Richard Nixon might have lacked anything we would call charisma, but he was our first successful culture warrior. His positions on school integration, drug use, and anti-war demonstrations sound a lot like predecessors of DeSantis’ war on wokeness. They worked, too; DeSantis, whose gruff, standoffish personality somewhat resembles his, is undoubtedly hoping for a similar result.
There are two major differences between the two, however. First of all, Nixon had vast experience dealing with other, more compelling issues; the culture war thing was just an opportunistic add-on to an already full resume. By contrast, we have little idea of where DeSantis stands on the genuinely important issues of the day. Nixon also made some token efforts to unite the country, because he knew it was part of the job. DeSantis won’t do that; he will just feed red meat to reactionaries and oppress everyone else.