It can be hard to remember now, but for the first two years of his term, Ron DeSantis was an innocuous, forgettable governor. He didn’t hate government or state employees, like Rick Scott. He actually appeared to care a bit about water quality. His initial responses to the pandemic were within the mainstream, even if he seemed to put more emphasis on protecting the elderly, who were members of his political base, over other at-risk groups. So what happened?
I think the poorly researched story accusing him of corruption in the pandemic, and the response from his base, was his a-ha moment. He went from imposing his will on businesses and governments over masks to fighting for the interests of the unvaccinated to questioning the value of the vaccine. He then took the next step and started using the power of state government to roll back the constitutional rights of his critics–turning tweets into legislation, you could say. Now he is flying refugees at state expense to Martha’s Vineyard. What’s next?
DeSantis will be running for president, either in 2024 or 2028, as America’s most rigorous proponent of Orbanization. It is up to Florida’s voters to make it clear that Orbanization is not a political winner for the GOP.