Trump vs. DeSantis: It is about weirdness in 2024 presidential campaigns

Musk was there with a flamethrower. There was Musk touting his Teslas at an elaborate and visually interesting occasion that was primarily the exact opposite of the DeSantis launch. Younger Musk was simply… sitting on the keyboard. There was DeSantis speaking concerning the losses of fentanyl whereas the picture confirmed him smiling and waving. It’d make sense as a video if DeSantis introduced Musk as his operating mate – with a powerful emphasis on “energy.”

Then got here Donald Trump’s response. In search of to capitalize on the failed rollout, he posted a vulgar AI video mocking the Twitter Areas occasion. In it, “Dick Cheney” repeatedly coughed due to a sizzling microphone. In it, the FBI (apparently accidentally, utilizing the voice of Anderson Cooper) requested, “So how are we going to take down Trump, guys?” “Adolf Hitler” and “The Satan” argued about gays. “Trump” talked about how Cheney would die quickly and that DeSantis would have the ability to kiss his “massive stunning ass in 2024”.

Trump additionally wrote on Reality Social through the occasion: “Rob, my crimson button is larger, higher, stronger and works (TRUE!), however yours doesn’t! (judging by my dialog with Kim Jong-un from North Korea, who will quickly develop into my buddy!)

By the tip of the night, Musk summed it up properly. Responding to a tweet about all of the adjectives the media used to explain the failed launch of DeSantis-Twitter, Musk retorted, “I name it ‘mass consideration.’ The preferred story on Earth at the moment.”

All consideration is nice consideration. The necessary factor is that individuals who seen and seen how extraordinarily unusual all this was, someway owned it. The DeSantis staff retweeted Musk’s opinion.

Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign set a precedent for oddities. There was hypothesis that Ted Cruz’s father killed John F. Kennedy. There was a quarrel between Trump and the Pope. There was a tweet about taco salad. Trump gave Lindsey O. Graham’s private cellphone quantity.

However aside from Marco Rubio’s trace on the dimension of a sure a part of Trump’s anatomy, Trump was operating in opposition to regular Republicans within the pre-liberal period who did not actually look after such trifles. (Rubio even apologized later.)

The 2024 marketing campaign portends one thing very totally different.

Not solely has Trump develop into more and more confrontational and extremist, as The Washington Submit reported this week, DeSantis has additionally constructed his model on provocation.

Greater than Trump, he desires to deal with actual motion, not simply chatter. But it surely’s clear that his marketing campaign will probably be on par with Trump in the case of luring the very right-wing on-line crowd to try to keep a part of the dialog. He used to assign this to a specific rebellious member of his workers and appointees, equivalent to his chief surgeon, a coronavirus vaccine critic, however the presidential marketing campaign calls for greater than a few workers can present. And there may be solely a lot trolling that you are able to do by way of official motion, particularly when the legislature is adjourned.

The choice to start out with billionaire troll Musk – after which be part of him so strongly after that – additionally factors to the place issues are headed. DeSantis is clearly going to run as a model of Trump, and that requires among the identical notes on the trolling entrance, particularly if Trump goes to maintain ranting like he all the time does.

In a manner, that is the marketing campaign that the trendy Republican Social gathering deserves. For years, Republican members of Congress dismissed or ignored Trump’s provocations on social media as in the event that they have been the rantings of a conspiratorial uncle. But it surely regularly created a marketplace for this sort of factor.

And judging by final night time, the 2024 GOP main will embrace a battle for market share.