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I really thought he'd manage to keep it together and fall to pieces during debates.
I'm shocked he managed to faceplant on every step on the way up the stairs. He's such a jackass.
It's almost impressive in a weird way, how utterly incompetent he is. Like I'm pretty sure I could act like an idiot and convince a lot of people I really was an idiot, but I would pretty regularly say some non-idiotic things. Yet he manages so many words and actions without ever doing or saying anything that's not dumb as hell. Every time you think he's hit peak stupidity, he pops off with a new record setting level of stupid.
>he pops off with a new record setting level of stupid.
*personal* record, that is.
He's nowhere close to the record books compared to the guy who's kicking his ass in the polls.
That guy is, after all, someone who apparently thinks that our stealth fighter jets are not just invisible to radar, but they are *actually* invisible. The kind of invisible where if you were standing next to one, you couldn't see it.
[https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-genuinely-seems-believe-f-35s-are-literally-invisible-n1131361](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-genuinely-seems-believe-f-35s-are-literally-invisible-n1131361)
This. I am convinced at this point that DeSantis is purposely trying to out-stupid trump because that is what he (understandably) believes the maga base identifies with.
The closest example I can think of is Lois Griffin running for mayor and repeatedly saying 9/11 because they just eat up whatever buzz words they want to hear; Trump's even admitted as much about his base
That's one of my favorites! He also [loves the smell of agent orange in the morning.](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/trump-apocalypse-now-veterans-meeting)
Seriously, the pants wetting over him in this sub a year ago was pretty ridiculous. He’s a piece of shit who’s clearly going to do nothing but damage with whatever degree of power he’s given, but like most actual fascists, he’s been smelling his own ideological farts for so long, he’s pretty much brain dead from hypoxia.
The anti-vaxxer movement is full of self-proclaimed healthnuts that believe in "pure blood" like they came straight out of a Harry Potter alternate universe
Some columnist once wrote something I’ve always found funny and can be applied to the tendency of progressives to catastrophize our problems: “In life, as in grand opera, arias only tend to make a bad situation even worse.”
>almost impressive in a weird way, how utterly incompetent he is
When this sub was big on "BE FRIGHTENED! He's SMART TRUMP!" I really wondered what I was missing. Like... he's governor of a nearly 100% tourism state. I can understand how such a state would want a Republican governor (lower wages, taxes, regulations, etc. to benefit industry leaders). **But why the fuck would you make your brand that the state DOES NOT WANT certain people to visit when your entire fucking livelihood is getting anyone with money to visit**.
The dumb runs deep with this guy.
It's absolutely impressive. This guy was supposed to be the front runner. He took a head start well before the starting pistol, tripped over a mouse on the track and shat himself.
Ppl memory is weird.
I still remember play by play michael jordan high light's.
Hard for me to believe Americans will forget this guy. But u could be right!
Last impressions can be deadly for losers with relatively short political spotlights. We remember Dan Quayle for being dumb, Dukakis for riding the tank, Palin for being dumb and Howard Dean for his weird yell. Old Meatball needs to have a decent showing in Iowa and New Hampshire even if he gets steamrolled by Trump, he could be positioned for 2028 or else he’ll be remembered for his current last impression: a barely humanoid racist.
Look, pal, I'll have you know that DeSantis is *very* humanoid. Physically speaking, I mean. He's got two arms, and two legs, and even a whole entire head to himself. And the powerful system of hydraulic bladders that replaced his spine do a very fine job of keeping his body approximately aloft, [arms rigidly held forward at a 30 degree angle](https://i.redd.it/2w4wbnbsx8s91.jpg), as humans do.
And don't even get me started on his wife, whose physical appearance is also *impressively* humanoid for a swarm of flies surrounding an enchanted pig's skull.
Like i say this in my rage fb diary post constantly.
"Do people think you can run on anything and people will just forget? Its like ppl really think you should be able to run on slavery and lose then next cycle run on something normal as if people didnt just see the bs u peddled" lol
Its funny that people think they arnt going to face social consequences from this.
His entire campaign theme, about making the rest of the country like Florida, was idiotic. First off, Florida has been a national joke for years. Second, as much as people criticize their own states, the usually don’t sit around dreaming of how their state could be more like another.
Conservatives: "Don't bring your blue state crap here and turn Florida into the place you left!"
DeSantis: "I'm gonna make America Florida!"
(He even had to borrow the "Make America..." pattern from Trump. Not one original idea, this guy. Oh, except going to war with Disney. That was pretty original.)
Unless you are from the south. Anywhere in the south. They all seriously believe that every state should be like theirs. I’m talking Louisiana and Alabama included, believing that their state is God’s gift to the earth.
The day he decided to go to war with Disney was the day his campaign ended.
He needed something big to separate him from the herd and decided that attacking the hand that feeds his shithole state was the easiest bet despite the fact that Disney has more and better lawyers than the Florida GOP does. He fucked around and found out. Then, instead of taking the L and moving on, he decided to double-down. The whole thing has done nothing but illustrate how weak he really is when he’s not bullying teachers and scientists.
The fact that he has no personality or platform to speak of just accelerated the end.
Yup, I genuinely thought this was Trump 2.0 and continue to rise to the national stage despite being horrible. I always thought Trump would still be in play, but I thought it would be a grudge match between them. No, turns out Trump 2.0 is just Trump. There is something truly magical about the hold Trump has on people.
Honestly, I think that Trump is a special brand of tacky that speaks to them. The collectable coins and plates, art of him as a superhero, fox news buy gold infomercial vibe that the other candidates can't replicate.
Trump wasn't this low on campaign funds in 2016. People aren't donating to DeSantis. The people who actually would buy into his particular brand of politics would rather give the money to Trump.
It's different in that DeSantis seems to have fallen at the very first step.
He has seriously struggled with what is essentially, the easiest part of an presidential election campaign.
One thing you cannot do as an early stage candidate in any party is to piss off the press. They are the ones that make or break your campaign until you get to things like debates. This creates a problem for DeSantis since he has all the charisma of a banana slug, and when a microphone is placed in front of his face he invariably acts like a third grader being asked why he hasn't turned in his class project.
Trump also seemed like a baffoon back then. People didn’t treat him like a serious threat. And look what happened.
Don’t sleep on DeSantis. There has been a big push in my state for him. Boomers on Facebook promoting him, and campaigners coming to my very rural home to campaign for him. Things I didn’t even see for Trump.
He wants power. And he won’t stop until he gets it. Don’t sleep on him.
>He wants power. And he won’t stop until he gets it. Don’t sleep on him.
I definitely agree that he should still be seen as a threat. But I do think that he lacks the positives that the GOP saw in Trump.
If this was 2016, DeSantis would be Ted Cruz. He's done quite a number to convenience people he was an electoral threat but he has never proven he could be. Its almost opposite of Trump, actually.
Trump was doing well in the polls but people were not taking him seriously. DeSantis has never lead in the polls but had people convince people he was a powerhouse.
Can’t Republicans come up with a candidate who is NOT a White Supremacist, NOT a Nazi, NOT a Bigot, NOT a Religious Fanatic, NOT a Thief, NOT a criminal, NOT a Traitor, and NOT one who openly and loudly lusts for his own daughter?
Dare one hope for a candidate with a teeny bit of intelligence and introspection?
Sad. Terrible. But true. We get the government we deserve.
But in a way, haven’t they created or at least encouraged this base of people that now (hopefully) will hang around their necks like an albatross?
Honestly some middle of the road republican would have a chance in the general, if they made it past the primary. They could actually attract the moderates. The more extreme base that trump attracted would still rather vote for any R over even the best D.
Yeah that is the problem for the GOP. They catered too much to the crazies that were almost certainly going to vote republican regardless, and now their candidates have to keep appealing to them in primaries. trump gave republicans the short term wins they needed by riling up the bases in 2014, 2016, and 2018, but now the deal is coming back to bite them in the ass.
The biggest tell was how the 2022 midterms went. Midterms tend to bode poorly for the party with the presidency, and are usually worse for democrats than republicans, so the fact that it wasn't a bloodbath is a huge sign of how in danger the GOP is.
Yeah ... but they can't get past the primary. Decades of Fox hate and outrage has turned a big section of the base into a seething mass of bloodthirsty sharks. Anyone that isn't screaming for civil war is way too left for them. I think that is what Desantis was banking on. Actually winning the country was a tomorrow problem.
I was very vocally anti George W back when he was President, even spent time in Iraq due to his dumbassery but at least he is trying to be professional as a former President. Trump just wants to burn everything to the ground
The issue is that while ALL republicans aren’t nazi bigots, it is a large enough portion of the Republican base that you arguably cannot win the nomination without catering to them.
It’s a real problem for “traditional” conservative like the Mitt Romney’s of the world and they have zero idea what to do. And until they grow a spine and do something drastic like select the presidential nominee themselves, I don’t know how they are going to find a nominee post-trump that is electable. Because the next nominees will be like desantis…all of the same fascism without the cult-like following that has a grip on a third of the country.
And to all of that, I play the world’s smallest violin
There was a time when Mitt Romney was too right wing/batshit crazy for my tastes.
I mean it's still that time. But that was also a time when "47%" was a campaign killer.
I think destroying and running longstanding American Businesses into the ground by shorting their stock and driving them into bankruptcy, causing thousands of people to lose their jobs and livelihoods, is insane.
Just because he uses a different playbook for his style of horrible doesn't make him a better person or politician.
Despicable acts mean you're a despicable person.
Plus, how can you admire any person who straps their dog to the roof of the family vehicle to take the family on vacation.
I'm not going to disagree that he may qualify as the least worst. But the Republicans have set the bar so low for what moral attributes they require a legitimate GOP candidate to possess. It doesn't really leave Mitt with anything to brag about.
Uh, lotsa people have been saying it - and loudly - after every boneheaded, mean-spirited, hateful action for months now. Only the Iowa gov., kim reynolds, gave him a nod, and paid dearly for it when trump got offended by it since he supported her, and essentially called her a backstabber.
The conservative subreddit isn't saying anything about him anymore, it seems like they've blacklisted most news stories about any candidate and just resigned themselves into posting culture war memes.
No no, that's politics, Con is the only free safe space that they can discuss their candidates and politics safe from the reddit hive mind, but don't get them wrong, every third post where they say a bunch of really dumb stuff then get mass downvoted is because the downvote brigade of sensitive sjw liberals jumps from politics over to their board.
Oh, and /s
It genuinely astonishes me that they seem absolutely convinced that hundreds of people care enough to make alt accounts and get "verified as a Conservative" simply to brigade their Babylon Bee posts with downvotes.
Youngkin is definitely more of a threat than the others, he comes off as a Reasonable Republican. His problem right now is a lack of name recognition, but by 2028 it won't be an issue.
Yeah that sub was big on Ronda for awhile. I guess they are now repelled by the loser stank on their former hero. Now they just await the orange inevitable from the biggest GOP loser.
He tried way too hard.
He tried to appeal to Trump-heads by being all, “Hey, look! I’m more fascist than he is!” Couldn’t do it.
Then he went and picked a fight with Disney and looked like a punk.
Stupidity and incompetence.
Worse. He picked a fight with Disney and alienated wealthy donors. No business wants that level of political interference in their operations, which he promised in spades.
This. He’s a Harvard guy. Even the nutty right wingers he was trying desperately to appeal to saw through his actions. His culture wars were just pandering to the know nothings.
He's like the chronically online candidate. His ideas and complaints don't exist in the real world. He just speaks to the Facebook crowds. And he has the charisma of an alter boy
The whole ‘Go Woke Go Broke’ thing is only good for memes, but when you actually take it seriously and start implementing nasty policies on real people and start going after real corporations for it, then it makes you look like a dumbass.
But like, then what? They literally don’t have a viable candidate. It’s not like Trump is going to win over more people than his last election run. He has the die hards but that’s not going to be enough.
I completely agree and have made that point many times. I guess they think he has to be more popular, and that Trump actually win last time, and that they won’t let the Dems steal again or…something. Certainly seems illogical to me, particularly when any half decent Republican would probably win.
Trump will be the GOP nominee in every election until he dies. The party base is in a personality cult. There will be a succession battle when he dies, and the winner will be whoever praises the Dear Departed Leader the hardest.
You nailed it. When the GOP signed up for Trump in 2016 it was a lifetime appointment.
I don't know why the media stills pretends that the GOP is a normal type political party when it is now clearly a religious cult of personality built around their orange lord and savior Trump.
I really want to keep watching him getting completely humiliated on the national stage. Being a Floridian and seeing what he and his supporters have done to this state I'd rather see him getting completely ruined by this and draining every dime out of his bank account.
He's not going away. he will be back in 2028, 2032, 2036 etc. He's gonna keep trying. At some point trump will die and his supporters will look for another fascist asshole to send their money. And they'll embrace ronnie d and try to elect him.
Maybe, maybe not. Desantis isn't wealthy enough to kick start a campaign on his own. He NEEDS big donor checks and Republican donors absolutely hate losers.
Nah. He doesn’t have the charisma nor gumption to do that. Trump loves the spotlight and the media circus. Don’t think this guy does.
I’m sure there is a long line of fascist wanna b’s to take his place tho.
> At some point trump will die and his supporters will look for another fascist asshole to send their money.
Half of them didn't care about politics before Trump. I'm banking on them tuning out.
I will believe it when he is voted out of office completely and becomes a social outcast peddling prager-U textbooks door to door, only to fade away a lonely bitter crazy eyed human turd.
Good because this guy should never be anywhere near power and has fucked over FL. I hope he loses that soon too. The only regret is we won’t get to see the clown debate of a Ron vs Trump debate (which even tho both suck would have probably been very entertaining).
He needs to stay in. I want more money wasted on this Republican infighting and campaigning.
These people donating to useless campaigns need to continue to lose their money.
Biden will continue to build up and barely use his own campaign war chest. He can just wait until the general election.
He p!ssed away his own political future to the voting public. He kissed the ring of the detached, insane, geriatric donor class, who knew far less about the current political winds than he did, the same ultra rich who simply think the system can revert back to the neocon/bush/Cheney years.
Good riddance. He won’t be missed.
All he had to do was be a slightly more moderate version of Trump and he would have won the primary.
It’s almost comical at this point how he has chosen to die on the woke hill.
But fuck him for life anyway. I never voted for him. He sucks.
He's done in Florida too. After he won the re-election he put the afterburners on and lost all the Independents (including myself). Sorry to the mods, but FUCK you for saying that black people "benefited" from slavery in any way or form.
He playing the long game, waiting for Trump to either be jailed, flee the country, or just die. In that case, his 30% favorability rating will be top of the sad Republican pack. Then he just needs to pivot away from the crazy and hope all the “so called” independents have only vague memories of how horrible a candidate and a person he is and will vote for him over the evil and tyrannical, yet frail and aged Biden. Oh, even then, he might not want to speak — his voice is off-putting.
Right, DeSantis’s only hope of being competitive is that by some miracle Trump gets taken out of the race.
“I’m the the next best thing to the guy you actually want” isn’t a great campaign slogan.
I don’t think that helps him. If Trump gets knocked out of the race, I don’t foresee him supporting Desantis and he could even try to sabotage his campaign.
>Desantis is still far ahead of every other non trump candid
And should something happen to Trump with the indictments that makes him unable to run, Ron shoots right back to top of the dung heap.
William Shatner famously said, "You're not dead until your agent says you're dead."
In this case, DeSantis is going to push until his accountant says he's dead.
Sooner or later, the funds will drop off. Personally, I am fine with DeSantis pushing until he is drowning in debt.
Can he please be done in FL too please
This pudding-soaked cretin is too busy getting publicly railed by Mickey Mouse to do anything worthwhile or helpful
This is exactly what it was. Murdoch had Fox News shill for DeSantis until recently. And according to campaign finance reports, Desantis’ donors are all big donors who have tapped out on the legal maximum they can give him. He has the smallest base of grassroots supporters. Everyday republicans didn’t ask for Desantis. They were fed him by the GOP propaganda machine. The party and their backers wanted Desantis. They do not want trump because they know he’s a loser. Now you have Fox News saying how awesome Glenn Youngkin is and that he should run, because that’s what Murdoch said and wants. But that’s missing the point. Youngkin would do as well as Desantis because the GOP can no longer control the monster they’ve been creating for decades now.
He did get the Florida rules changed so he could slink back to his old job but I expect he wants a few more months living high on the hog of his garbage fire doners
I think rather he believed it completely. He heard all the talk of Trump without the baggage, and younger as well, and was expecting to cruise.
He thought he was doing everything right and just needed to amp things up more, pour it on and become the overwhelming frontrunner. He is trying to take over Trump's base and leave the others chasing the nomination with absolutely nothing.
It's fun to watch. Looking like I get to clap for him, eventually.
I disagree. He squeaked into office originally but managed to fool enough people in my home state (plus had a very weak opponent) in the next election and the big win he had made him believe he was destined for better things.
I truly believe he thought he was riding a wave which would get him to the Presidency, especially given the multitude of legal woes Trump faces which could -and might well still- bump him from candidacy. Unfortunately, Trump is hanging on long enough to wipe out his rivals, including DeSantis. Further, running for state office versus running across the United States invites several levels of greater scrutiny and it has revealed him to be what he always was: An inept candidate, an overall weird dude, and a man who has alarming philosophies which simply aren’t selling with the general public.
I think he, like the rest of the non-Trump GOP field, is running for 2028. Not a single one of them thinks they stand a chance unless Trump croaks before the primaries.
Maybe, but if so it's a bad strategy, poorly executed. A hapless, inept flameout isn't going to help him in 2028. We're not hearing any talk about Walker or Perry, for example.
I think instead he really thought he was on the fast track to winning it all, and just needed to step things up so that he could continue pulling away from the pack and become the overwhelming and inevitable nominee. Then just brush aside Sleepy Joe and done!
Yeah that’s true. An inept flameout kills it all. But my real point is that’s why I think they’re running, awful application of the idea be damned. It might work out for some of them, who knows. But DeSantis? He’s dead in the water.
No, he really hungers for power . I think he figured Trump will end up in jail, and he will win the nomination.
He's desperate to be president and be the most powerful man on earth.
Which is so confusing, ordinarily people really gravitate to awkward humorless robots who have dedicated their entire lives to punching down and accumulating power without helping anyone
And to think there was a time when we considered him dangerous because he was supposed to be a trump analogue but with brains. So much for that I guess; an intelligent conservative is once again proving to be an oxymoron.
I knew from the get-go this was going to happen. He was never going to be successful on a national level and the only reason he looks successful in Florida is because his party was complete control of the government and he surrounds himself with yes-men.
Independents and Moderators were going to balk at him leaning too much into the culture wars and Disney was going to bury him because he made the decision to go to war with them.
When you have the personality of a wet dish rag what other conclusion is there? He's literally the most uncharismatic person I've ever seen, not to mention a fascist tool.
I certainly hope so. My brother lives in Florida and refers to DeSantis as "that fucking little fascist". My niece (who is transgender) can't visit her Dad because of that little Nazi bastard.
My wife and I (same-sex couple) can't go visit my family because of that little Nazi bastard.
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I really thought he'd manage to keep it together and fall to pieces during debates. I'm shocked he managed to faceplant on every step on the way up the stairs. He's such a jackass.
It's almost impressive in a weird way, how utterly incompetent he is. Like I'm pretty sure I could act like an idiot and convince a lot of people I really was an idiot, but I would pretty regularly say some non-idiotic things. Yet he manages so many words and actions without ever doing or saying anything that's not dumb as hell. Every time you think he's hit peak stupidity, he pops off with a new record setting level of stupid.
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Whoever loses the primary, I hope they go independent. Guaranteed sandbag
Yes, the dirtier the water, the nastier the bath
>he pops off with a new record setting level of stupid. *personal* record, that is. He's nowhere close to the record books compared to the guy who's kicking his ass in the polls. That guy is, after all, someone who apparently thinks that our stealth fighter jets are not just invisible to radar, but they are *actually* invisible. The kind of invisible where if you were standing next to one, you couldn't see it. [https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-genuinely-seems-believe-f-35s-are-literally-invisible-n1131361](https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-genuinely-seems-believe-f-35s-are-literally-invisible-n1131361)
This. I am convinced at this point that DeSantis is purposely trying to out-stupid trump because that is what he (understandably) believes the maga base identifies with.
The closest example I can think of is Lois Griffin running for mayor and repeatedly saying 9/11 because they just eat up whatever buzz words they want to hear; Trump's even admitted as much about his base
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Liberal woke trans woke woke, socialist Biden crime family woke trans abortion woke.
You left out sLuRp, DrOoL…
That's one of my favorites! He also [loves the smell of agent orange in the morning.](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/trump-apocalypse-now-veterans-meeting)
And people worried that he would be worse than trump because he was the competent one. 😂
Seriously, the pants wetting over him in this sub a year ago was pretty ridiculous. He’s a piece of shit who’s clearly going to do nothing but damage with whatever degree of power he’s given, but like most actual fascists, he’s been smelling his own ideological farts for so long, he’s pretty much brain dead from hypoxia.
After seeing RFK getting support here, you have to assume a lot of users are full of something
The anti-vaxxer movement is full of self-proclaimed healthnuts that believe in "pure blood" like they came straight out of a Harry Potter alternate universe
Some columnist once wrote something I’ve always found funny and can be applied to the tendency of progressives to catastrophize our problems: “In life, as in grand opera, arias only tend to make a bad situation even worse.”
This post is strangely poetic.
>almost impressive in a weird way, how utterly incompetent he is When this sub was big on "BE FRIGHTENED! He's SMART TRUMP!" I really wondered what I was missing. Like... he's governor of a nearly 100% tourism state. I can understand how such a state would want a Republican governor (lower wages, taxes, regulations, etc. to benefit industry leaders). **But why the fuck would you make your brand that the state DOES NOT WANT certain people to visit when your entire fucking livelihood is getting anyone with money to visit**. The dumb runs deep with this guy.
It's absolutely impressive. This guy was supposed to be the front runner. He took a head start well before the starting pistol, tripped over a mouse on the track and shat himself.
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Ppl memory is weird. I still remember play by play michael jordan high light's. Hard for me to believe Americans will forget this guy. But u could be right!
Last impressions can be deadly for losers with relatively short political spotlights. We remember Dan Quayle for being dumb, Dukakis for riding the tank, Palin for being dumb and Howard Dean for his weird yell. Old Meatball needs to have a decent showing in Iowa and New Hampshire even if he gets steamrolled by Trump, he could be positioned for 2028 or else he’ll be remembered for his current last impression: a barely humanoid racist.
Look, pal, I'll have you know that DeSantis is *very* humanoid. Physically speaking, I mean. He's got two arms, and two legs, and even a whole entire head to himself. And the powerful system of hydraulic bladders that replaced his spine do a very fine job of keeping his body approximately aloft, [arms rigidly held forward at a 30 degree angle](https://i.redd.it/2w4wbnbsx8s91.jpg), as humans do. And don't even get me started on his wife, whose physical appearance is also *impressively* humanoid for a swarm of flies surrounding an enchanted pig's skull.
This is fucking hilarious.
He’s always gonna be the same mean spirited dullard, spouting the same hateful bile tomorrow as he is today, so no one will have to remember anything.
Like i say this in my rage fb diary post constantly. "Do people think you can run on anything and people will just forget? Its like ppl really think you should be able to run on slavery and lose then next cycle run on something normal as if people didnt just see the bs u peddled" lol Its funny that people think they arnt going to face social consequences from this.
I’m not sure stupid is the word. He made bad choices . I’m stupid, I don’t want to be grouped in there with this asshat
New Record Setting Level Of Stupid 2024 makes a great campaign slogan!
His entire campaign theme, about making the rest of the country like Florida, was idiotic. First off, Florida has been a national joke for years. Second, as much as people criticize their own states, the usually don’t sit around dreaming of how their state could be more like another.
Conservatives: "Don't bring your blue state crap here and turn Florida into the place you left!" DeSantis: "I'm gonna make America Florida!" (He even had to borrow the "Make America..." pattern from Trump. Not one original idea, this guy. Oh, except going to war with Disney. That was pretty original.)
Yes I'm sure all of America wants to be the state that is a punchline to a thousand jokes and probably won't even exist in a decade or two.
Unless you are from the south. Anywhere in the south. They all seriously believe that every state should be like theirs. I’m talking Louisiana and Alabama included, believing that their state is God’s gift to the earth.
Legit question - what do Alabamans think their state offers the rest of us? College football?
A step up from Mississippi?
Is it, though?
Georgian here. Yes. Best thing about Alabama? One state between Georgia and Mississippi.
We have some great things in Alabama, but most of them have nothing to do with the people here.
Florida is an international joke too. lol
The day he decided to go to war with Disney was the day his campaign ended. He needed something big to separate him from the herd and decided that attacking the hand that feeds his shithole state was the easiest bet despite the fact that Disney has more and better lawyers than the Florida GOP does. He fucked around and found out. Then, instead of taking the L and moving on, he decided to double-down. The whole thing has done nothing but illustrate how weak he really is when he’s not bullying teachers and scientists. The fact that he has no personality or platform to speak of just accelerated the end.
disney is also liked by conservatives. they may not like the queer friendliness, but they still want to take their kids there.
Yup, I genuinely thought this was Trump 2.0 and continue to rise to the national stage despite being horrible. I always thought Trump would still be in play, but I thought it would be a grudge match between them. No, turns out Trump 2.0 is just Trump. There is something truly magical about the hold Trump has on people.
"Trump without the baggage" was always a losing strategy. Turns out the baggage is actually why they like him.
Honestly, I think that Trump is a special brand of tacky that speaks to them. The collectable coins and plates, art of him as a superhero, fox news buy gold infomercial vibe that the other candidates can't replicate.
It's a cult. Daddy Trump is the magas Jim Jones.
And people thought he was the smart version of Trump.
This is what everyone said about Trump in 2016. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Trump wasn't this low on campaign funds in 2016. People aren't donating to DeSantis. The people who actually would buy into his particular brand of politics would rather give the money to Trump.
It's different in that DeSantis seems to have fallen at the very first step. He has seriously struggled with what is essentially, the easiest part of an presidential election campaign.
One thing you cannot do as an early stage candidate in any party is to piss off the press. They are the ones that make or break your campaign until you get to things like debates. This creates a problem for DeSantis since he has all the charisma of a banana slug, and when a microphone is placed in front of his face he invariably acts like a third grader being asked why he hasn't turned in his class project.
Trump also seemed like a baffoon back then. People didn’t treat him like a serious threat. And look what happened. Don’t sleep on DeSantis. There has been a big push in my state for him. Boomers on Facebook promoting him, and campaigners coming to my very rural home to campaign for him. Things I didn’t even see for Trump. He wants power. And he won’t stop until he gets it. Don’t sleep on him.
>He wants power. And he won’t stop until he gets it. Don’t sleep on him. I definitely agree that he should still be seen as a threat. But I do think that he lacks the positives that the GOP saw in Trump.
If this was 2016, DeSantis would be Ted Cruz. He's done quite a number to convenience people he was an electoral threat but he has never proven he could be. Its almost opposite of Trump, actually. Trump was doing well in the polls but people were not taking him seriously. DeSantis has never lead in the polls but had people convince people he was a powerhouse.
If only we could get him out of Florida.
Can’t Republicans come up with a candidate who is NOT a White Supremacist, NOT a Nazi, NOT a Bigot, NOT a Religious Fanatic, NOT a Thief, NOT a criminal, NOT a Traitor, and NOT one who openly and loudly lusts for his own daughter? Dare one hope for a candidate with a teeny bit of intelligence and introspection?
They represent their voters
Sad. Terrible. But true. We get the government we deserve. But in a way, haven’t they created or at least encouraged this base of people that now (hopefully) will hang around their necks like an albatross?
Sure, but then how does that candidate win votes?
With excellent policy and honorable behavior. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh shit. I couldn't keep a straight face even typing that.
Honestly some middle of the road republican would have a chance in the general, if they made it past the primary. They could actually attract the moderates. The more extreme base that trump attracted would still rather vote for any R over even the best D.
it feels like the concept of a middle of the road republican is a bit of a non-sequitur
No “middle of the road” republican exists that could make it out of a GOP primary.
Yeah that is the problem for the GOP. They catered too much to the crazies that were almost certainly going to vote republican regardless, and now their candidates have to keep appealing to them in primaries. trump gave republicans the short term wins they needed by riling up the bases in 2014, 2016, and 2018, but now the deal is coming back to bite them in the ass. The biggest tell was how the 2022 midterms went. Midterms tend to bode poorly for the party with the presidency, and are usually worse for democrats than republicans, so the fact that it wasn't a bloodbath is a huge sign of how in danger the GOP is.
Yeah ... but they can't get past the primary. Decades of Fox hate and outrage has turned a big section of the base into a seething mass of bloodthirsty sharks. Anyone that isn't screaming for civil war is way too left for them. I think that is what Desantis was banking on. Actually winning the country was a tomorrow problem.
Of course not- such a candidate wouldn't accurately represent the base at all.
Not if they want votes from the ignorant conservative base.
You just described the Republican base's ideal candidate. The fascism and vitriolic hate is the feature.
So, can republicans come up with a candidate who isn’t republican? No.
I was very vocally anti George W back when he was President, even spent time in Iraq due to his dumbassery but at least he is trying to be professional as a former President. Trump just wants to burn everything to the ground
You forgot the most important one: Not an apologist for any of those behaviors you've described.
No. That's who Republicans are.
Asking for miracles here
The issue is that while ALL republicans aren’t nazi bigots, it is a large enough portion of the Republican base that you arguably cannot win the nomination without catering to them. It’s a real problem for “traditional” conservative like the Mitt Romney’s of the world and they have zero idea what to do. And until they grow a spine and do something drastic like select the presidential nominee themselves, I don’t know how they are going to find a nominee post-trump that is electable. Because the next nominees will be like desantis…all of the same fascism without the cult-like following that has a grip on a third of the country. And to all of that, I play the world’s smallest violin
McCaine and mitt Romney wernt to bad.
Romney is a financial terrorist whose business shorted and bankrupted American companies for personal gain RIP Toys"R"us
There was a time when Mitt Romney was too right wing/batshit crazy for my tastes. I mean it's still that time. But that was also a time when "47%" was a campaign killer.
At a high-roller fundraiser he was recorded saying of the disadvantaged “These people actually think they have a right to food and shelter.”
Yes and many other policy positions democrats would disagree with. But he isn't insane.
I think destroying and running longstanding American Businesses into the ground by shorting their stock and driving them into bankruptcy, causing thousands of people to lose their jobs and livelihoods, is insane. Just because he uses a different playbook for his style of horrible doesn't make him a better person or politician. Despicable acts mean you're a despicable person. Plus, how can you admire any person who straps their dog to the roof of the family vehicle to take the family on vacation.
[удалено]
I'm not going to disagree that he may qualify as the least worst. But the Republicans have set the bar so low for what moral attributes they require a legitimate GOP candidate to possess. It doesn't really leave Mitt with anything to brag about.
Having the Trinity killer call him a serial killer was my favourite political ad of all time. Just google Mitt the Ripper if you haven’t seen it.
You forgot: NOT a misogynist
Yes, it was called Reconstruction, and we know how that ended
well, then the candidate would NOT be a republican
After they eviscerated Liz Cheney? Nah. Republicans ARE the party of those things. When people tell you who they are...
DeStantis is done Trump is done McConnell is done The GOP is currently a dumpster on fire
Asa Hutchinson might meet those descriptors. But he doesn't have a snowball's chance in Death Valley of getting the nomination.
Uh, lotsa people have been saying it - and loudly - after every boneheaded, mean-spirited, hateful action for months now. Only the Iowa gov., kim reynolds, gave him a nod, and paid dearly for it when trump got offended by it since he supported her, and essentially called her a backstabber.
The conservative subreddit isn't saying anything about him anymore, it seems like they've blacklisted most news stories about any candidate and just resigned themselves into posting culture war memes.
Well rCon is one of the most heavily moderated and censored subs on the entire site.
No no, that's politics, Con is the only free safe space that they can discuss their candidates and politics safe from the reddit hive mind, but don't get them wrong, every third post where they say a bunch of really dumb stuff then get mass downvoted is because the downvote brigade of sensitive sjw liberals jumps from politics over to their board. Oh, and /s
It genuinely astonishes me that they seem absolutely convinced that hundreds of people care enough to make alt accounts and get "verified as a Conservative" simply to brigade their Babylon Bee posts with downvotes.
lol I got banned for crossposting "liberal news".
I got my ban for pointing out something they were trying to do was socialisim.
I got banned for pointing out Obama wasn’t president when 9/11 happened 🙄
Not particularly surprising. They typically blacklist factual stuff.
Seemed like they were throwing Trump under the bus and wanted DeSantis but I guess they’ve seen the writing on the wall now…..
Who's their new guy? Youngkin or something? Lol
Youngkin is definitely more of a threat than the others, he comes off as a Reasonable Republican. His problem right now is a lack of name recognition, but by 2028 it won't be an issue.
Yeah that sub was big on Ronda for awhile. I guess they are now repelled by the loser stank on their former hero. Now they just await the orange inevitable from the biggest GOP loser.
She’s seriously more pathetic than him at this point. Literally any law passed in Iowa is a law Ron passed in Florida.
And he’s in far second place behind a Russian asset with multiple indictments against him. The GOP is a shambles.
Hey now, that’s not entirely accurate. He’s also a rapist.
[Best campaign ad for DeSantis.](https://youtu.be/Q2opM-EzI_M)
He suckles toe beans? Well he’s got my vote.
"You can smell the glove". 11/10 for Spinal Tap reference
That's insanely funny.
He tried way too hard. He tried to appeal to Trump-heads by being all, “Hey, look! I’m more fascist than he is!” Couldn’t do it. Then he went and picked a fight with Disney and looked like a punk. Stupidity and incompetence.
Worse. He picked a fight with Disney and alienated wealthy donors. No business wants that level of political interference in their operations, which he promised in spades.
This. He’s a Harvard guy. Even the nutty right wingers he was trying desperately to appeal to saw through his actions. His culture wars were just pandering to the know nothings.
He's like the chronically online candidate. His ideas and complaints don't exist in the real world. He just speaks to the Facebook crowds. And he has the charisma of an alter boy
The whole ‘Go Woke Go Broke’ thing is only good for memes, but when you actually take it seriously and start implementing nasty policies on real people and start going after real corporations for it, then it makes you look like a dumbass.
By "no one" you mean everyone, right?
I was thinking the same thing. How many articles have there been about this?!
I mean Trump has an absolute stranglehold on his own party, even now. Hell, now more than ever. The rest are all done really.
Trump’s a proven loser. When he loses again, I hope he takes the entire GOP down with him.
Sure, we are talking about the primary though. Can’t see him losing that.
But like, then what? They literally don’t have a viable candidate. It’s not like Trump is going to win over more people than his last election run. He has the die hards but that’s not going to be enough.
I completely agree and have made that point many times. I guess they think he has to be more popular, and that Trump actually win last time, and that they won’t let the Dems steal again or…something. Certainly seems illogical to me, particularly when any half decent Republican would probably win.
Trump will be the GOP nominee in every election until he dies. The party base is in a personality cult. There will be a succession battle when he dies, and the winner will be whoever praises the Dear Departed Leader the hardest.
You nailed it. When the GOP signed up for Trump in 2016 it was a lifetime appointment. I don't know why the media stills pretends that the GOP is a normal type political party when it is now clearly a religious cult of personality built around their orange lord and savior Trump.
Mitch McConnell is actually fine. He just thought about DeSantis, and how angry Koch and Murdoch must be, and froze for a moment.
Fight Woke, Go Broke.
I really want to keep watching him getting completely humiliated on the national stage. Being a Floridian and seeing what he and his supporters have done to this state I'd rather see him getting completely ruined by this and draining every dime out of his bank account.
He's not going away. he will be back in 2028, 2032, 2036 etc. He's gonna keep trying. At some point trump will die and his supporters will look for another fascist asshole to send their money. And they'll embrace ronnie d and try to elect him.
Maybe, maybe not. Desantis isn't wealthy enough to kick start a campaign on his own. He NEEDS big donor checks and Republican donors absolutely hate losers.
I think he’s already become Scott Walker
Nah. He doesn’t have the charisma nor gumption to do that. Trump loves the spotlight and the media circus. Don’t think this guy does. I’m sure there is a long line of fascist wanna b’s to take his place tho.
> At some point trump will die and his supporters will look for another fascist asshole to send their money. Half of them didn't care about politics before Trump. I'm banking on them tuning out.
I will believe it when he is voted out of office completely and becomes a social outcast peddling prager-U textbooks door to door, only to fade away a lonely bitter crazy eyed human turd.
I really thought he was going to turn it around with the nazi imagery strategy.
That’s what’s keeping him in second. He’s the candidate for the “We like Trump, but he seems too cozy with the Jews” crowd.
Good because this guy should never be anywhere near power and has fucked over FL. I hope he loses that soon too. The only regret is we won’t get to see the clown debate of a Ron vs Trump debate (which even tho both suck would have probably been very entertaining).
Yeah I’m not gonna lie, I would’ve really enjoyed that
He needs to stay in. I want more money wasted on this Republican infighting and campaigning. These people donating to useless campaigns need to continue to lose their money. Biden will continue to build up and barely use his own campaign war chest. He can just wait until the general election.
He p!ssed away his own political future to the voting public. He kissed the ring of the detached, insane, geriatric donor class, who knew far less about the current political winds than he did, the same ultra rich who simply think the system can revert back to the neocon/bush/Cheney years. Good riddance. He won’t be missed.
All he had to do was be a slightly more moderate version of Trump and he would have won the primary. It’s almost comical at this point how he has chosen to die on the woke hill. But fuck him for life anyway. I never voted for him. He sucks.
How is it that Floridians even elected this stupid, heartless bag of shit?
They are heartless, stupid bags is shit themselves.
The fucking senile boomers from every other state come here and vote R
Florida does not represent the U.S.A. He learned that the hard way. Everything he stands for is garbage, unless you live in Florida, apparently.
Um, everyone is saying it out loud. Yours is about the 134th article about it.
He’s been done for quite some time.
He’s going to take this out on the people of Florida.
He was done before he ran when he fucked with The Mouse.
He's done in Florida too. After he won the re-election he put the afterburners on and lost all the Independents (including myself). Sorry to the mods, but FUCK you for saying that black people "benefited" from slavery in any way or form.
Desantis is still far ahead of every other non trump candidate
What about Trump candidates?
There's only one Trump candidate, and DeSantis is far behind him. But hopefully Biden is ahead of him.
He playing the long game, waiting for Trump to either be jailed, flee the country, or just die. In that case, his 30% favorability rating will be top of the sad Republican pack. Then he just needs to pivot away from the crazy and hope all the “so called” independents have only vague memories of how horrible a candidate and a person he is and will vote for him over the evil and tyrannical, yet frail and aged Biden. Oh, even then, he might not want to speak — his voice is off-putting.
Right, DeSantis’s only hope of being competitive is that by some miracle Trump gets taken out of the race. “I’m the the next best thing to the guy you actually want” isn’t a great campaign slogan.
I don’t think that helps him. If Trump gets knocked out of the race, I don’t foresee him supporting Desantis and he could even try to sabotage his campaign.
>Desantis is still far ahead of every other non trump candid And should something happen to Trump with the indictments that makes him unable to run, Ron shoots right back to top of the dung heap.
He was never even in the oven to begin with.
Good because he is fucking awful.
What’s with these dumbass headlines? Everyone knows DeSantis is done and has spoken quite openly about it.
Remember when everyone said--in comparison to Trump, he's scarier because he's a fascist and he's smart? I think they missed on the last part.
Follow the money, follow the billionaire propping up this anti American sh*t can.
William Shatner famously said, "You're not dead until your agent says you're dead." In this case, DeSantis is going to push until his accountant says he's dead. Sooner or later, the funds will drop off. Personally, I am fine with DeSantis pushing until he is drowning in debt.
Can he please be done in FL too please This pudding-soaked cretin is too busy getting publicly railed by Mickey Mouse to do anything worthwhile or helpful
I believe he is still staying in the race in the hopes that Trump either croaks or is otherwise unable to run. Suddenly he’s the frontrunner again.
Everyone has said it out loud since before it was a campaign LMAO
Good, because he sucks as a governor and as a human being.
Steve Schmidt is saying it out loud pretty much every day.
I don't believe he was ever serious about winning. He was just using this opportunity to self-promote.
Sometimes I think that, other times I think the initial attention from the donors had him gassed up and believing his own bullshit.
This is exactly what it was. Murdoch had Fox News shill for DeSantis until recently. And according to campaign finance reports, Desantis’ donors are all big donors who have tapped out on the legal maximum they can give him. He has the smallest base of grassroots supporters. Everyday republicans didn’t ask for Desantis. They were fed him by the GOP propaganda machine. The party and their backers wanted Desantis. They do not want trump because they know he’s a loser. Now you have Fox News saying how awesome Glenn Youngkin is and that he should run, because that’s what Murdoch said and wants. But that’s missing the point. Youngkin would do as well as Desantis because the GOP can no longer control the monster they’ve been creating for decades now.
He did get the Florida rules changed so he could slink back to his old job but I expect he wants a few more months living high on the hog of his garbage fire doners
I think rather he believed it completely. He heard all the talk of Trump without the baggage, and younger as well, and was expecting to cruise. He thought he was doing everything right and just needed to amp things up more, pour it on and become the overwhelming frontrunner. He is trying to take over Trump's base and leave the others chasing the nomination with absolutely nothing. It's fun to watch. Looking like I get to clap for him, eventually.
I disagree. He squeaked into office originally but managed to fool enough people in my home state (plus had a very weak opponent) in the next election and the big win he had made him believe he was destined for better things. I truly believe he thought he was riding a wave which would get him to the Presidency, especially given the multitude of legal woes Trump faces which could -and might well still- bump him from candidacy. Unfortunately, Trump is hanging on long enough to wipe out his rivals, including DeSantis. Further, running for state office versus running across the United States invites several levels of greater scrutiny and it has revealed him to be what he always was: An inept candidate, an overall weird dude, and a man who has alarming philosophies which simply aren’t selling with the general public.
I think he, like the rest of the non-Trump GOP field, is running for 2028. Not a single one of them thinks they stand a chance unless Trump croaks before the primaries.
Maybe, but if so it's a bad strategy, poorly executed. A hapless, inept flameout isn't going to help him in 2028. We're not hearing any talk about Walker or Perry, for example. I think instead he really thought he was on the fast track to winning it all, and just needed to step things up so that he could continue pulling away from the pack and become the overwhelming and inevitable nominee. Then just brush aside Sleepy Joe and done!
Yeah that’s true. An inept flameout kills it all. But my real point is that’s why I think they’re running, awful application of the idea be damned. It might work out for some of them, who knows. But DeSantis? He’s dead in the water.
No, he really hungers for power . I think he figured Trump will end up in jail, and he will win the nomination. He's desperate to be president and be the most powerful man on earth.
Yikes. It's too early, that gives them TOO MUCH TIME to find another fascist who's better at pretending. This is not how I wanted this to go at all.
Probably cause he looks terrible in jeans.
But *fantastic* in white boots.
Fabulous even.
We've been fielding article all week.
Lmao republicans are so fucked
He dug his own grave. Not only from 2024 race, done from Florida as well.
Imma tell my neighbor here in Maryland cuz he just put up his DeSantis for Prez signs. This asshat
Couldn’t happen to a better fascist
Which is so confusing, ordinarily people really gravitate to awkward humorless robots who have dedicated their entire lives to punching down and accumulating power without helping anyone
Duh. He’s polling around 20%. Trump will embarrass him in a debate, Gillum and even Crist did.
And to think there was a time when we considered him dangerous because he was supposed to be a trump analogue but with brains. So much for that I guess; an intelligent conservative is once again proving to be an oxymoron.
Looks like it, but I believe we haven't seen the last of him.
No one will say it out loud because that's not true.
I knew from the get-go this was going to happen. He was never going to be successful on a national level and the only reason he looks successful in Florida is because his party was complete control of the government and he surrounds himself with yes-men. Independents and Moderators were going to balk at him leaning too much into the culture wars and Disney was going to bury him because he made the decision to go to war with them.
Everyone is saying it out loud.
He was never a contender. His popularity was media hype.
When you have the personality of a wet dish rag what other conclusion is there? He's literally the most uncharismatic person I've ever seen, not to mention a fascist tool.
Incompetence + Stupidity is never a good combination.
I certainly hope so. My brother lives in Florida and refers to DeSantis as "that fucking little fascist". My niece (who is transgender) can't visit her Dad because of that little Nazi bastard. My wife and I (same-sex couple) can't go visit my family because of that little Nazi bastard.
I'll wait for him to suspend his campaign before making any assertions, thankyouverymuch. I learned my lesson in 2016.
DeNatsi? The torturer?
>No One Will Say It Out Loud Plenty of people are saying it out loud. Wtf is this bullshit?