Can Ron DeSantis out-Trump Trump?
Sometimes to understand the absurdities of US politics it’s easier to imagine them as if they were transferred to the UK.
Imagine, for example, some pro-hunting Tory MP making an advertisement for their bid to become the next London mayor. Now imagine it written in the style favoured by so many in America’s GOP.
Fade from black.
They walk on screen with something red and bloody slung over their shoulder. “Hi. I’m Jacob Drax-Patel,” they might say, “and I’ve just bludgeoned this fox to death using a good old solid piece of British oak.” Cut to a different camera as they ditch the fox and pick up a heavy cudgel. “You know, fighting Labour is a bit like battering a fox. You can’t give them a moment to think. Once you have the little red blighters cornered, you need to start swinging. Thrash their policies with the biggest stick you can find and don’t stop…”
It sounds like satire, and, in fairness, it probably is… except in the US, where this kind of ad has become the norm in certain parts of the Republican party. Some minor congressman or woman will appear on screen carrying heavy weaponry, perhaps posing with something dead and unthreatening. They then start comparing politics to hunting. Earlier this month, Eric Greitens, a former Missouri governor, lost his race to become the Republican nominee for the Senate. In his campaign, he’d featured in a now notorious ad where he was shown carrying a shotgun to defend against supposed fake reds inside the GOP, or Republicans In Name Only. “Get a RINO-hunting permit,” he said. “There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.”
Then there is the always-reliably-bonkers Marjorie Taylor-Green offering to raffle off the Jewish Space Lasers Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle she’d used in an ad in which she’d promised to “blow away the Democrats’ socialist agenda”. It never fails to be as ugly as it is risible. But it’s also the political landscape and these ads are so prevalent that they’re now approaching cliché.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, couldn’t push the clichés to greater absurdities this week. In a polished piece of PR, he appears in a campaign ad called “Top Gov” in which he imagines himself as a latter-day Tom Cruise. It’s next-level Guns & Ammo politics. Instead of the usual shotgun or AR-15, DeSantis poses in the cockpit of a military fighter (and if you believe in the Freudian messaging of all this, the emphasis was certainly not on the word “pit”).
His message was equally cringe-worthy. “The rules of engagement are as follows,” he says, wearing a full flight suit as he delivers the mission brief. “Number one – don’t fire unless fired upon, but when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force. Number two – never ever back down from a fight. Number three – don’t accept their narrative.”
It lacks subtlety but, to a certain caucus, it might well be a powerful pitch. The question is if it’s a message that appeals more broadly to America, if (or perhaps when) DeSantis decides to spend all the millions he’s been banking for a presidential run. Will it even help him keep his slippers in the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee. It’s a key question.
This week he learned who he’ll be fighting in November’s election. The Democrats have picked Congressman Charlie Crist. Crucial in all this is that Crist is a centrist. In fact, he is so much a centrist that he is a former Republican governor of Florida (2007-11) who became an independent in his subsequent failed run for the Senate (he was beaten by Marco Rubio). Now he’s running as a Democrat and just listen to his message after winning the nomination. In a contrary way, it might well be as powerful as the image of DeSantis wrapping himself in military iconography and sitting in the cockpit of a fighter jet. “Tonight, the people of Florida clearly sent a message,” said Crist. “[T]hey want a governor who cares about them and solves real problems, preserves our freedom, not a bully who divides us and takes our freedom away.”
That latter bit might well be the sprinkling of magic dust. It clearly stung DeSantis who replied, in his own “victory” speech (his race was uncontested): “Florida is a state where woke goes to die”.
The contrast is striking and will be a fascinating contest to watch. DeSantis is easy to characterise as the bully, stripping away freedoms that many Floridians have known all their lives (including the hugely significant abortion ban). He leans so heavily into the culture war that he’s even managed to pick a fight with Disney. Politics is also more effective when it’s simple (“Lock her up”, “It’s the economy stupid, “Hope,” and, conversely, “Read my lips: no new taxes”) If Crist were to say that “DeSantis is a freedom-hating bully” from here to November, he might have the makings of a successful campaign.
DeSantis’s problem is that he has created a powerful brand that exploits the cultural divisions across the US. It’s also a tough predicament. He will probably have to out-Trump the original Trumper to win the Republican nomination but, moving into a general election, that would be a strategy sure to narrow his appeal beyond the Republican base. Could he pivot so abruptly and make it look anything but cynical? That’s hard to imagine. Yet Biden’s victory in 2020 showed that divisive politics are less effective to the wider electorate as a promise crafted in cooler rhetoric.
If polls are correct, Crist faces a stiff climb to beat DeSantis. How much he can close what is currently estimated to be an eight-point gap will, however, be a clue as to whether the Democrat message is closer to the broader electorate at a time when the world is suffering from monumental problems. It is reasonable to argue that, come the next Presidential election, people will desire something other than conflict, political violence, or a promise to strafe Donald, Mickey and Goofy from the cockpit of an F15.
Follow David Waywell on Twitter: @DavidWaywell