with civics and compromises for a saner future. They want it to burn, as if that will improve anything.
Right, DeSantis was smart Trump, the guy was citing Michael Anton in interviews, clearly well credentialed etc. And people don’t like him. It’s precisely Trump’s low brow, anti-intellectual, vaguely amused nonchalance that his fans like about him. Trump’s the guy at the bar commenting on something saying “ah, it’s all bullshit anyway” (on everything, because Trump cares as much about his opinions on trans bathroom stuff as he did about his opinions on the relationship between Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, which is to say he cares enough to have one and to announce it, but not much more). Trump DGAF, meanwhile the ‘dissident right’ guy is schizo-lecturing people about the nietzschean significance of the preset moment and the ‘new right’ Rufo-type guy is rambling about Adorno and critical theory.
But even beyond young, highly educated rightists, the reality is that most Trump supporters don’t want the colossal sociocultural changes sought by a lot of the very online right, in both its more moderate and more extreme variants. Most are boomers whose ideal culture is America like 30 years ago, not Europe under Papal Christendom, or on the steppe in the Bronze Age.
I really have to disagree here. DeSantis had none of Trump's charisma, but more importantly he was a creature of the Establishment GOP. The more sophisticated Pro-Trump conservatives took one look at him and who was giving him money before immediately tossing him to the side. They saw him as an attempt to draw support back to the establishment by catering to more superficial issues - "wokeness" is the kind of thing you can oppose without actually changing or conflicting with existing power-structures due to how nebulous it is. On the other hand, attacking outsourcing, the forever wars and illegal immigration places you squarely in opposition to existing power structures. "Well credentialed" is also utterly meaningless - what credentials does he have that match up to Trump's CV?
I don't think you've got an accurate picture of what the Trump base likes about him if you think that it was the low-brow, anti-intellectual aspects of Trump's presentation that drew them to him. He absolutely used that perception to draw voters to him in some ways, but it was less because he appeared to be anti-intellectual and more because it helped to establish him as the outgroup of those same people who had continually sold his prospective voterbase down the river. That was effective campaigning and was likely responsible for some percentage of his support (he also earned some voters solely through personal charisma, like the woman who called in to a political debate show just to say that she was voting for Trump because he was hot and none of the other candidates were manly enough) but it wasn't his main draw. It was his steadfast repudiation of the conventional political consensus on topics like outsourcing and immigration rather than any aspect of his presentation.
You're totally right here though.
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