Throughout my lifetime, the Reaganite view of the state has prevailed among GOP voters. This involves reducing the size of the federal government (the military excepted) to the maximum extent possible in order to increase individual freedom and economic growth. Some of the lesser 2024 presidential candidates still subscribe to this view. The two most important candidates, however, do not.
Ron DeSantis only believes in his kind of freedom for his kind of people. He wants to expand the powers of the federal government (the executive branch in particular) in order to crush wokeness, not to expand opportunity or reduce inequality. You could call his vision of the state the dictatorship of the unwoke. Trump, on the other hand, sees the federal government as a prize which, once won, is his personal property–hence, his attitude towards public records. As far as he’s concerned, after he is elected, he has the right to do whatever he wants in office, regardless of the law and constitutional norms. It is an attitude typically identified with divine right rulers–Caligula and Louis XIV, not Washington and Jefferson.
Which of these three visions of the state will prevail in 2024? That’s really what the primaries will be about.