Have the TV networks been showing Ron DeSantis?

by philg

A reader comment on What would it cost to retreat from Tampa to Orlando as Hurricane Ian appraoches?:

It’s amusing to watch the media’s approach to the hurricane and Ron DeSantis. They pretty much have to put him on TV, discussing plans to evacuate, etc. But the contrast with this young, vibrant, competent governor speaking extemporaneously versus the decrepit old fossil in Washington squinting his eyes to read what somebody else put on the teleprompter must be driving them nuts.

Assuming that DeSantis is continuing to demonstrate competence and organization, the best way for the media to support Democrats would be to ignore him. This would be the flip side of featuring Andrew Cuomo during coronapanic so much that he won an Emmy and the hearts of Americans identifying as female (see “Hot for governor! Women confess they are developing ‘MAJOR crushes’ on Andrew Cuomo” and remember that, due to his masterful management of the virus, New York State had only 367 COVID-tagged deaths per 100,000, while Sweden’s radical “give the finger to the virus” policy resulted in a horrific 1,849 deaths (per million)).

At this point it is unclear that Ron DeSantis will be doing a lot of briefings. Maybe he is going to be busy managing the statewide response instead of getting in front of cameras. But if the DeSantis twitter feed fills up with briefings that aren’t shown on CNN, can we infer that CNN has its thumb on the scale?

Here’s this morning’s briefing:

Let’s compare to a recent press conference from Joe Biden:

Who wants to compare the two for cognitive function and apparent competence to manage? No fair if you’re a passionate Democrat or Republican! Maybe we should let the European readers judge.

How about the Democrat running to liberate Floridians from the hated tyrant? Here’s his Twitter profile this morning:

Without scrolling, it is all about fascism and abortion care, neither of which is going to de-flood Fort Myers and Naples.

18 thoughts on “Have the TV networks been showing Ron DeSantis?”

  1. European here. There is no question that DeSantis is far superior.

    I also find it striking that his appearances are often in quite modest venues, he almost comes across like an unassuming European social democrat (from the times when the social democrats were still honest, around 1980-1990).

    If I watch Democrats’ appearances in Northern states, they appear in expensive venues, dress very well and make a big show of it.

  2. Hopefully, Trump will just endorse DeSantis, and go away. Then we will have 8 years of respite from Marxist/bankster lunacy.

  3. This event is going to be the greatest opportunity to destroy DeSantis that has ever – or will ever – occur. There is nothing he can do about it. He is the ENEMY.

    We will be hearing about how Joe Biden and FEMA saved Florida for years. We will also be hearing about how Ron Desantis’ preparations and execution were botched: crony contracts, racist appointees, untold damage done to vulnerable minority communities, waste and ineptitude on a scale that will make Ray Nagin look like a brain surgeon by comparison. There is nothing Ron DeSantis has done or will do that will change the tone of the coverage – the Narrative has already been agreed upon. He is the ENEMY.

    And Trump is going to pile on. He can’t possibly resist.

    • They already tried that with COVID only to have the numbers to blow in their faces. Heard much about Florida “mishandling” COVID recently?

      The reality is, people vote for DeSantis with their feet. For every person moving to Florida from NY or some other blue shithole another thousand wants to do the same but are held back by work or money or family or unwilingness to lose social circle.

      The more the arses screech, the more people tune them out. We’re approaching Soviet levels of distrust in mass media and government. Perestroyka will follow.

    • @averros: Normally that would be a good first approximation answer. But in my harebrained opinion, at least 3/4ths of the pressure being applied to Trump right now is to force him into one of his wincing, pathetic grimaces so he starts attacking Ron DeSantis everywhere. The Donks have set this up so that the Donald is going to say: “You’re Fired!” to DeSantis. Anyway, it’s one of my scenarios. Let’s watch. Pass the popcorn.

  4. In Crist’s defense, once you scroll past the pinned tweet, all his recent tweets are focused on the Hurricane.

  5. DeSantis is very competent, but he is entangled in the charade he has adopted to “woo” the Trump base. The emergency gives him a real problem to address for now. When it subsides, he will have to decide whether to resume the Trumpy bs or stay focused on governing and take his chances in the 2024 primaries. I don’t think he has the guts.

    Joe Biden is old but healthy and has a serious speech impediment, not dementia. It takes so much concentration to avoid stuttering that his vocal performance is impaired. He also has a fractured party and a pile of very serious challenges (Fed wobbly, Russian nuclear threats, yes even kooky advisors). I would not like to see him run in 2024, hopefully a better Dem will emerge?

    We have come to a low pass given the choices in 2024, just as we had in 2020. On balance Biden was a better choice than Trump. Sometimes a two party system just barely works.

    The Republican party is way off the rails, and I changed to independent the day after Trump was elected. The GOP has degenerated into performance art and literally has no policy platform. If they win in 2024, DeSantis would be far better than Trump, but he would have to wrangle a GOP Congress that has no interest in governing.

    • An immigrant 40ish physician friend casually referred to Joe Biden as a “demented puppet” back in 2020. She’s not passionate about politics, so I don’t think that this estimate was colored by her own wishes for which party would control D.C.

    • Straight up: do you seriously think Trump deserved a second term and/or should be the 2024 nominee?

    • Donald: Even if we wanted to go back in time and/or indulge in fantasy, I don’t think that there is an easy way to answer the question about Trump v. Biden because Americans don’t share a common culture or common interests. For those whom Biden freed from paying off student loans, Biden is awesome. For the millions of migrants who will now be permanent beneficiaries of the U.S. welfare state, Biden is awesome (see https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/06/us/politics/asylum-biden-administration.html ). If you’re part of the native-born working class, Biden and the Democrats are destroying you (see https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216/ ) and Trump would have been much better. If you own an apartment building or work in the welfare-industrial complex or refugee-industrial complex, Biden and the Democrats are enriching you (see the same Harvard analysis in Politico).

      Suppose that you work for https://www.hias.org/ and can get paid by the U.S. government for every refugee admitted to the United States. Joe Biden’s boost of the number of refugee admissions from 20,000 (Trump) to 125,000 means that your income might go up 5X. See https://www.hias.org/news/press-releases/hias-calls-refugee-admissions-reforms-meet-administrations-robust-goal for how the dream was a 10X revenue boost.

      The question of which candidate is absolutely better makes sense only in a country where residents are citizens and citizens have common culture/interests.

    • @Donald, I understand that you dislike Donald Trump and to some degree agree that Donald Trump is not as efficient and effective in many areas as Ron DeSantis would be. But what if Donald Trump is more electable than Ron DeSantis? Would you still vote Biden or not vote at all, assuming that you did not vote for Trump, if you knew in advance how Biden presidency would turn out?

    • perplexed: How can anyone know for sure whether Trump is more electable than DeSantis or vice versa? Polls haven’t been accurate. I personally would be more enthusiastic about Ron DeSantis. I don’t think anyone over 70 should be allowed to run for president! (Separately, in all of Trump’s years in the White House, it never occurred to him to send migrants to the places where residents say they love migrants! Trump could have gotten the Democrats in Congress to build three walls if he had run a Federal transportation service to all of the states with at least 100,000 “No Human Being is Illegal” signs.)

      Despite my prejudice against the elderly holding this job, Trump’s command of numbers while he was in office seemed good. He was thus able to make numbers-informed decisions, which is critical to balancing interests and priorities. DeSantis in his briefings has mental access to dozens of numbers at a time, e.g., regarding conditions and progress in various counties, so he’d probably be yet better-positioned for number-based decision-making. Biden seems to be innumerate, which is one reason that his policy choices result in rampant inflation. But I am not sure if that is because he is old. He might always have been innumerate and thus unqualified for an executive job.

    • @philg,
      “How can anyone know for sure whether Trump is more electable” – I stated a hypothesis that Trump is more electable and asked @Donald a question based on this hypothesis.
      In real life this hypothesis is confirmed by inherently inaccurate polls and huge fun base of new voters that Trump gained in 2016 and who were no show in 2012 and 2008.

      Your other point – I agree that Trump managed to play economy, Europe , Russia and Middle East well and effectively and effectively scaled down and terminated foreign wars without US or close allies casualties and with military victories.
      Trump did not do all he could on border (much better then Biden of course), he was somewhat outfoxed by ChiCom and his mix of partly using dumb career bureaucrats from health, security and military who always care about their own a$$es and partly relying on solid constitutionalism, federalism and republicanism (good part but for tough people) in managing coronavirus and left street warfare could be perceived by public better if done by Ron DeSantis methods.
      Trump totally ignored rolling disaster of Democrat takeover of US electoral system which was over a year in making. And it is still being ignored.

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