Our subject for at the moment is — who’s worse, Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis?
Nonononofair! There isn’t a approach I’m ever going to vote for both of them! Why ought to I care?
Hey, data of public affairs is at all times essential.
DeSantis made headlines this weekend when he confirmed as much as marketing campaign in Iowa whereas Trump canceled a rally due to unhealthy climate.
“Iowa is the Florida of the Midwest,” the governor of Florida claimed at one level in his burger-flipping, speech-giving trek. Now this was clearly meant as a praise, however Iowans, do you really need to be the Florida of the Midwest? The climate is actually nice in January, however there’s loads of draw back. Do your Midwestern neighbors ever mutter, “What our state wants is a heck of much more floods and sinkholes …”?
DeSantis and his spouse/political adviser, Casey, have three babies, who as soon as starred in a gubernatorial election advert wherein he demonstrated his devotion to President Donald Trump by displaying one among his daughters construct a toy wall and studying his son “The Artwork of the Deal.” (“Then Mr. Trump mentioned, ‘You’re fired.’ I really like that half.”)
You could be seeing much more of little Madison, Mason and Mamie DeSantis within the months to come back. However nobody’s going to be studying from Trump’s collected works.
Trump has 5 kids counting Ivanka, who’s sorta reduce herself off from the clan. And Tiffany, who everyone, together with her father, appeared to have forgotten for a really lengthy stretch. And Eric, whom we primarily hear about throughout riffs from the late-night comics. And Barron, the youngest at 17, who lives quietly along with his mother.
Donald Jr. is actually his dad’s child. He’s off this summer time to Australia for a talking tour blasting “woke id politics.” Ranting towards “woke” is kind of a DeSantis factor, however give Junior a break. He’s spent his whole life attempting to please a father who was absent for many of his childhood and who is claimed to have resisted having his firstborn named after him, in case the child became a “loser.”
Now Don Jr. has 5 kids too! And he’s not shy about placing them within the information both. Some time again he posted an Instagram picture of the youngsters publicizing a Trump-branded leash. (“You will get yours on the Trump Retailer too.”) Earlier than that, Dad as soon as tweeted that he deliberate to confiscate half of his then-3-year-old daughter’s Halloween sweet “to show her about socialism.”
Arduous to think about the Trump and DeSantis households getting collectively for a cookout. However the hole between the 2 males grows a lot wider once you have a look at private conduct. Solely one among them simply misplaced a $5 million verdict from a jury that discovered he sexually abused a girl in a division retailer dressing room.
Trump has been attempting to insinuate that DeSantis had some shady doings with highschool ladies in his far, far distant previous. And operating an advert reminding the world that his possible Republican opponent has a historical past of consuming pudding along with his fingers.
However what in regards to the points? Sorta exhausting to pin down since Trump is given to, um, free-associating on these things. However he actually has been operating to DeSantis’s left, accusing the Florida governor of eager to slash Social Safety and Medicare advantages.
When he was in Congress, DeSantis did vote for Republican proposals alongside that line. He’s on the no-changes-no-how bandwagon now. However let’s have a look at abortion — a lot simpler to pin down. DeSantis, as governor, simply signed a invoice he supported that will bar abortions in Florida after six weeks. By which period many, many ladies — notably the very younger, very poor, very traumatized — don’t know they’re pregnant.
DeSantis has at the least been constant. A religious Catholic, he’s had the identical place for his whole political profession. Trump, however, um, adapts.
Trump made a huge effect by appointing three anti-choice judges to the Supreme Court docket. However now he’s observed that voters are coming down very robust in favor of abortion rights, and he’s switched proper round. He claims “many individuals inside the pro-life motion” discovered the brand new Florida regulation “too harsh.”
Our backside line right here, folks, is that you’ve got two prime candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. DeSantis adheres to a robust, faith-based social conservatism. He’s pro-gun, against range and inclusion applications in public schools. And at the moment having an enormous combat with Disney, one among Florida’s prime employers, over a remark from a Disney C.E.O. that criticized a DeSantis invoice to ban classroom discussions of sexual orientation within the early grades.
Arduous to think about a Gov. Donald Trump taking the identical street.
Except it might someway win him an election. Trump’s politics are deeply, deeply pragmatic. If an angel appeared promising him one other time period within the White Home if he killed each pet in America, these doggies could be toast.
(That’s an imperfect instance since The Donald hates canine anyway, however bear with me.)
The underside line: Would you relatively see the Republicans nominate a candidate who had an exemplary household life and an agenda primarily based on longstanding, extraordinarily conservative beliefs? Or a man with a sleazy private historical past who’d most likely go wherever the votes have been?
Some days it pays to be a Democrat.
