TRUMP, DE SANTIS AND THE DANGERS OF BLIND LOYALTY DAVID CATRON
https://spectator.org/trump-desantis-and-the-dangers-of-blind-loyalty/
“In 2024, we have a country to save. Any Republican who fails to vote simply because his candidate didn’t win the GOP presidential nomination is, for all intents and purposes, voting for Joe Biden and the corrupt regime he “leads.” Does anyone reading this really want that on his conscience?”
Now that Ron DeSantis has entered the race for the GOP presidential nomination, former President Trump and many of his supporters have accused the Florida governor of disloyalty. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, for example, has suggested that DeSantis’ political ambitions have caused him to lose sight of “values like loyalty.” The basis for this claim is that DeSantis somehow owes Trump a 21st century version of feudal fealty because the latter endorsed him during Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial race. This kind of nonsense plays into the hands of the Democrats.
President Biden is already portraying “MAGA Republicans” as a threat to democracy and any aversion to genuine competition between candidates during the GOP primaries reinforces that canard. Moreover, Trump’s petty personal attacks on DeSantis make the former president appear weak and many of his policy criticisms of the Sunshine State’s governor sound like Democratic talking points. He has claimed, for example, that New York’s disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo did a better job than DeSantis on COVID-19 policy. The latter responded to this risible assertion in an interview with the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro:
First of all, Florida had less excess mortality than California or New York. Part of that is because states like California had excess mortality derived from the lockdown policy, which is really, really avoidable mortality. But if he thinks Cuomo handled it better, that’s an indication if something like this were to happen again, he would double down and do what he did in March of 2020. That was a difficult situation. We didn’t have all the facts … but we all have to sit here today in 2023, look back on March of 2020 and say, Faucism was wrong. Faucism was destructive.
DeSantis also noted that Trump awarded “America’s doctor” a Presidential Commendation in January of 2021, well after leading public health experts had raised serious concerns about the efficacy of the lockdowns that Fauci so fiercely advocated. Is it “disloyal” for DeSantis to point out such inconvenient facts? If so, the Republican Party needs more disloyalty. Regardless of how unfairly Trump was treated by the deep state and the corporate media after his 2016 victory, the GOP doesn’t owe him its presidential nomination. It doesn’t matter how good a president he was, far too much is at stake in 2024 to indulge his personal grievances.
The country can’t afford a second Biden term and most Americans know it, according to a new CNN poll. As CNN’s Jake Tapper lamented, “Two-thirds of all the American people surveyed, 66 percent of the public, say that a Biden victory would either be a setback or a disaster for the United States.” This means the GOP can make Biden a one-term president, but they must offer the voters a nominee with a positive vision and coherent plan for converting it to reality. Trump still enjoys a big lead in polls but DeSantis has more money and his super PAC, Never Back Down, is far ahead in organizing his ground game. The New York Times reports:
The group is already taking on many tasks often reserved for the campaign itself: securing endorsements in early primary states, sending mailers, organizing on campuses, running television ads, raising small donations for the campaign in an escrow account and working behind the scenes to build crowds for the governor’s events. Hiring is underway in 18 states and officials said plans were in the works to assemble various pro-DeSantis coalitions, such as for voters who are veterans or those focused on issues like abortion, guns or agriculture.
In the current political environment, it is this kind of organization that separates the sheep from the goats. Ad hominem attacks for “disloyalty” or goofy nicknames like “Ron Desanctimonious” won’t cut it. Moreover, despite the Twitter glitches that dominated the corporate media coverage of DeSantis’ campaign launch, anyone who heard his answers to specific policy questions will have noticed that he doesn’t deal in vague generalities. He doesn’t say things like, “It’s going to be terrific.” He has an excellent command of the issues and knows how to articulate what he believes and how to convert his beliefs into action.
None of this will protect DeSantis from the inevitable attacks by the Democrats and the corporate media if he wins the GOP nomination. As Jeffrey Lord has pointed out in The American Spectator, “As presidential nominee, the Florida governor would be trashed just like Trump has been.” Moreover, there is a real possibility that some of Trump’s most loyal supporters will simply sit out the election if he isn’t the nominee. Therein lies the real danger of blind loyalty. Trump deserves loyalty. He was an excellent president, despite the perfidy of the deep state, the machinations of the Democrats, and the mendacity of the media.
Yet, as DeSantis frequently says, “There is no substitute for victory.” In 2024, we have a country to save. Any Republican who fails to vote simply because his candidate didn’t win the GOP presidential nomination is, for all intents and purposes, voting for Joe Biden and the corrupt regime he “leads.” Does anyone reading this really want that on his conscience?
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