An authoritarianism scholar on DeSantis as "the ultimate agent for the normalization of extremism"

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://aaronrupar.substack.com/p/desantis-florida-authoritarianism-trump

Early polling indicates Donald Trump remains the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but Ron DeSantis is clearly the second-strongest contender and has recently gained some momentum. It’s unlikely a cult member could best the cult leader in a primary, but there’s a possibility DeSantis could end up representing a post-Trump brand of Trumpism.

Trump seems to recognize this. He went out of his way a few months ago to attack the Florida governor as “gutless” for refusing to say whether he’d received a Covid booster — a comment I described as the opening salvo of the 2024 GOP primary. Around that same time, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman wrote that DeSantis was “under [Trump’s] skin” in part because he wouldn’t “say ‘the magic words,’ meaning won’t tell him he won’t run against him in 2024.” While he wouldn’t acknowledge it publicly, Trump understands that DeSantis is a threat.

DeSantis rode the Trump cult of personality to the Florida governor’s mansion in 2018, but he’s since forged his own brand of right-wing demagoguery. Last Friday, he was on Fox & Friends, which has celebrated him for the stands he’s taken against public health regulations to combat Covid, against the LGBT community, and against liberalism in general. These have won him some passionate adherents, including the Van Zant brothers, who wrote a bizarre DeSantis propaganda anthem that was played on the show.

More importantly, DeSantis’s Fox & Friends appearance gave him a platform to rail against Disney, Florida’s largest employer, for publicly speaking out against “Don’t Say Gay” legislation he signed into law that allows parents to sue teachers who bring up gender or sexual orientation in K-3 classrooms.

*snip*

[Thomas Hurt]

1. This isn't just about one christofascist Gov. This is about a decades long campaign...

by the christofascists to install a one-party, christian theocracy.

[sop]

2. DeSantis is clearly winning the race to be seen as the most primitive Republican in 2024.

Primitivism is the only thing that appeals to his party's base, and he wants to make sure he's the basest candidate running.