While only a handful of Republicans including former President Donald Trump and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley have declared their candidacies, the media has devoted significant amounts of time and resources to trying to doom and gloom one who has not yet entered the race—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
To be fair, DeSantis has spent a lot of time in recent weeks in important primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. With that in mind, one could hardly blame news organizations for wanting to cover those events to let us know what a potential presidential candidate has to say.
But what’s been going on in the press regarding DeSantis is way more than just “reporters” doing their due diligence on a possible presidential aspirant. DeSantis is getting some of the same lopsided treatment most top-tier GOP presidential hopefuls have received from the press in prior election cycles. Except in this particular one the Usual Suspects have kicked it up a notch because they view him as Trump’s biggest threat to the nomination.
And they really, really want Trump to win the nomination because, as they did in 2016, they think he’s unelectable.
More to the point, they and their Democrat allies view DeSantis as a threat to Joe Biden’s presidency.
So we get treated to “blockbuster” stories about how DeSantis eats pudding with his fingers (impeach!) and how he’s allegedly “not a fun and convivial dude” (horrors!) as if they are quality articles that will persuade people on the fence at this point to not support DeSantis.
Even worse is how our intelligence is insulted almost daily by hit pieces like this one from Reuters, which trotted out Never Trumpers like members of the Lincoln Project and senior figures at The Bulwark, painting some of them as “current and former Republican Party operatives” who were hopeful DeSantis could best Trump but whose hopes “are waning” (emphasis mine):
Current and former Republican Party operatives who have spent years trying to banish Donald Trump from American political life say the former president’s 2024 campaign has begun to gain so much steam that they fear he is by far the favorite to become the party’s presidential nominee again.[…]The “Never Trumpers,” some of whom have left the Republican Party but still work to undermine Trump with voters, say their hopes for DeSantis are waning.
They quoted Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen as one of those whose “hopes for DeSantis are waning,” despite that fact that the Lincoln Project has tried to undermine DeSantis as well (more on that in a minute):
Some have effectively given up.”If we could stop Trump becoming the nominee, we would do that. But he’s going to be the nominee,” said Reed Galen, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a prominent anti-Trump group of current and former Republicans.
They also quoted Sarah Longwell, pointing out that she’s a “Republican strategist” but without noting that she’s the publisher of The Bulwark, which is not just anti-Trump but also anti-DeSantis:
“By defending him on the indictment, DeSantis becomes a supporting cast member in the central drama of Donald Trump. That makes him look weaker, not stronger,” said Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and longtime Trump critic.Longwell cautioned that Trump’s dominance could fade, but added: “It could be that DeSantis just doesn’t have it, that he doesn’t have the political talent.
Bulwark views DeSantis as the equivalent of Trump ‘without the baggage,’ which Longwell alluded to in her quote to Reuters. Strangely, we’re supposed to give serious consideration to her opinion as a “Republican strategist” even though her site and writers have made clear they don’t like either potential Republican candidate.
What Reuters also failed to note is how the Lincoln Project has a similar view of DeSantis, which is why they’ve also targeted him with negative ads and social media campaigns designed to make him look like he’s worse in their view than Trump.
Reuters also conveniently left out that the Lincoln Project not only does not want DeSantis to be the GOP nominee, but that they’ve openly admitted that they very much do want Trump as the nominee.
Relatedly, here’s what co-founder Rick Wilson said about DeSantis just two weeks ago while speaking at a swanky Democrat event in Florida:
“Make no mistake, Ron DeSantis is the most dangerous Republican governor in the country. He is an autocrat. He is a bully. He is a punk. He is a thug. And as I said earlier, he has a voice that’s the mansplaining voice of every woman’s first husband,” Wilson said. “You guys have a lot of work to do, not just in Florida, but across the country. Democrats need to learn a couple of simple rules to win in 2024.”[…]“When you look at a guy like DeSantis, the establishment, for a minute, thought he’s Trump without all the rough edges. He’s Trump without all the problems,” Wilson said. “No, he’s much worse. He’s Trump with more discipline. He’s Trump with people around him who are smarter and more evil.”
So why would Reuters push a piece that quotes “GOP strategists” who hate DeSantis and yet portray them as people whose “hopes are waning” that he’ll win the nomination?
For the same reason Politico ran a hit piece last week in which they noted that former GOP Congresssman Dave Trott (R-Mich.) thinks DeSantis is “an asshole” (all because he didn’t like rubbing elbows that much with politicos during his time in Congress) without also reporting that Trott infamously endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 as part of the “Republicans and Independents for Biden” campaign.
They want to manipulate voters and in the process create a “rally-around effect” for Trump, which to some extent has been successful as the goals of the media, Democrats, “Never Trumpers,” and “Only Trump” types appear to have converged at least for the time being, albeit for very different reasons.
But as Professor Jacobson previously pointed out, voters should be wary of the traps being set by people who literally have a heavily vested interest in seeing their preferred candidate stick around as long as possible.
Try as they might, the media can’t quit Trump. Democrats don’t want to, and the Lincoln Project needs him because he’s good for their cash machine.
Republican voters should keep all of this in mind when they’re considering who to support in the presidential primaries next year. They shouldn’t let the media, talking heads, and supposedly respectable “GOP strategists” who are getting paid very handsomely for what they’re saying effectively make their decisions for them. Instead, make judgments about candidates based on not just listening to them but researching their records and seeing what their accomplishments are.
In short, do your homework and ignore the corporate press and their willing accomplices as much as you can. Because after all they’ve done to earn voter distrust over the years, no one should give them the satisfaction of complying. Not now, not ever.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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