Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proved to most voters who have flirted with his presidential candidacy that one cannot be so boring that one induces sleep and manage to maintain presidential status. Even his position farther out on the right-wing than Trump cannot make up for his unique form of vapidness. And those odd attempts at spontaneous smiling and laughing make the process of camaraderie seem unnatural, as if he were an extraterrestrial trying to fit in on Halloween night. All he’s accomplished is to prove he does not fit any puzzle space known to humankind. He may as well be from Mars, then he’d be an object of universal excitement, until, of course, we realized he was a fascist space alien, of course.
He wanted the presidency so much, too. He felt that he could out-fascist the entire GOP primary field. He made a bold attempt, but perhaps he proved something else: pure unadulterated fascism doesn’t play well even to the portions of the Fascista MAGA. That provides hope to the rest of us that perhaps DeSantis was the high water mark of American Modern Day Fascism. So this louse bag of lost charisma has some redeeming value in his deflated presidential run, which, note, he has not yet abandoned.
Nonetheless, DeSantis, in his noticeable loneliness on the campaign trail, must have been beaten down by the constant reminders of his leadership failings. None more than by Trump, who hounds him whenever his name appears for more than 30-seconds of air time. Trump is heartlessly relentless, and there is no gag order in place to restrain him in the political space.
So, poor Ron DeSantis. One may imagine he may be visited around 3 o’clock on Halloween morning by a dream that only Trump could inspire. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.” Indeed.
