Ron DeSantis announces candidacy

[Richard A]

The only surprise is that it has taken so long. Ron DeSantis is to formally announce his entry into the Presidential race at 6.00 pm tonight Eastern time. On Twitter Space with Elon Musk.

On one level, the more rats there are to fight in the Republican sack, the better. Joe Biden isn't exactly the best the Democrats could have come up with, but boy, he's better than any of the GOP alternatives. But the idea of Ron DeSantis as President is truly scary. One of the nightmare visions raised a couple of years ago was the rise of a Trump who was competent. And Ron DeSantis has shown as Governor of Florida he is exactly that. Remember the posts about IM May and the Prevent duty she imposed on UK universities to report anyone they thought might be sympathetic to terrorism or who said anything that could be construed as that? Prevent is still there, but at least many academics here have now settled down to quietly ignore it. DeSantis has gone one better. He has used his powers to appoint people to the boards of trustees - and that of the formerly liberal New College of Florida in particular - who see things his way. They in turn decide the job security of the academics at the university in question. Academics in Florida now stray from the ultra-conservative line at their peril. Meanwhile, his showdown with Disney appears to be far more successful than one might have thought. When he first took them on over their defiance of the Don't Say Gay policy, I thought: you're seriously going to war with a corporate giant the size of Disney?? And threatening one of your state's biggest tourism draws at the same time? But he's steadily implemented one measure after another on Walt Disney World, Orlando to show who's boss. If he slashes its profits, well that's the idea - defy me and I will take you down. Of course Disney is bigger than Florida; it may be that the US operation will simply focus more on California - and of course there are plenty of Disneylands beyond the US's borders. But it shows the measure of the man.

And now this man is setting out to extend to the entire United States what he is doing to Florida. And that is scary! Let us hope that it scares enough moderate Republicans to at least stay home and gets the Democrats to get behind whoever wins their primaries, even though it will probably be Biden, and make sure they vote for them come hell or high water. That has worked in France - it may have to in America.

[Arneb]

Absolutely.
The tone of your post reflects how we've all gone from "aw, come on, they were stupid enough for G.W. , but they won't be that stupid" to "OMFG, they really are that stupid " to "oh please no, don't do it again, please, no, don't, DON'T DO IT AGAIN FOR THE LOVE OF G... ".

[Richard A]

It was a German who put it well: "the bitch that bore him is on heat again".

[g-one]

ABT

[Richard A]

It's a tough call between Trump and DeSantis. De Santis would probably not call out the goons if he lost - he'd just blame wokes like he always does. But if he won, he could be truly alarming - even more so with a compliant Supreme Court. If he persuaded them that the First Amendment has been interpreted as a wokes' charter - and he clearly does believe that - then anything could happen. Arneb's reminders of how the ground was laid in 1933 for the horrors that followed are only too apposite.

Put another way, is there anything we think Trump would do if re-elected that we think DeSantis would not?

[g-one]

“Rob,” My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not! (per my conversation with Kim Jung Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!)” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.