Goodbye, Ron DeSantis, the Trump Lite no-one asked for

So. Farewell, then, Ron DeSantis, briefly a candidate in the 2024 US presidential election, and now just plain old governor of Florida again. You came, you saw — well, OK, you stood on tippy-toes and craned your neck but absolutely did not resort to wearing high heels, no sir — and now you’re slinking back to America’s Queensland to continue your quixotic “war on woke” in peace. Yes, after eight months, at least US$53 million, 20 minutes of dead air, 23,420 votes and one solitary caucus, this week Ron DeSantis called an end to his attempt to garner the Republican nomination for the upcoming election.

Back in the early days of his campaign, backers billed DeSantis as “Trump without the drama”. Like DeSantis’s candidacy as a whole, this doubtless looked great on paper to those GOP kingmakers who were fine with Trump’s policies but found the man himself insufferably vulgar. Sure, DeSantis’ entire policy platform, such as it was, amounted to nothing more than quadrupling down to the “war on woke” he’s been waging in Florida — but then, American conservatives have a curious fondness for declaring war on abstract nouns.

Unfortunately for DeSantis, however, it turns out that people rather like the drama. The drama is what makes Trump palatable. Without it… well, if you could somehow take Donald Trump and subtract everything that makes him Donald Trump — the hair, the makeup, the lawsuits, the burgers, the occasional propensity to shout the quiet part from the rooftops, the laugh-despite-yourself verbal pyrotechnics and the nascent fascism — you’d end up with a decidedly unpleasant and mean-spirited man who no-one really likes.

In other words, you end up with Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis never really managed to escape the idea that he was Trump Lite — and the thing is, why would anyone choose Trump Lite when the real thing is on offer? Voters who are deeply troubled by trans people being allowed to live in peace or refugees being treated like human beings already have a ready-made Presidential candidate. His name is Donald Trump. Why would they bother with a weird, somewhat effete dude from Florida? Frankly, if you’re going to hand over the reins of your country to someone who’s essentially a fascist, that someone might as well at least be funny.

Someone very well-versed in the ins and outs of politics once told me over lunch that there are essentially two types of politicians: those who connect with people and those who don’t. The inability to make such connections isn’t in itself an obstacle to gaining power — there are plenty of ways to wield influence that don’t involve kissing babies and pressing the flesh. But when a politician who falls into the latter category is placed in a situation that requires the former, the results are almost inevitably terrible for the politician in question.

So it went with DeSantis. Sure, his, um, idiosyncratic personality didn’t prevent him from gaining the governorship of Florida — but then, we’re talking about a state that has also elected such luminaries as Jeb Bush and Rick Scott. He could have stayed in Florida and kept happily victimising LGBTQIA+ people, chasing large employers out of town, banning picture books, and generally making an arse of himself in a state that seems to welcome its governor doing so.

But no. Ron wanted more. Unfortunately for him, once he was on the federal stage, his fundamental weirdness quickly became first evident, and then problematic. Why does he eat pudding with his hands? Why can’t he smile or laugh like a normal human? Why does he keep misquoting Winston Churchill? Why? Why is he like this? Where does the GOP find these people??

Mercifully, DeSantis has had little reason to smile or laugh for the last few weeks: he’s been a forlorn figure, his candidacy clearly a busted flush even before his catastrophic showing in Iowa. Had Trump bothered to turn up for the Republican debates, he doubtless would have made a piñata of the man once seen as the future of the GOP. But perhaps the most damning assessment of DeSantis — and his fellow hopefuls — is that Trump hasn’t even had to get his hands dirty. Even the swipes he’s taken at DeSantis have been second-tier, at best: I mean, “Ron DeSanctimonious”? Clearly The Donald hasn’t been feeling particularly threatened. He’s essentially seen off DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy et al by force of personality alone.

And so, after kissing the ring, DeSantis is left to return to Florida and count the cost — both literal and metaphorical — of a campaign that has proven to be an unmitigated disaster. Not only has it cost him a shot at the White House, it has also loosened his once unshakeable hold on the GOP in his home state. He may or may not retain the state’s governorship, and if he doesn’t, he only has himself to blame. In seeking the presidency, he has gambled everything and lost.

In his book The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill recalled assuming the prime ministership as follows: “I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.” It’s a passage that DeSantis would no doubt have loved to misquote at his inauguration. In the event, however, it appears that even destiny has concluded that he’s kind of a twat. So it goes.