WEBVTT - The Desantis Campaign Death Spiral 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:10.360 Ah, welcome to it could happen here a podcast where myself, 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:14.120 Garrison Davis, and James Stout just created a new soon 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:19.320 to be beloved fiction character, racist Sherlock's holmes. And don't worry, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.959 We're not done workshopping at It's not ready to go 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.480 public yet. But when this bit drops you people are 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:30.200 gonna lose your minds Ah, how's everyone doing today? 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.600 Much better after learning about racist shadow crimes? 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.640 Uh huh? After no, we didn't learn about him. He 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.239 burst fully formed from our heads like Athena from the 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:48.520 brain of Zeus. Ah. Good stuff. Speaking of the Greek 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:55.360 and Roman pagan pantheon, James Garrison, you know who does 0:00:55.520 --> 0:01:00.200 kind of have the feel of a malevolent spear it 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.400 in Greek mythology is Ron DeSantis. 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:09.679 Yeah, not wrong, sure, run, That's what they call him. 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.080 For all my years study studying the papyrie, this is 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:14.240 I can't confirm. 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.720 Yeah, meetball Ron, I'm gonna I have a long essay 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.959 on my substack about how meatball Ron and the Egyptian 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:27.400 deity Maat are are really uh directly related to one another. 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.160 But that that that'll that'll you can find that on 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.400 my substack. My Egyptology focused substack. 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.080 Yeah, he's not what's this, what's the god of the sun, 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.039 the god of the Sun disc the one they tried 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:42.120 to do a monotheism for. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.920 Oh yeah, that isn't that raw? Yeah? 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.840 Right, yeah, I can see seeing himself in those terms. 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:52.840 No, Mat, I think. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.640 The sentence is more of like a Horus figure. Actually yeah, 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:57.120 I mean. 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.080 No, because Matt here's the thing. Matt has wings uh, 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:07.080 and Ronda Santis is currently flying over us, uh, shading 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.560 us all in the comfort of his of his mighty 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:10.840 technicolor wingspan. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.440 I'm seeing, Matt. Let's there's too many colors in these 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:17.000 in these in these wings. 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:17.560 I don't know. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.680 I don't know why we got onto a comparing Ronda 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:24.200 Santis to this was a mistake anyway, Garrison. You just 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.280 last week we closed out on two great episodes about 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:33.240 fash wave and uh, the adoption uh and kind of 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.160 reposting of a lot of these aesthetics that had become 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.840 popular on the far right via you know, the the 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.040 dark branded memes, And a big part of that was 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:48.519 how Ronda Santis somehow allowed some incredibly internet poisoned zoomers 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.679 to make an ad for him that was far too 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.320 online for a presidential campaign ad and I felt like 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.480 it was time to kind of have a discussion about 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.680 meatball ron because obvious things in Florida are very ugly 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.760 right now. As a fascist, which he definitely is, Ronda 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.000 Santis is an effective administrator, yeah, which I mean he's 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:16.040 good at twisting the administrative state that exists into a 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.520 weapon to attack marginalized groups. He's been effective at that. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.200 What's happening legally, you know, in the laws, you know 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.480 a lot of the anti trans laws, the anti drag 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.880 laws in Florida is very frightening. What he's been doing 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.639 to the Florida education system, state education system is very unsettling, 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.440 And you know that is all of that is worthy 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.480 of further discussion. But I think because the most immediate 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.200 concern we have is like, is this guy going to 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.240 be able to do that on a national scale? Right, 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.440 Which is not to say that we should just let Florida, 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.680 you know, sink into the ABYSS. I don't believe that. 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.560 But at the moment, Rond de Santis is tied for 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.520 second place against Donald Trump, So it kind of it 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.520 behooves us to ask the questions purely for the purpose 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.840 of self deface? Can Ron DeSantis win? Right? Could he 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.240 actually become not? Even the first question is like, could 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.000 he become the Republican presidential candidate? Can he beat Donald Trump? 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:12.520 And the short good answer to that is I don't 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.840 think so. It's not looking good. Not looking good for 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.680 all meetball. Ron agreed, and I wanted to get into 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.160 why and kind of some of the fundamental flaws as 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.919 a guy who is there was kind of this belief fear, 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.360 I think a reasonable fear among a lot of liberals 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:28.640 and folks on the left that because of how effective 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.760 he's been consolidating and expanding his power in Florida, and 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:37.240 because he's generally seemed like less of a like Donald 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.720 Trump has certain competences as an authoritarian. There's things he's 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:42.680 very good at, but he was not good at being 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:44.760 the president. He was not good at using power. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.480 He's not too much of a fascist in a loss. 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.320 Not an effective fascist, right Like, he wasn't good at 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.000 picking people to like do things for him. He wasn't 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:53.960 good at He was good at hurting people in a 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.760 blunt way, but he was kind of incompetent at rerat 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.839 like a competent fascist like Hitler was a competent fascist, right, 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:04.520 he was not in there long in an elected position 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.640 before he had effectively made it impossible to oust him 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:12.360 without military force. And Trump was never good at doing 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.479 that stuff. And the worry is that Ronda Santis would 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.320 be The good news is that Ronda Santis is incompetent 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.760 as a politician and a political candidate. So I wanted 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.400 to kind of start with why a lot of his 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.200 the people who do form his base, which is quite 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.760 shrinking at the moment, he's losing a lot of support, 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.480 why they thought he was capable of winning the primary 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.880 and the general. And when you look into kind of 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.279 why a lot of sort of Republican like legacy Republicans, 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.240 the folks who often be called Rhinos, why a lot 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.479 of them decided to back Ronda Santis. The best summer 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:45.800 you're going to get comes from Phil Hauffines, who was 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.559 a businessman in Texas whose car dealership ran a series 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.080 of ads that are like plastered forever in the memories 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.120 of everyone who lived in the DFW area in the 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.839 late nineties early two thousands, and in a CNN interview 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.799 a few days ago, he said this, when one looks objectively, 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.200 at who can beat Biden. It's going to be DeSantis. 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:04.359 We already had a match with Biden and Trump. Trump 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.240 turns out Democrats better than anybody. DeSantis will be able 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.880 to articulate more clearly what Republicans stand for, and he's 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:11.719 not going to be bogged down in other stuff that 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.880 Trump brings to the election. I don't think that was 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.680 a logical thing to think a year ago, right, because 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.479 it is true that Trump turns out the dims. The 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.440 idea that like DeSantis isn't gonna get bogged down and 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.200 shit has become kind of fundamentally silly. Like he's gotten 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.240 bogged down in the fact that a lot of his 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.200 you know, backers are invested in culture warship that does 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.359 not sell well on a national level. This whole like 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.920 anti trans crusade he's on the anti woke shit is 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.240 not a big vote getter. It just gets the base 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.960 behind you, and like, you're never gonna beat Trump in 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.680 a race to the base. You know, Trump has the 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.360 core of the hard right Republican Party in his pocket 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.200 and they're not gonna like move on from anybody. DeSantis's 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.560 hope should have been like going after independence people on 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.640 the edge people who are like unhappy with Biden, and 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.000 I think when you pick this sort of like hate crusade, 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.760 it hasn't worked well. But Huffines decided that like, yeah, 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:11.840 this guy, this is the dude who has a shot. 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.640 I think he can actually like pull it out from Trump. 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.200 I think he's got the ability to like get a 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.280 lot of people in the middle or close to the middle. 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.040 This has been proven kind of absurd over the last 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.240 couple of months of stagnating poll numbers. Huffine says that 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.040 the governor recently held a meeting with about one hundred 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:33.120 and fifty Texas Republicans in Dallas, where he quote impressed 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.880 them with his stamina, youth, and performance in recent Florida 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.480 state elections. And there's a number of reasons to think 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.720 that this is a bad strategy that like really laying 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.520 on his performance in the last Florida election is like 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:46.760 a good way for him to win support. One of 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.600 these has to do with the fact that like Florida 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:54.280 is the national watchword for crazy right like the rest. 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:54.640 Of their unan. 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.680 Yeah, even a lot of Conservatives when they're talking about 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.720 like madness in America talk about Florida like Florida. Man 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.920 is an archetype and like, yeah, there's a lot of 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.360 right wing culture warriors who like Ron's anti immigrant and 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.160 anti LGBT policies, but moderates and swing voters the people 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.400 he has a chance of pulling away from Trump. Like, 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:16.720 if you tell them I want to make New Hampshire 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.320 more like Florida, most swing voters are going to be 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.720 like that sounds like hell, I don't want to be 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.800 anything like that place. Like what a horrible what a 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:28.200 horrible idea. This is a sentiment that you will find 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.680 among Republican thought leaders. Quote. One Republican consultant who has 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.080 worked on presidential campaign said DeSantis was making a classic 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:39.360 governor's mistake by talking extensively about his past accomplishments. Yeah, 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.760 put bluntley. People in Ohio or Iowa do not want 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:43.640 to be Florida. They don't care about Florida, and they 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:45.040 are tired of hearing about Florida. 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.080 Yeah, because he's he's so reliant on the types of 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.160 coverage to come out during the past two years of 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:55.000 legislative stuff he's done in Florida, and he's I guess 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:59.440 forgetting the overall view of that people have of Florida 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.880 divorce from his own administrative changes. 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.719 Yeah, it's not like people are moving in droves to 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.800 Florida Bay because he's defeated the woke menace and he 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.520 created a paradise. Like, yeah, he's getting high on his 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:12.959 own supply. 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.360 He's getting high on his own supply. It's one thing. 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:17.760 There's a degree of his campaign that's focused on like 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.160 what he calls like the Florida Miracle, the fact that 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.840 Florida economically weathered COVID pretty well. And again, this would 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.800 be a stronger point if like Florida's economy was booming 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:32.040 and everywhere else was bad. But the US economy overall, 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.520 in terms of like the numbers that you know economists 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.400 care about at least, is like doing reasonably well. And 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.320 like of the shit that is bad in the US economy, 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.360 it's not any better, Like inflation is not better markedly 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.320 better in Florida than it is in Iowa. Right, there's 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:48.240 just not a good case to be made because like 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.680 when you're not when you can't really drive the economic 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:52.640 point home, when you can't be like look at how 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.000 much better Flora is doing than your home. You know, 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.360 it's a it's a fucking paradise compared to the you know, 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.280 shitty economy in Ohio. That's an argument you can make 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.800 if there's any evidence for it, But when you're like, 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.200 you can't really make the economic argument. It all comes 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.520 down to culture war stuff, and most Americans don't want 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.760 this culture warshit going on in their backyard because it's 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.559 like a gross, weird pain in the ass. So right now, 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.720 the bulk of DeSantis support comes from higher income, old 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.160 guard Republicans, the kind of were lukewarm for Trump from 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.880 the beginning, and the kind to point out rightfully that 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.640 he didn't win against Biden. It's time for new blood. 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.520 This is true, but current polling indicates it's not what 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.440 most GOP voters want, which is kind of the big 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.640 problem the Republicans have is that this is why Trump's 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.280 definitely gonna win, you know, as the primary campaign, is 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.800 that like the hardcore of the GOP cannot be overcome 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.959 by the moderates because the hardcore is so in lockstep 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.240 about what they want, and what they want is Trump. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.760 The moderates don't have control of the party, but the 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.720 moderates are the ones who can like actually win a 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.080 general election. So Yeah, it's it's a tough situation for 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.320 them to be in. And one of the things that 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.240 kind of shows how fucked Ron is is that, like 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.680 Ron won reelection in Florida in his last scubernatorial campaign 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.880 by about twenty points a year or so ago. In Florida, 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.080 Trump currently has a twenty point lead on him. 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:18.640 Not great, not great. 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.160 So that's a disaster, like because again not only like 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.120 should you be able to bring in your home state 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.440 as a sitting governor, but like it shows that Ron 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.880 is not popular because of his legislative achievements. He's popular 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.920 because Florida is just that right wing right. Like that's 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:39.239 like currently like the electoral state or status of Florida 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.000 is very conservative. And so Ron won by an overwhelming margin. 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.920 But that doesn't mean people love him. They definitely like 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.560 Trump more than they like him. Bad situation to be in, 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.320 and a number of early backers in DeSantis's orbit have 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:54.880 begun to acknowledge this reality. I'm gonna quote from NBC 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.760 News here. Yeah, there are a number of people grumbling 0:11:57.760 --> 0:11:59.920 about it, no doubt. A Desantist owner said, there is 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.080 an overall sense, including with me, that he just is 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.160 not ignited the way we thought he would. And I 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.240 find that really interesting because you get versions of that 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.960 a lot that like, we were expecting him to really 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.440 take off as soon as he started campaigning, and he hasn't, 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.400 and that was our only strategy. You get this, and 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.080 like if you read interviews with like folks who were 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.160 in the DeSantis orbit and people, because a number of 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.280 his early backers have like peeled away and rescinded their 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.319 their endorsements and given them the Trump it was this 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.199 hope they had that like once as soon as he's 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.000 out in front of America, Americans are going to love 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.240 this guy because he's all the good stuff about Trump 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.079 with none of the baggage. And that was just fundamentally 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.320 disastrously wrong. And I think one of the things we're 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.200 starting to see is that the Dysantis people didn't have 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.160 another plan for how to get this guy elected. Like 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.640 their plan was that we think that Trump's policies are popular, 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:57.200 but everyone doesn't like Trump, and no, that's actually not accurate. 0:12:57.800 --> 0:12:59.920 He opposite a true almost like some of them just 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:01.800 like Trump as a person. 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.320 Yeah, a lot of them don't care about what he's done. 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.640 They like the fact that he owns the Libs, right, they're. 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:12.400 Not he's a compelling character. Yeah, DeSantis is a void 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:13.120 of charisma. 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:14.040 He is. 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.760 He is not a compelling character. He's actually like he's 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.640 good at being like an administrator in like like yeah, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.400 he's like he's very successful in doing bad things. 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:25.880 And he's a guy you make your chief of staff 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.000 if you're yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.599 He's not like, he's not a compelling character, like the 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:31.320 way Trump is. 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.440 No, and it's it's again, it's so fascinating to me. 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:39.000 It says a lot about like the degree of bubble 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.160 that all of the political class are in. And when 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.480 I say the political class, I mean the people the 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.199 fairly small number of people in the left and the right, 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.640 liberals and conservatives who work on political campaigns, right, because 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.600 it's actually a pretty small community of people of the 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:55.920 folks who do the different jobs that are running political 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.559 campaigns and that are like working as the age and 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:02.240 legislative assistants and all that stuff for elected leaders. And 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.800 because to me, to just a guy sitting out there, 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.120 like I'm worried about Ron because what he's doing in Florida. 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.040 But from the moment I saw the guy speak, I 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.559 was like, well, this man has no charisma whatsoever. And 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.400 if you can't think about like how a guy could 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.560 attract voters. If there's nothing that seems appealing about a 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:26.200 candidate to you, if you can't understand their charisma, that's 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.240 probably a good sign that they can't get elected. I 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:31.120 am not mystified by why any president who was won 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.720 in my lifetime won. Right, George W. I've been in 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.680 a room with George W. Bush and watch him spoke 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.360 in immediately made sense why people fucking love George W. Bush. 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.120 He had an attitude, he had an air that put 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.040 people at ease. He was good at putting on a 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.600 character that people found appealing in that time and place. 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.920 There's a reason why so many voters who loved him, 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.560 you know, especially after the first campaign where it was 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.480 kind of a but like, there's a reason why he 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.520 got re elected, Like there's in It's the same thing 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.840 with like Bill Clinton. Right, you watch old videos of 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.040 Bill Clinton on the campaign trail before he was president. 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:08.760 You can see the charisma, you can see the way 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.840 he connects to audiences. You can see the things about 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.640 him that people find appealing. There's not a mystery. It's 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.200 not mysterious why Obama got elected. He's a deeply charismatic man. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.600 And you know, Joe needed a little bit of help. 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.000 That's why he lost so many presidential campaigns beforehand. But 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:30.040 next to Donald Trump, he seems like a much more 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.240 appealing person. Like, I'm not mystified, and I'm not mystified 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.960 by why Trump got elected. Next to Hillary Clinton, Trump 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.240 felt not like a politician, not like the same people 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.080 who would let us down. There was this degree to 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.240 which like, you should never be you should if you're 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.520 looking at like whether or not someone can win an election, 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:49.640 you should never be like, well, I don't get it, 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.240 but I guess maybe they have. They must have some 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:56.120 sort of charisma, because everybody's talking about them as a 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:57.040 serious candidate. 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:57.480 Now. 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.240 Honestly, if you can't see anything about appealing about a candidate, 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.560 then that might be a good sign that they're they're doomed. 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.560 And I think DeSantis is fucking doomed. And this is 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:09.720 kind of a thing that a lot of his early 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.640 backups has started to realize. One DeSantis aligned operative told NBC, 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:15.560 from my understanding, if we don't see a bump in 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.200 the polls, we're basically going to shut down the idea 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.560 of a national operation. This is really something that like 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.440 we're probably going to see. I wouldn't be surprised if 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.520 he kind of has a blowout politically pretty early in 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.440 the primary season next year, because he raised a lot 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.720 of money earlier in his campaign. He raised about twenty 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:35.800 million or so between mid May and the end of 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.880 June of this year, which actually put him ahead fundraising 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.960 wise of Trump by about two million or so. But 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.960 the Trump campaign ended last quarter with twice as much 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.760 cash on hand as Wrong Alongside is still dominating lead 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.280 in the poll. So Ron has raised a lot of money, 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.520 which kind of speaks to the number of sort of 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.920 like Republican institutional backers who hoped that he could win 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.640 where Trump had failed. But he blew all that shit 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.720 and it didn't get him anything, right, Like, he didn't 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.720 raise a like he crept up a teeny amount in 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.800 the polls, but he's still like tied for second with 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.439 Donald Trump despite blowing all of that money. And I 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:15.879 think we're going to reach a point pretty quickly where 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.840 if he doesn't immediately take you know, a state or 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.560 two or three from Trump in the early primaries, any 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.520 kind of hope he has for further donations is going 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.760 to dry up, because, like, why would you keep wasting 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.480 that money? We all saw how much money got wasted 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.160 trying to take Trump out of the primaries in twenty sixteen. 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:35.800 I do think people are going to be a little 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.399 more gun shy this time. There have already been a 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.400 number of recent layoffs of major staffers by DeSantis. He's 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.080 kind of purged a big chunk of the people who 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.800 started his campaign. One of the things that's a little 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.280 interesting about him in his political career is that as 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.679 a politician, he has always been kind of noted as 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.960 kind of weird within Florida politics because every election he's had, 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.680 he's had an entirely new team of people. He does 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.000 not work with the same people twice. He does not 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.760 have like bring people back for his campaigns, which is 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.040 really unusual in US politics for a successful politics. When 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.119 you win, you tend to bring him back a lot 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.320 of the same people who helped you win the last time. 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.879 And so the fact that Ron doesn't do that, that 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.239 he's got such basically one hundred percent churn in his 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.440 teams suggests a couple of things. One he's not great 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.359 to work with, and two the people who work with 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.600 him and have been successful and are good don't see 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.600 him as someone with national potential, right. They don't want 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:35.720 to keep working with him because then they get kind 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.840 of trapped in the loop of being a Desantist guy. 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.720 They want to move on somewhere else because they think 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.639 governor is as high as this guy can go. You know, 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:45.199 like that is kind of one of the things that 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.679 you see when you note this dude has such total 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.359 turnover in his fucking teams. Now again, for all of 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.840 the money that he spent, Ron's polling numbers have changed 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.240 basically nil from when he announced his candidacy, according to 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.240 New York Magazine, kind of related a bunch of this together. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.880 In the Real Clear Politics average of polls starting July first, 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.800 twenty twenty two, Trump had a thirty four point lead 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.600 over Ron DeSantis and fifty two point eight percent of 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.000 the vote in national surveys, with DeSantis at eighteen point five. 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.439 At present, he's got Trump's lead over to Santas So 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:21.240 a year ago, Trump had a thirty four point lead 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.159 over to Santis. Now he's at thirty two, which is 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:26.720 not the speed of movement that you want to see. 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:32.720 After a year of effectively campaigning. On the national surveys, 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.880 DeSantis has gone from eighteen point five percent to about 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.040 twenty one percent, which again is just kind of like 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:43.240 a disastrous rate of change. Now, this is just one poll. 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.760 There's PROBA potentially outliers here. I've seen other polls that 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.840 show DeSantis at more like twelve percent and tied with 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:56.040 Vivic Ramaswami, who is another GOP candidate. Like the fact 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.600 that Vivek, who is not nearly the kind of national 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.320 name DeSantis is, is tight with him and some polls 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.920 now is fucking disastrous. He and Trump are pretty close 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.359 in terms of funding. Vivec has raised only a fraction 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.960 of what DeSantis has raged So that's a pretty bad sign. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.480 Kind of a fucking disaster. One major area in which 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.800 Ron lags behind Trump is his ability to draw interest 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:24.200 and what amounts to free advertising from the media. Trump 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.639 famously got about a billion dollars in free publicity in 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.280 twenty sixteen thanks to relentless media coverage of his every move, 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.159 gaff and speech. He understood it didn't matter if it 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.080 was negative, It didn't matter that they were shit talking 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.680 to me. What matters that they're keeping my face out front, right, 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.040 this is a thing that will bring me support, It 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.000 will bring me donors, it will make my supporters see 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.280