Mar.02

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

DeSantis' New Book Gives Away His Platform

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has a new book out. It is entitled The Courage to Be Free. It is all about the government banning stuff in order for the people to be free. Kind of "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." As a graduate of Yale (magna cum laude, no less) in history, DeSantis is likely to be familiar with George Orwell's 1984, and so is aware of the rather clear parallel.

The book reads like his presidential platform, which makes sense, because that is what it is. Here are some takeaways:

• He pushes back on Trump—but gently: When DeSantis jumps into the GOP primary, he will have a problem he can't avoid. On the one hand, he needs to get Republican voters to pull the lever for him and not Trump. On the other hand, criticizing Trump will antagonize many of those voters. How will DeSantis handle this? The book talks about his first gubernatorial run and how Trump's support helped him, but credits the win more to DeSantis' own fantastic debate performance. He also wishes that during the first 2 years of Trump's term (when the Republicans had the trifecta), Trump had done more to use the power he had. DeSantis can't understand why Trump didn't ask Congress to appropriate money to build the wall and then just build it. All gentle criticism. That won't work in a man-to-man campaign, but there is no use in angering Trump right now and putting him in full attack mode is the thinking, apparently. That can wait until DeSantis' candidacy is official in the late spring. But unlike the hapless Jeb! in 2016, DeSantis is very smart and knows exactly what he will be up against. No point in tweaking Goliath until you have found a sharp stone and loaded it into your slingshot.
  
  
• It was Disney's own fault: DeSantis' spat with the Walt Disney Corporation will be a major part of DeSantis platform. The whole story shows how the governor stood up to a woke corporation and vanquished it (although the part about the Reedy Creek Improvement District being reinstated this year didn't quite make it into the book). This chapter demonstrates: (1) how tough DeSantis is and (2) how much he opposes all this "LGBTQ+ sh*t" floating around. More generally, there is a lot of popular opposition to big corporations and this incident suggests DeSantis is the guy to take them on. We'll believe that when he goes after big corporations known for their right-wing views, such as Koch Industries, R.J. Reynolds, Hobby Lobby, Papa John's, Chevron, Dillard's, or Chick-fil-A.
  
  
• He knows how to use power: When DeSantis was inaugurated, he asked his staff to compile a list of all the powers the governor of Florida has so he could use them as weapons against his enemies. The message here is that he knows how government works and will hit the ground running to fight wokeness and deliver for conservatives. This is a not-so-subtle dig at Trump for not knowing how government works and not being able to deliver when he had the chance. Maybe the bumper sticker DeSantis' campaign will sell will read "Like Trump, but smarter." Of course, for the Republican base "smarter" might be a turn off, so maybe "Like Trump, but actually delivers."
  
  
• He kept Florida free: DeSantis proclaims, loud and proud, how he preserved freedom in Florida by keeping schools open during the pandemic. If Granny died as a result, that was her fault for going outside. Opposition to the government telling people to do anything is going to be a big part of his pitch. It will be interesting to see what he says during the campaign when some reporter asks: "We know you oppose the government ordering people to do things, so is it OK if people refuse to get drivers' licenses but drive anyway? Or refuse to pay their taxes?"
  

The New York Times' book critic Jennifer Szalai reviewed the book and said it reads like it was written by ChatGPT, in part due to its total lack of charisma or sense of humor. It is strong on platitudes found all over the Internet but weak on new ideas. What is also noteworthy is how DeSantis has changed since he was first elected to Congress. He was then a libertarian and a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. The Freedom Caucus was founded to oppose government power. Now DeSantis thinks that the more power the government has, the better, so he can use it to punish his enemies. For example, he wants to give the president the power to fire about 50,000 top civil servants if the president thinks they are too woke.

The book also rails against the legacy media. Apparently, Fox doesn't count as legacy media, since it gets off unscathed. Maybe the fact that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns the publisher of his book played a role here. We dunno. As we have mentioned many times already this year (and will continue to mention for at least another one), DeSantis is smart. For example, he clearly understands that the base loves to see folks they dislike being bullied and he may well try to out-bully Trump. He even tried to bully the Ivy League and to show how strong he is by writing: "I could withstand seven years of indoctrination in the Ivy League," as if that makes him special. It must have slipped his mind that some other famous people also withstood it, like justices Samuel Alito (Yale Law School), Neil Gorsuch (Harvard Law School), Brett Kavanaugh (Yale Law School), John Roberts (Harvard Law School), and Clarence Thomas (Yale Law School). But they don't have the courage to run for president, like he does.

For the sake of completeness, we note a few things that the book omits and which are common in political memoirs written for campaign purposes. There is (next to) nothing about DeSantis' youth, his parents, what values his parents instilled in him, his sister, his friends, his courtship, his wedding, or anything else that might detract from his image as a robot with code to destroy woke built into its ROM (Read Only Memory) that can't be changed. If this is an indication of what's to come, he is going to make Mitt Romney look warm and fuzzy. And he is going to fail the beer test miserably. (V)