Trump Was Breitbart, DeSantis Is Infowars

[kpete]

Philip Bump: “Trump was willing to be the voice of the fringe. He was willing to parrot it back to the base, what they were hearing on Breitbart, and what they’re hearing on Fox News, in a way that the establishment wouldn’t, right? And that has been his success ever since. He’s been engaging and rallying the far right of the Republican Party that didn’t feel like they had a voice, justifiably, in politics.”

“And that’s what DeSantis is doing as well. He’s really playing to that same far right and he is, in the same way that Donald Trump was Breitbart to the establishments, Fox News in 2016.”

“Now, Breitbart is, you know, almost establishment-esque to some extent, and Ron DeSantis is Infowars, right?”

“I mean, so it is this constant, okay, I’m going to engage where this most fervent element of the base is, and we call that Trumpism, but it’s, you know, really just the fringe, and engaging the fringe has proven to be a successful strategy for winning elections. And I think that’s what DeSantis is doing.”

https://politicalwire.com/2022/08/19/trump-was-breitbart-desantis-is-infowars/
https://www.thebulwark.com/podcast-episode/philip-bump-a-reminder-that-the-russia-hoax-is-a-hoax-2/

[Moostache]

1. As long as 'rank and file' Republicans don't wake up, it will keep working

The media loves a car wreck to rubber neck and cover incessantly. Trump is their heroin dealer. DeSantis will happily fill the same role, but instead of heroin he'll lace everything with Fentanyl and not even blink while doing it.

[JCMach1]

5. The rank and file IS where Trump is... The outliers are on planet Q,

Or whatever comes after.

I watched in 2015 Trump's escalator speech and told my wife right then: there's so the Republican nominee as he was perfectly parroting and vibing with the Republican base.

They aren't waking up... They are too vested in the nightmare.

[pwb]

2. They all add up to a pile of dog shit.

But they still stink after awhile, unlike dog shit.

[Cosmocat]

3. I get the point and agree w the concept

but still feel at this point 45 is 1a and Desantis is 1b.

[Ocelot II]

4. I'm trying to decide whether DeSatan is more evil than TFG or just a different flavor of evil.

[yonder]

7. More brains so more evil. Edit: brains, so more evil

[Ocelot II]

8. More brains means more capable of acting on evil ideas, but I'm still not convinced

that DeSatan's underlying impulses are actually more evil than TFG's; TFG's evil is completely self-centered and venal, while DeSatan seems to be an ideologue supporting an evil ideology. But he might be more competent at being overtly evil.

[yonder]

9. I get your point, thanks.

On the one hand, we generally know what we have, excepting tfg’s ability to descend even more than thought possible, while the new Florida guy, despite already showing his hand, remains largely unknown. We can’t know the future so it becomes evil realized vs. evil potential.

Still, my guess is we will be far worse off if the guy with the brains is given the chance. The trail has been blazed, he's been shown a path and that evil way will overpower ideology.