Super Tuesday nostalgia for Ron DeSantis

by philg

Today is Super Tuesday, an important milepost in what is shaping up to be a fight among two guys in Memory Care (and one gal for whom Americans don’t seem to share my own enthusiasm (and even I have been put off by Nikki Haley’s seeming lack of coherent philosophy)).

A bit of nostalgia for Ron DeSantis, then! He lacked the ability to project empathy that Americans cherish, but he was the only candidate in the race with a coherent philosophy of government combined with a reasonable age for handling a demanding job. A mailer we got in November 2022, when Mr. DeSantis was running for reelection as governor:

(I don’t understand how a governor can take credit for having “raised teacher pay”. Counties negotiate with teachers’ unions and the U.S. Congress no doubt did the most to raise teacher pay in nominal dollars by generating raging inflation through deficit spending.)

In other news, let’s check the political diversity in the center of our empire…

There were just over 2,000 people who were willing to identify as Republican and vote in the primary a couple of days ago (total D.C. population is over 700,000; more than 500,000 should be eligible to vote (source, which notes that D.C. has “the most diverse and educated voting population in the U.S.”)).

Finally, what about the project that state-level Democrats have been engaging in around the nation to preserve democracy by preventing their subjects from voting for Donald Trump? The Supreme Court has ruled this was illegal and unconstitutional and not just the Republican-appointed justices who are characterized by Democrats as corrupt and illegitimate. All 9 justices. Will there be any apologies from Democrats for violating the U.S. Constitution? From the Newspaper of Record (TM):

30 thoughts on “Super Tuesday nostalgia for Ron DeSantis”

  1. One thing interesting is that so many voters do not approach voting rationally, i.e., who will make me better off, or with accurate information. So a family member of say average intelligence says she would not vote for Trump because he is a philanderer, which is not fair to his wife. She was against Gov Ron because according to her he had banned such books from Florida schools as Catcher in the Rye and she remembers as an adolescent reading and enjoying Catcher in the Rye and thinks it is really awful that school kids in Florida are not permitted to read that book. Nonetheless, voter choices typically do in retrospect seem at least understandable if not optimal. So presumably the uninformed and irrational on both sides of the spectrum cancel each other out.

  3. Finally, what about the project that state-level Democrats have been engaging in around the nation to preserve democracy by preventing their subjects from voting for Donald Trump? It failed.
    Will there be any apologies from Democrats for violating the U.S. Constitution? From the Newspaper of Record (TM): No!

  5. If elected, we would likely learn that Nimrata (Randhawa) Haley’s unifying philosophy is “India Über Alles.”

    • That is not common philosophy among people of Indian origin. In fact, one would find most white supremacists in India! For example, Yoga became popular in recent times in India only after it was accepted by Americans (read white people). And in another example, the Vice President has significant Indian background that she (they) never acknowledges.

    • We’ve all watch them take over departments and then companies. And we see what is happening in the UK, Scotland, and Ireland.

      And, while some are brilliant or competent, a substantial portion, like Kamala, manage to get and keep high-paying jobs despite being borderline retarded.

    • @Faucian Bargain what about Jews taking all your jobs and taking over companies in medical,legal, finance and politics.

    • Anon: Politics? From https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-vanishing

      In New York—the seat of American Jewish political power—there are almost no Jews left in power. A decade ago the city had five Jewish congressmen, a Jewish mayor, two Jewish borough presidents, and 14 Jewish City Council members. Today just two congressmen and a single borough president remain. Only six Jews now sit on the 51-person City Council. Shelly Silver, the corrupt Orthodox former State Assembly leader, was replaced by Yuh-Line Niou, a pro-BDS “progressive” whose oligarch father was featured in the Panama Papers. Not even the Lower East Side Tenement Museum is recognizably Jewish anymore.

      “What you have is a lack of identity of Jews as Jews,” the Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf told The Washington Post. “And they don’t have the power to ensure that there’s more than one Jewish congressman. It’s astounding.”

      Younger Jews are being excluded from the liberal organizations their parents and grandparents helped create. Identitarian meltdowns roil the progressive world. The Women’s March, the ACLU, and the SPLC all get rid of Jewish leadership. There will be no more “Mighty Iras” in our lifetime. Not even the Jewish president of the Audubon Society is safe.

      [Perhaps Jews can hope that AOC will convert!]

    • Many Indians lack the capacity for self-criticism and reflexivity, but will devote astounding amounts of energy into defending the absolute legitimacy of their divine right to POPULATION BOMBING every civilized country until the entire world is as much of a shithole as India, so I am not going to try to outlast you here.

      But the two most important points are:
      1) There are 5 orders of magnitude more Indians than Jews in the world. There just aren’t enough Jews to demographically overwhelm countries the way that South Asians are.

      2) Jews do not have nearly the same reputation for incompetence as Indians.

      There are indeed some brilliant, and many competent Indians, but large numbers seem to be getting by on nothing more than numbers and nepotism.

      If Indians are as great as you pretend they are, why do so many work so hard to leave India? Why is Vietnam’s GDP per capita almost double India’s, despite being communist until 1990? Why doesn’t India have more Olympic medals than wee Ireland. and only about 3x more than Israel?

    • FB: I spent the last month talking to, I think, nearly every resident of India. This was a project to get my mother’s Xfinity home “landline” transferred to Xfinity Mobile (actually Verizon). Each agent had 100 percent confidence and also promised to follow up. Except for the very last agent, none succeeded in accomplishing anything (due to errors identified by the next agent with whom I spoke) and none ever delivered on the commitment to call me (though specific dates and times were agreed on).

    • @phil . Your bad experience is not because of incompetent indians(may be not entirely) . Verizon outsources these to cheapest bidder, so you get what you paid for. My prescription get screwed up every year when I get a new refill from doctor and electronically transmitted to the insurance speciality pharmacy, this call center is 100% based in US and mostly manned by non minorities. They screw up so badly in last 4 years i have to go the hospital 2 times to get my shot as they did not send the medication on time, even though they had the prescription almost two months in advance. On the other note, you seems to expand your hatred from political ideological groups(Dems) to entire race/ethnic groups.

    • Stop Asian Hate does not include Indians, so above posts that do so should be good.

    • Jews are on their way out in American life. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-vanishing

      Speaking of LA, a decade ago there were 22 Jews on The Hollywood Reporter’s annual list of the Top 50 Showrunners. In 2022, that’s down to 13. Other than the half-Jewish (and already famous) Maggie Gyllenhaal, you’d have to go back six years to find a single Jew on Variety’s annual list of 10 Directors to Watch.

      Thanks to the odious new Hollywood house style that requires a detailed ethnic and racial classification at the top of all capsule biographies, we can see just how many self-identified Jews are in the Sundance writers and directors labs, or the NBC, Paramount, and Disney writers and apprenticeship programs—it is zero. It seems not being Jewish is actually a primary qualification. So much for Jewish control of Hollywood.

    • @phil . This is good news to @Faucian Bargain . So now we need to learn from Jews exclusion and apply this to exclude Indians.

    • I guess this means no more movies portraying Germans as bad guys with funny accents (Indiana Jones) and WWII movies where only the USA frees the world, and Russia made hardly a contribution on the war front. Oh yes Holocaust movies.

      Once the new wave of migrants (as Boris Johnson called them “the letter boxes”) take over Hollywood we will have to sit through Gaza war films and the atrocities (never mind what Hamas did to trigger it!).

    • Deutchman, thanks to Vince Cerf we always can keep watching episodes with heroic Sgt. Schultz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXBwDdWhdQM
      Comparing to Soviet WWII movies, his character is an example of highest acts of courage, kindness and intellect exhibited by German Nazi soldiers.
      Glad that you value my people contribution in WWII.

  8. I’m going to miss that little meatball.

    I still haven’t heard a great explanation for why Republicans are hooked on Trump, but off the top of my head, I would it comes down to 3 factors

    – charisma
    – the impression of being strong
    – feeling like the person is someone you would like to spend time with

    Trump beats Tiny D on all 3 of these.

    It’s interesting to see how Democrats prioritize these things differently. Before Biden, the Democrats that performed the best were the smartest, most articulate candidates: Bill, Obama, Hillary, Mayor Pete, etc. (Biden skated through because of leftover affection from his Obama years).

    Republicans seem to go for the common guy they would like to be in a foxhole with. The guy who tells you the funny racist jokes at the bar.

    Such a character would get nowhere in a Democratic primary.

    If DeSantis was liberal, he might have been a very successful Democrat. But being smart buys you very little in a Republican primary.

    • > I still haven’t heard a great explanation for why Republicans are hooked on Trump, …

      I’m no fan of Trump, but I know why democrats are hooked on any democratic candidate: give, give, give and spend, spend, spend like there is no tomorrow [1]. And don’t get me start on inflation or housing. Very few of today’s generation, in their 20’s, 30’s or even 40’s can afford to buy a house.

      The middle class is being left to rust, that’s why 1/2 of the country doesn’t want a Democratic party.

      [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/the-us-national-debt-is-rising-by-1-trillion-about-every-100-days.html

    • George — Inflation doesn’t explain the Trump phenomenon.

      That might explain why someone would vote for a Republican over a Democrat, but why Trump over other Republicans?

      Trump:

      – Is the least religious
      – Has a history of being pro-choice
      – Is pushing for the weakest national abortion ban (only 15 weeks)
      – Has had the most divorces and affairs of any major candidate
      – Has done the most damage to the budget of any Republican president
      – Has the most legal problems
      – Is the only Republican capable of serving only 1 term
      – Has the worst negatives of any leading candidate

      Why are so many Republicans saying “Yes, this is our guy”?

      And in particular, why are so many evangelicals strong supporters of him, while his life and morals are obvious the worst?

      What are his special benefits that overcome all these negatives?

      They must like his musk or something.

      There are many in the party who will follow him no matter his policy choices or personal behavior.

    • David: a short female Democrat back in Massachusetts (before the lockdowns so it wasn’t yet “Maskachusetts”), on finding that Obama had won, said “Great. Another tall man wins the presidency.” I wonder if DeSantis would have done better if he’d been 6’2″ tall (Obama’s height and Donald Trump’s NY driver’s license height).

    • Philip — Being taller would help, but likely not as much as: having a reasonable smile, having a reasonable voice, being able to tell a joke, and being able to come across as genuine.

      I suspect voters see him as insincere and a little creepy.

    • I don’t see how “insincere” is a legit tag to hang on DeSantis. He says he doesn’t care about (a) migrants, no matter what tales of abuse and suffering they’re able to spin, (b) people who commit crimes (let’s avoid the pejorative “criminals”), (c) people who don’t work, et al. And, in fact, he does not propose legislation to direct more of Florida’s resources toward these groups.

      The main problem that I saw with DeSantis was that he was too “genuine”. He genuinely believes that people aren’t going to become wealthier unless they work and study harder and that’s what he tells the American voter, a suicidal position to stake out.

    • Philip — Re: insincere. I suspect Ron was better before he started dropping in the polls and lost confidence. Seems like a guy who got the yips and couldn’t stop questioning himself.

      Have you seen: https://twitter.com/Travon/status/1730408801449501051

      This is insincere and creepy.

      Is this an alien wearing Ron’s face as a mask?

      You can just hear him saying to himself “Now smile like a normal human would. You’ve got this.”

      * But I can understand where this lack of confidence comes from. If you know you’re more qualified, but a buffoon is beating you, and you’re trying your best to be as belligerent as the buffoon to impress the deplorables, but they don’t seem to care, you’re confronted with the idea that nothing you know about the world is correct and you’re just hoping this is a nightmare and you’ll soon wake up.

      Can almost feel sorry for this guy.

      But then I remember these ads and feel better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1YP_zZJFXs

  9. What little I know of DeSantis is that his policy incorporates most of Trump’s policy positions (which are now being adopted by Eric Adams, Kathy Hochul, and Joe Biden), but a track record of executing on them (granted, with a much more compatible legislature).

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