Ron DeSantis Sad Trombones His Way Out of the Presidential Race

The GOP is Sad

Before we eulogize the doomed Presidential campaign of Ron DeSantis, can we take a moment to marvel at the fact that the Republican party has been unable to find anyone who can legitimately challenge a nearly 78-year-old twice-impeached, historically unpopular former President facing 91 criminal charges? The GOP lost in 2018, 2020, and 2022 because Donald Trump was the face of the party, and the party is still going to trot him out because they’re all scared of a man who spends much of his day ALL CAPS yelling gibberish on a social media site that he owns and that is even more unpopular than Twitter. Sad.

I acknowledge and appreciate that Joe Biden is not blowing the guy out of the water, but Biden was the right person in 2020, and tradition dictates that he gets to run unopposed in 2024 (give or take a Dean Phillips). It says something sad about the American people that, despite record-low unemployment and a record-high stock market, they’re even considering voting for the other guy. It’s because half the country has become susceptible to manipulation and conspiracy and because voters no longer make decisions based on the qualifications of a candidate.

The GOP, at least, decides based on who can be the biggest bully, and as hard as Ron DeSantis tried to compete, he could not out-bully a man largely detached from reality. Ron DeSantis seemed like the right candidate on paper when Fox News was looking for a competent, coherent alternate to Trump with similar beliefs, but DeSantis began to lose as soon as he began appearing on national television. The GOP didn’t reject him because he lacks intelligence — that’s apparently an asset — but because he looked unnatural when he spoke and even more unnatural when he laughed. He also couldn’t think of a good nickname to give Donald Trump, and everyone knows that the guy who makes up the meanest nickname wins the GOP primary.

DeSantis didn’t even try to challenge Trump. Like Ted Cruz and so many others before him, he allowed Trump to humiliate and emasculate him without challenge. They’re all cowards, and I might have understood that if they were running against a popular, competent individual who could speak in complete sentences and spell “ludicrous,” but they’re scared of a man who does most of his campaigning from the toilet every morning.

So it goes. DeSantis endorsed Trump on his way out because that’s what they all do because they also lack pride and self-respect. DeSantis did take a shot at Nikki Haley on the way out, saying that the GOP can’t “go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear — a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents." DeSantis pulled out two days before the New Hampshire primary as a sort of “fuck you” to Haley because he believes his votes will go to Trump.

That may be true if DeSantis voters were looking for a more palatable version of Trump. But it may prove otherwise if DeSantis voters were looking for a reason not to vote for Trump. At the very least, New Hampshire is a one vs. one race, so we’ll know how well Haley can do once the field has been cleared. I wouldn’t count on much — Haley still hasn’t conjured up a nickname for Trump that will stick while the Pavlovian racists in the GOP salivate every time he calls her by her birth name, Nimarata.

Either way, I think this is the last we’ll see of Ron DeSantis on the national stage, in 2028 or otherwise. Maybe he makes a run for Senate, but his presidential ambitions have been shot because he has no idea how to communicate, connect, or engage with real people. RIP Meatball Ron’s campaign.