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Ever since Donald Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in 2020, the media-sphere surrounding Trump, such as Fox News, NewsMax, and smaller, yet arguably as influential media like The Daily Wire and it's orbiters, have been in something of an ideological tailspin.
In the wake of January 6th, as well as the Red Wave that never came to fruition, the
far right-leaning media infrastructure that was instrumental in electing Donald Trump was faced with a serious problem. The barely sentient political wrecking ball that they funded, promoted, and breathlessly defended, whose entire image was based around the concept of
winning, was now a loser. Not just any loser, but a twice impeached presidential election loser, as well as a loser of political recommendations and promotion, as the lack of Red Wave was blamed on Trumps chosen candidates from almost every source of journalism and media, including the infrastructure that propped up his candidacy to begin with. These scenarios do not take into account the myriad of other indefensible actions committed by not only Trump himself, but his entire administration during what I like to refer to as the "Four Year Headache".
Trump is what he always was: A loser, a narcissist, a self absorbed man child that turned out to be a useful idiot for forwarding the agendas of a powerful billionaire class that had no interest in including him in that class status. He was able, through sheer self marketing and foreign adversarial assistance, to re-package the wants and needs of the richest people in the world in a way that the poorest people in the world could identify with, would argue for,
and defend as if those wants and needs weren't actively suppressing their own lifestyles. In other words, he was great at pointing fingers and assinging blame for percieved cultural slights, but rarely did that finger pointing escalate into presidential action.
Basically, the Trump tactic of dealing with the liberals didn't work, Trump can't win, he can't pick winners, and even Fox is sick of going to bat for a guy who used a sharpie on a NOAA map to try and change the path of a hurricane.
So, whats left? What does a gargantuan media machine like the Fox universe and its directly orbiting organizations do, when the single man that they spent *billions of dollars* promoting, comes out the other side as an utterly unmanageable, unremarkable, unmitigated political blast zone?
Well, you find a different, smarter, less risky calf to place your bets on.
You don't have to take my word for it, Fox made an entire announcement:
"The biggest winner of the midterm elections was, without a doubt, Governor Ron DeSantis, whose landslide victory in the state of Florida was breathtaking.
The biggest loser? Donald Trump, whose handpicked loyalist candidates in a number of races struggled to beat vulnerable Democrats. Once again, the former president may have cost Republicans control of the Senate, in a year when it was theirs to lose. Many will conclude, on the basis of the midterm 2022 results, that the Republican Party is ready to move on, without Donald Trump as its leader."
When a media magnate like Rupert Murdoch is finished promoting you, your career as a republican politician is over.
If you've been paying attention to the modern political climate post 2016, then you will have a general idea of Desantis and the clever political position he put himself in,
as not just an early Trump supporter and MAGA rhetoric adopter, but using that position to gain notoriety as being one of the Republican parties true hardliners.
Desantis is a safer bet for every person, organization and media machine that has a vested interest in continuing the MAGA ideology into the 2024 presidency.
He has taken aim at all of the same political adversaries that MAGA made enemies out of, as well as leading the charge on culture war issues such as education, race, sex and a slew of others that are popular talking points in the conservative media sphere. Being a considerably more professional and well spoken individual than Trump ever could have dreamed of being, as well as having lightyears more experience being a politician that knows the ins and outs of how to move a ship as massive as the United States, the potential outcomes of a Desantis administration could be catastrophic.
So lets take a look at Ron Desantis, the policies he's pushing as Governor of Florida, why the MAGA media ecosystem likes him so much, and what that would look like should he take the presidency.
From flagrant disregard of safety protocols during a global pandemic, to questionable legislation giving favor to people who run over protestors with their cars, to aligning with the SCOTUS anti-abortion decision, to trafficking migrants across the country as a political stunt, to banning the teaching of CRT (a subject not taught in grades 1-12), to requesting that high schools record information regarding girls periods, as well as college students that have sought out treatment for gender dysphoria, to scamming people into voting in order to create indictments for "election fraud", Ron Desantis is a doer.
Unlike his predecessor, whose preferred method of messaging was tweeting as outrageously as humanly possible at ungodly hours of the night with promises to deal with conservative woes with an iron fist, Desantis has the experience and understanding of political power that lends itself to creating real life consequences for the perceived cultural slights of the MAGA movement. Rather than virtue signaling and relying on red-faced and breathlessly angry pundits on right wing media, Desantis effectively garners support from Floridians using extraordinarily refined and pointed propaganda attacking all the same enemies created by Trump, but delivered in a way that is considerably less abrasive, with less name calling, more political poise, and most importantly, the legislative know how to back it up.
Beyond the bureaucracy, Desantis has an image and reputation that his parties predecessor cannot possibly go toe to toe with. A graduate of both Yale University, Harvard Law School, as well as a veteran of the US Navy where he participated in programs that worked directly with prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, his past ticks all the boxes for what MAGA claims to respect, which will undoubtedly assist greatly in his aspirations the closer we get to 2024.
To put it bluntly, Ron Desantis is the Fascist that Donald Trump desperately wanted to be. He has the image, the marketing, the message,and the most important component of all: political experience. Real political experience. The kind of political experience that gives him the knowledge on how to fundamentally change Democracy, or attack it efficiently. The type of political experience that Hillary had, when she was being lambasted for being an "establishment politician".
Funny how that works.
As the rollercoaster that is the United States heads upwards towards its next inevitable drop, I can't help but feel that the concern around Desantis is being severely underplayed by the media. Attacks on right to protest, right to gender affirming care for adults, attacks on voting, women, immigrants, black/hispanic people, and his most recent decision to implement a state board that will make decisions for a private company , every single move he is making is designed to attack, deflect, manipulate, or otherwise fan the flames of pointless culture war issues in order to drive voters. Like a typical fascist, he's using these attacks against minority groups and Democratic institutions as a show of force to represent to his voters the same concept that gained Donald Trumps popularity: There are Americans, and there are Others. Those "Others" are not Americans, and those Americans are sick and tired of the "Others".
After all, only "Real Americans" should have any say in how this country is run.
Strap in. We aren't ready for whats coming.
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