Re: [Salon] What explains Ron DeSantis’s woeful run for president? - The Spectator World

[Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com>]

I meant to add that how “real” these preparations were, can be seen in what Marine Infantry Officer, and "Whistleblower,” David MacMichael, told me of how his Marine training included actually having a nucleat bomb exploded from a tower as a large unit “Nuclear Live-Fire Training Exercise (my description from the facts) with he and his unit then training/operating in the area in preparation for the “Nuclear Battlefield.” Which would have been in the late stage or aftermath of the Korean War, as he told me in an oral history interview I recorded. Though not sure if the topic came up in this, or a subsequent, still unedited video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJHxQFUDVZM&t=42s
"An Oral History of The Cold War, by David C. MacMichael, Ph.D."


> On Jul 21, 2023, at 8:04 AM, Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com> wrote:
> 
> I read the Spector for the sole purpose to stay informed of what the “Right” has in store for me to make my life, and my loved one’s, and the rest of the world’s, miserable with their constant push for war. Especially when some candiates, like the New Right’s, occasionaly conceal that as the equivalent of “secret writing,” in their designed to deceive campaign rhetoric (oh no, they would never do that, you tell me, but see the “Six-Party Theory” of the Grand Poobah of Right-wing campaigns, Arthur Finklestein, and how he helped the biggest military spender in our history perhaps, Donald Trump, get elected as the “Peace Candidate” for fringe Republicans, while delivering the military goods for “Traditional Republicans).  
> 
> So I won’t deny that this news fills me with glee, without any “regret tone,” when the Spectator was so enthusiastic for “DeSanctimonious” earlier. Though hating to admit I agree with Trump on anything (and don’t give me that **** about him being a “Right-wing Peacenik,” which he wasn’t, and isn’t. And any “plan" he has to end the US war against Russia in Ukraine can be counted on to include upfront “Fire and Fury” nuclear threats against Russia, in the finest "Traditional Conservative” Republican tradition, à la Goldwater, Nixon, and Eisenhower, down to the present day; so throughout my entire life.  
> 
> https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/16/eisenhower-defends-use-of-nuclear-weapons-march-16-1955-1224003
> He (Eisenhower) responded: “I wouldn’t comment in the sense that I would pretend to foresee the conditions of any particular conflict in which you might engage; but we have been, as you know, active in producing various types of weapons that feature nuclear fission ever since World War II.
> “Now, in any combat where these things can be used on strictly military targets and for strictly military purposes, I see no reason why they shouldn’t be used just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else.
> 
> And see the attached article: "This article examines the question of how serious President Eisenhower was in contemplating the use of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula and Chinese mainland. To do this, it surveys Eisenhower’s thinking and policies about the issue from 1953 to 1968 in regard to maintaining the security of South Korea. In contrast to many in the literature who argue that Eisenhower would have been very reluctant to authorize their use or who downplay the significance of his many statements about the use of nuclear weapons, it maintains that the president was much more willing to use nuclear compellent force than many have supposed.”
> 
> <Beyond Brinkmanship- Eisenhower, Nuclear War Fighting, and Korea, 1953-1968 .pdf>https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/08/world/us-papers-tell-of-53-policy-to-use-a-bomb-in-korea.html
> "Documents released today give details on a decision by President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Administration in 1953 to use atomic bombs in North Korea and Communist China, if necessary, to end the Korean War."
> 
> https://mronline.org/2021/05/31/eisenhower-rejected-military-chiefs-demand-for-nuclear-war-on-china-classified-account-of-58-taiwan-strait-crisis-reveals/
> Though to Eisenhower’s credit, he wasn’t as bad as his military advisors and the “Traditional Conservatives” of National Review magazine, who always demanded deference to the most hardline militarists in the military were: "Navy brass in the Pacific had urged unconditional support for Chiang’s regime during the civil war with the Communists and derided as “pinkies” those State Department officials–beginning with Secretary George C. Marshall–who entertained any doubts about the Kuomintang leader.
> "By 1958, the Air Force was so strongly committed to its role as an exclusively nuclear-weapons delivery organization that it insisted on being able to able to using nuclear weapons in any war it fought in the Pacific region.
> "The account of the crisis reveals that, when the Air Force Commander in the Pacific, Gen. Lawrence S. Kuter, learned of Eisenhower’s decision to defend the offshore islands with conventional weapons, he relayed the message to Gen. John Gerhart, the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff. Shockingly, Gerhart responded that the Air Force “could not agree in principle” to the use of SAC forces for such non-nuclear operations."
> 
> There you have it, precedent for Trump’s "Fire and Fury nuclear coercion threats!"
> 
> 
> 
>> Trump is relishing his adversary’s slide, naturally. “DeSanctimonious is a terrible candidate,” he declared last weekend, in that glee-dressed-as-regret tone he so often deploys when discussing his failing rivals. “I think he’s out.”
> …….
>> 
>> 
>> “His campaign is run by dorks for dorks,” says the Trump insider, and it’s easy to see his point. Murdoch, for one, has reportedly gone off him. According to reports, he “has privately winced” at DeSantis’s “anti-woke” messaging. Fox News has duly started making more critical noises about DeSantis. "The editorial board of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has not rushed to his defense.”
> 
> Something else I agree with the Trump campaign on :-)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> https://thespectator.com/politics/ron-desantis-woeful-run-donald-trump-2024/?utm_source=Spectator%20World%20Signup&utm_campaign=bb5e1af941-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_07_21_03_09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-bb5e1af941-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
>> 
>> What explains Ron DeSantis’s woeful run for president?
>> Freddy GrayIt’s widely acknowledged that, as governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis has been a success. As a presidential candidate, however, he has been a disaster — at least, so far.
>> Last weekend, amid reports that his bid for the White House was floundering, DeSantis fired a dozen of his staff and scaled back his travel plans. He may have raised some $20 million between April and June, but some of the biggest Republican donors, who flocked towards him at the end of last year, are starting to turn away. His campaign is now concerned about funds running out.
>> DeSantis disputes the “doom and gloom” characterizations of his candidacy. When a politician starts complaining about the media’s “predetermined narratives,” however, the real message is clear: he knows he’s losing. The polls tell the story: in March, DeSantis was only around ten percentage points behind the inevitable frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Donald J. Trump. Today the gap is more than thirty points (Trump is on 52 percent, at least; DeSantis is dipping below 20).
>> Trump is relishing his adversary’s slide, naturally. “DeSanctimonious is a terrible candidate,” he declared last weekend, in that glee-dressed-as-regret tone he so often deploys when discussing his failing rivals. “I think he’s out.”
>> Where did it all go wrong for Ron? After the midterms in November, DeSantis was widely tipped to be the man to stop Trump winning the nomination again. He had won re-election in Florida, historically a closely contested swing state, by a staggering twenty points. He was Trump-like in his politics but more professional, less toxic — not crazy. Trump is seventy-seven, so the relative youth of forty-four-year-old DeSantis seemed another point in his favor, especially as America grapples with the fact that Joe Biden, its 80-year-old president, is not in full control of his faculties. “DeSantis is Trump, but you get two terms,” said one Republican consultant.
>> Inspired by such logic, various billionaires, the would-be kingmakers of the American right, began throwing huge sums in DeSantis’s direction. Rupert Murdoch liked him, which meant Fox News, the nation’s most powerful media network, started boosting his credentials. Murdoch’s New York Post called him “DeFuture” on its cover page alongside a Kennedy-esque photograph of Ron, his photogenic wife Casey and their neatly dressed little children.This was all something of a “sugar high,” as DeSantis admitted at the weekend. (“Welcome back to reality!” snapped the Trump campaign’s official “War Room” account on Twitter.) It’s clear now that, as one Trump campaign insider puts it, “there was a lot of wishful thinking that we were moving into a post-Trump era. But Trump has long had a solid 35 percent of Republican support and it was always going to be difficult for anyone to get past that.”
>> Still, until at least late May, DeSantis’s backers could credibly argue that he had a reasonable chance. Yes, Republican voters clearly preferred Trump, but it was early days and, historically, frontrunners for the party’s nomination have tended to fade away as the primary season warms up — look at the now almost forgotten campaigns of Scott Walker in 2016, Newt Gingrich in 2012 or Rudy Giuliani in 2008.DeSantis hadn’t even announced he was running, yet he commanded between 20 and 30 percent support in many Republican polls. As soon as he did declare, it was said, the political momentum — the “big mo,” as George H.W. Bush called it — would push him on. One of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk, appeared to have jumped on board too. He arranged for DeSantis to launch his candidacy alongside him in a great whizz-bang “Twitter Spaces” stunt on May 24.
>> Unfortunately, that sort of online campaign hype has an unpleasant habit of blowing up in a candidate’s face. Inevitably, the Twitter Spaces launch was a calamity. For the first ten minutes, the sound kept cutting out. Even once the technicians got DeSantis’s voice working, his audio feed was embarrassingly intermittent. DeSantis managed to deliver a barrel-load of platitudes about how “democratic society needs robust debates.” Then he droned on about his achievements as governor. It wasn’t just awful. It was hilariously dull — and that, it turns out, is DeSantis’s biggest problem.
>> “Personality and charisma are important in politics,” says a Trump insider. “Ron DeSantis speaks as though he is at some think tank luncheon. The question comes down to: do you want boring Trump? And the answer is no. People will always choose the candy bar over the spinach.”
>> DeSantis, an introvert, sounds like an automaton and becomes most robotic when trying to convey passion. Last weekend, during an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in Iowa, he boldly predicted that he would triumph in a contest for the White House against California’s governor Gavin Newsom, the man many expect to replace the ailing Biden on the Democratic ticket next year.
> <GettyImages-1544028843.jpeg>
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>> Ron DeSantis and Tucker Carlson in Des Moines, Iowa, July 14, 2023 (Getty)
>> “I’m very confident that the freedom in Florida is what more people would choose rather than the public defecation on the streets of San Francisco,” he said. You can imagine his team chortling at the line in rehearsal. But the words came out awkwardly. He also said that under his leadership Mexican criminals bringing fentanyl across the border are “going to end up stone-cold dead.” It sounded forced, even psychotic.
>> “His campaign is run by dorks for dorks,” says the Trump insider, and it’s easy to see his point. Murdoch, for one, has reportedly gone off him. According to reports, he “has privately winced” at DeSantis’s “anti-woke” messaging. Fox News has duly started making more critical noises about DeSantis. The editorial board of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has not rushed to his defense.Americans like to compare political campaigns to businesses: the candidate is the product and if the product is flawed, the campaign will fail. That’s DeSantis’s problem: people aren’t buying him as president.
>> He tries to evade the “Boring Trump” label by outflanking Donald to the right. He has conspicuously courted liberal hostility by adopting a more conservative position on abortion, for instance, and making skeptical noises about the efficacy of the Covid vaccine. In doing so, however, DeSantis finds himself speaking to a “conservative movement” which, while still significant and well-funded, lacks the kind of mass appeal that Trump inspires.
>> DeSantis can prove the courage of his convictions by signing a bill banning “fetal heartbeat” abortions. But even in the more God-fearing parts of America, celebrity tends to trump religion and consumerism trumps everything, so Trump trumps all. Trump is a world-famous brand. In Bellville, Texas, “Trump Burger” is a popular fast-food restaurant. There are successful Trump merchandise stores in many parts of America. In other words, Trump the product sells.
> <GettyImages-1533866852.jpeg>
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>> Trump campaign souvenirs at the Turning Point Action USA conference in West Palm Beach, Florida (Getty)
>> Besides, if right-wing radicalism is what voters want, Trump’s promise that “I will be your retribution” in 2024 is surely more enticing than DeSantis’s hammy talk about Florida being the state where “woke goes to die.”
>> None of this is to say that DeSantis can’t win. If Trump goes to jail — and he could — Republican voters might reconsider their support (equally, they might not). DeSantis, a master of detail, may end up thriving in the debates. He may end up doing better than polls currently suggest in Iowa, the first state in the Republican nomination process, on January 15. Iowans voted for Ted Cruz over Trump in the 2016 caucuses.
>> But 2024 is fast approaching, Trump’s support is now more entrenched, and Ron’s time is running out. Those fickle donors are turning their attentions to Tim Scott, the African-American senator for South Carolina. There’s also renewed buzz around Vivek Ramaswamy, the energetic businessman turned candidate who speaks winningly about America’s “spiritual crisis.” Meanwhile, Nikki Haley, Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, and Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, are still sucking up votes that might otherwise go to DeSantis.
>> It’s precisely the scenario anti-Trump Republicans have long feared: 2024 as a rehash of 2016, when a plethora of candidates all tripped over each other trying and failing to block the Orange One. “DeSantis has failed to clear the field,” says one political adviser. “Now he finds the field is catching him.” If that happens, Ron may well find himself remembered as another Scott Walker, a promising governor whose career was cut short by a failed tilt at the White House. He was DeFuture once.This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.
>> By
>> Freddy Gray
>> Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator and the founding editor of The Spectator’s World edition. He was formerly literary editor of the American Conservative.