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The problem with DeSantis is that his record of legislation, rhetoric, and stunts is 'evil' enough by progressive/Dem standards that once they were educated about him in the General election, he might drive up Democratic turnout at the polls almost as much as Trump does.
What the Republicans should do if they want to win is put up some boring bog-standard fiscal conservative. Run Mitt Romney again or something. Republicans won't be excited about him, but it's not like they're going to vote for a democrat.
Political pundits have been wondering for years how Democrats have such low approval for Biden and really don't want him to run, yet also turn out to vote for him and his party consistently and plan to support him 100%. The cause for this unusual state of affairs is the hatred and fear of Trump, serving as a rallying point to turn every election cycle into a crusade. No Dems are going to step out of line or tolerate their friends doing so while a second Trump term is on the table.
Take away that rallying point, and the whole thing could collapse. Dems could remember how much they are uninspired by Biden, and not show up to the polls. The long-expected fight for the soul of the party between the old-guard classical liberals and the young progressives, which has been suppressed by mutual hatred of Trump for most of a decade, could finally boil over into open conflict in the middle of an election, ensuring an easy win and Congressional landslide for Reps.
There's been lots of talk over the last 7 years about how Trump and MAGA represent a major realignment for the Republican party, and how the chaos of that realignment has fractured and weakened the party in ways that turned expected wins into losses. Democrats are also long-overdue for such a realignment, Republicans just need to get out of the way.
Mittens had binders full of women and was a high school bully and corporate buzzsaw (and today he'd probably be tarred with buying up homes to charge them high rents).
Sure, all of which is a lot less sensationalist and a lot less motivating than 'literally a fascist, literally a rapist, going to end democracy as we know it'.
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I think it'd be good for the country to have a centrist like Mitt Romney in charge just so that everyone can calm down for a bit.
The worry for Republicans, and why they won't nominate a centrist, is that centrist Republicans have completely caved to globalist pressure on core issues like immigration, Covid lockdowns, and LGBT celebration.
I agree with you that the media will lay off any Republican who defects on core issues. Want to cut taxes for the rich and start a couple new wars like George Bush? No problem. Want to stop illegal immigration and shut down youth gender transition? Jihad.
But we actually had Romney as a candidate and he was smeared as a misogynistic devil, "vulture capitalist", etc. The mildest possible Republican was the presidential candidate and it didn't matter. They'll be just as hysterical in their smears. Then, years later, they'll reminisce about how Republicans used to not be so bad, like Romney.
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No. Blues do not get to veto Red leaders by threat of violence or institutional destruction. They have broken the social contract. They have to lose, and the correct play is to either hold position or escalate until that happens.
What if they can't lose. What if we "escalate" as far as we can, and still get crushed utterly?
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Trump is probably the most centrist candidate, if you look at actual polling on the issues. He's only "not centrist" in that he dissents from the nondemocratic "Washington Consensus" established by entrenched by would-be technocrats, bureaucracy, and special interests.
That's a great point. Trump is a dissident, not a radical. It's okay to be conservative as long as you are part of the blob. (Witness, the rehabilitation of George W. Bush). Being a dissident is never allowed.
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They won't lay off. They didn't lay off Romney himself last time he ran. They want a "moderate" Republican to run so they win either way, but they'd still rather win big with the Democrat.
It's an issue of scale isn't it? The media treatment of Romney (binders full of women!!!) was stupid, but it never approached anything like what we're seeing now. It's like the difference between conventional and thermonuclear weapons.
Our current president said to a largely-Black crowd at a campaign rally that Romney would put them "back in chains".
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The spectre of Republican fascism is exactly what Democrats use to keep their internal realignment from happening. It's a useful idea for the people running the party, and will be employed against any Republican who runs. Go talk to regular Democrats, they might be worked up against Trump specifically, for the moment, but they also bemieve that most if not all Republicans are complicit, and just as dangerous. (Remember in 2012 that Joe Biden campaigned by saying Mitt Romney would put black people back in chains.)
At this point elections aren't about persuading mythical moderates, but turnout. A Romney Republican would lose for the same reason that Romney lost: he couldn't excite the base to vote. A lack of enthusiasm can be made up for by machine politics getting out the vote, but it's fairly obvious by now that Democrats are far more advanced than Republicans here.
The ground is already laid for DeSantis or Ramaswamy to be declared as fascist, existential threats. (Aside: in high school one of my history teachers proudly displayed posters saying "RESIST THE FASCIST BUSH REGIME," which she breezily claimed were of historical interest and thus not political.) The only Republicans who won't be so castigated are anti-Republicans like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger. (And even then... -- remember how John McCain used to be quite friendly with John Stewart and the Daily Show, until he ran for president, and then became was suddenly an extremist with no charity afforded?)
One clear pattern of the last 5 election cycles is that Democrats have shown they are much more willing to turn out for any D on the ballot than Republicans for any R. The primaries were rigged against Bernie from the start, but he still dutifully tells his people to vote against the bigger evil. Trump wins his primary handily, and a swarm of Republican officials declare that they won't support him, or are only voting under duress.
Voter turnout surging on the left when Trump runs suggests that it does matter who the GOP runs, though. The average purple state moderate isn’t in perfect lockstep with the NYT or Washington Post approved opinion.
Of course for the left DeSantis and Haley will be fascists, just like Bush and Reagan and Romney before them. But that doesn’t mean blue turnout will be as high as it is when Trump is on the ballot. The gamble is, of course, because red turnout will be lower too.
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Liz Cheney would be a fascists if the GOP moved to her. All her dad’s sins could be brought up as a sign of her fascism. The neocons would reunite around her. Half the right would probably agree with the left that she’s a fascists.
Not sure on McCain. I just think Cheney would be an easy target for fascism claims once she’s no longer a useful idiot ally.
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What DeSantis is today, Romney was twelve years ago. This is a dishonest request, because after Romney I can't ever trust Democrats to tell the truth about a republican candidate. They're going to go apeshit over all of them, even the Mormon former Massachusetts governor.
Isn't this basically what already happened in 2016? You're predicting the show we've just watched. It wasn't until after Trump's win that Democrats got their shit together and whipped their ranks into line.
This is very much not my recollection of that election, what are you talking about?
Like, they made a big joke out of 'binders full of women', but that's the normal tomfoolery every campaign gets up to (remember Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?). Obviously they weren't going to say that their opponent is cool and good actually, but I don't think the rhetoric was anything like what's being lobbied against Trump, and the Dem voters certainly didn't have the same visceral hatred and existential dread about him.
So I'm not really sure what you're referring to.
Romney did pretty good in that election, winning more of the popular vote than Trump did in 2020, and that was running against a historic and widely loved incumbent.
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Harry Reid famously and falsely claimed that Romney'd paid zero taxes on the floor of Congress, and after it had been widely distributed, widely believed, and at cost proven wrong, then years later said he had no regrets because "he lost, didn't he"!
Yes, like I said, campaigning.
This is all markedly less vitriolic and existential-threat-invoking than 'literally a fascist, literally a rapist, literally the agent of foreign powers, will end democracy as we know it'.
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