Looks Like Ron DeSantis Could Turn Into Trump's Personal Nightmare

[Zorro]

DeSantis, once the former president’s longtime ally, might emerge as a monster of Trump’s own making when it comes to 2024.

Donald Trump’s mounting discord with Florida governor Ron DeSantis is increasingly spilling out into the open. The former president and his erstwhile protege have recently taken public swipes at each other over pandemic-related issues, quips that are perhaps the beginning of an anticipated showdown between the two Republicans over their 2024 intentions. As the New York Times notes, Trump seemed to be taking direct aim at DeSantis when, in an interview released last week, he criticized politicians who refuse to say whether or not they have received a coronavirus booster shot as “gutless.” (DeSantis dodged that question last month.) Days later, in an interview for a conservative podcast, DeSantis threw it right back, saying that not speaking out “much louder” against Trump’s pandemic response was one of his biggest regrets in office.

While the relationship between DeSantis and Trump has reportedly been strained for some time, their tension has largely played out in private. Now, with the midterm elections looming and the 2024 line-up taking shape, DeSantis, who is up for reelection this year, seems to be establishing himself as someone unafraid to take on the man who helped make him. That he is doing so over COVID-19 restrictions, the Times reports, speaks to “how far Republicans have shifted to the right on coronavirus politics,” and positions Trump “uncharacteristically out of step with the hard-line elements of his party’s base.” DeSantis’ COVID response in many ways follows an anti-science playbook set in motion by Trump, who now, with even his lukewarm defense of vaccines, is perhaps no longer extreme enough for his own movement. “DeSantis may or may not actually be more delusional on COVID than Donald Trump,” New York’s Jonathan Chait recently wrote. “But it is a revealing commentary on the state of their party that he sees his best chance to supplant Trump as positioning himself as even crazier.”

DeSantis has not said whether he plans to run for president in 2024 but is considered a likely contender, and unlike other Trump disciples, he has not said that he won’t run if Trump does. (“The magic words,” as Trump has reportedly put it to associates and advisers.) The lack of deference has raised questions for the former president. “I wonder why the guy won’t say he won’t run against me,” Trump has said to several associates and advisers, according to the Times. But DeSantis has told friends that he thinks Trump’s “expectation that he bend the knee is asking too much,” the Times reports.

That DeSantis may not be tailoring his political ambitions to Trump’s is a threat Trump seems to be trying to get out in front of. The former president has criticized DeSantis as someone with “no personal charisma” and a “dull personality,” Axios reported over the weekend. It’s not the first time Trump has tried to tamp down DeSantis, who has increasingly emerged as a monster of Trump’s own making. “He’s Trump but a little smarter, more disciplined and brusque without being too brusque,” Republican donor Dan Eberhart told the Times, calling DeSantis “a formidable 2024 candidate in the Trump lane should Trump not run.” Trump has laid claim to DeSantis by reminding journalists and supporters of the impact his endorsement had on the Florida congressman in 2017. “Look, I helped Ron DeSantis at a level that nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said in an interview for a forthcoming book by the Times’ Jeremy Peters, emphasizing his belief that DeSantis “didn’t have a chance” of winning the governor’s mansion without his support.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/01/ron-desantis-donald-trump-2024

Who will emerge as King Rat in the Republican bag of rats?

[luv2fly]

1. Saves us the energy

Let them tear each other apart.

[samsingh]

2. like any would-be emperor - trump may find that deathsantis is his brutus

[Skittles]

3. the establishment wants DeSantis

if he wins the nomination, TRUMP WILL CRUSADE AGAINST HIM

I SALIVATE AT THE THOUGHT