The DeSantis Playbook: A Dangerous Game

This mean season, Gov. Ron DeSantis is clinging hard to one bucking MAGA bronco while keeping his boots in the stirrups at the culture war rodeo.

There’s lots of swag on sale and plenty of time and money in the bank until the 2022 Florida midterms and 2024 election. Hot on the sales rack: “Make America Florida,” “Don’t Fauci My Florida” and “How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with my mask on?” The DeSantis flag – $14.99 on Amazon.com – looks just like the Trump flag, except the DeSantis version has three stars on the bottom and the Trump's has five stars on top.

As the delta variant roars through with Florida (6.5% of the nation's population) providing 19% of the country’s COVID case as of deadline, there is counter merchandise and comic folly in the other corner, too. Examples: “Governor DeSatan,” “Ron DeathSantis,” “DeSantisize Florida” and “Don’t Fascist My Florida.” Esquire political writer Charlie Pierce has dubbed DeSantis “Prince Variant.”

So, yes, it’s a hoot. Except, of course, it isn’t. And clever words alone don’t rake in bucks.

Just as Trump secured national political traction a decade ago as “the birther guy” for promoting the big lie that President Barack Obama was really Kenyan, mini-Trump's new self-appointed “Celebrity Governor Apprentice” act has branded him before the world as the “anti-mask mandate guy” on Fox News, calling local restrictions “medical authoritarianism” and “the most significant threat to freedom in my lifetime, certainly since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

DeSantis even dug his spurs into the horse’s flesh by using the state’s power to threaten school districts that defy him, with the withholding of state funding.

None dare call this conservative. That is so 1964. Just think: Big government in Tallahassee sanctions smaller government for taking public safety measures to determine what’s best for you and your children. You could call that medical authoritarianism or a nanny state.

None dare call it democracy, either. That, too, is a passé “Democrat Party” term. Today’s watchword is freedom.

Let's remember that DeSantis authored the conservative 2011 Tea Party manifesto and ode to federalism “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama.” The title was a play on Obama’s bestselling memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” It helped get DeSantis elected to the House in 2012 and got him a spot on the Freedom Caucus.

The governor's manner, while prickly, is far more pleasing than Trump’s, but he tends not to stray from the MAGA playbook, all the way to the Trumpian jerky accordion hand gestures, the resolute scowl that looks peevish, the performative bullying of Rebekah Jones of the state’s COVID-19 website – complete with a raid on her house. And let’s not forget highly the questionable voter-suppression and anti-demonstration legislation. That’s the GOP franchise these days. It pleases the base and raises money.

DeSantis throws some meat to the middle – an OK environmental record with the Everglades and the red tide – a must in this tourism state. He provided $1,000 bonus checks to teachers, but they are still underpaid and overworked. He made some defensible early COVID-19 moves, such as making vaccines available early for those over age 65 and did a far better job with nursing homes than Andrew Cuomo in New York – yesterday’s hero.

That middle is where elections are decided. For 2022, DeSantis has more than a sporting chance. As a Yale scholar-athlete from Dunedin High School, outfielder DeSantis batted .336 for Old Eli his senior year. Like any good baseball player, he plays the percentages.

And why not? There’s money in culture wars, big lies and the profitable right-wing infotainment complex of Fox, OAN, Newsmax, talk radio and the podcast world, with lucrative ads, clicks, algorithmic rabbit holes and hissing polls accepting PayPal. Incidentally, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has met with DeSantis and is a big funder and angel investor of sorts for MAGA 2022 Republican candidates.

Thiel, a libertarian disruptor lately of Silicon Valley and freshly decamped to Miami Beach, has long held the belief that freedom and democracy are incompatible, and that the current system of checks and balances wore out its usefulness long ago. He has suggested it is time for government to explore new efficiencies.

The Republican Party would seem to agree, with its dual strategies of unleashing capitalistic animal spirits and solidifying a national franchise of voter suppression, disinformation narratives and gerrymandering – particularly in purple states with Republican legislative locks, like Florida and Wisconsin.

First, there is money to be raised, and DeSantis is raking it in as one must in a state with 10 media markets. According to Politico, he hauled in $4 million in July for his 2022 gubernatorial PAC, swelling his coffers to $40 million, with his more robust Democratic challengers – ex-Gov. Charlie Crist and Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried – well behind. While his polling numbers have levitated downward into the mid-40s, they can always bob back up.

Trump, not running for anything just yet but “we’ll see what happens,” raised $50.5 million in the first half of 2021 and had $101.9 million in his PAC. He is thereby positioning himself as a kingmaker while taking his Mussolini shtick back on the road. He’s coming to the BB&T arena in Sunrise, Fla., Dec. 11 with America’s Dutch uncle Bill O’Reilly, at $100 a pop.

Politico points to a big shift in DeSantis’ fundraising to small donors, with a July influx of more than 17,000 mostly online contributions of $100 or less, and average contributions of $233. That's a lot of PayPal clicks. Before July, his average contribution was $8,000.

So what’s the agenda? And how would DeSantis govern as president? The tricky business is how to handle Trump. Dotty as he may be, he absolutely wields power in the Republican Party with his 74 million votes. He is almost certainly the most discussed creature in history and was polled last December as the most admired man in America, according to Gallup, edging out Obama by one point at 19%. Perhaps the graceful thing would be to promote Trump as the GOP’s Grand Ayatollah, with DeSantis, say, as CEO. It is all low-rent Shakespeare.

Making America Florida again carries its own allure, with fine weather, no state tax, Fox News chyrons running beneath Tucker Carlson at the tiki bar, cheeseburgers in paradise, and recreational and social opportunities like golf, tennis, pickleball, Zumba and yoga. This is the nirvana of The Villages extolled in Brian Kelly’s book, “Ron DeSantis: The Best United States Governor,” free on Amazon Prime.

Providence may have other ideas. The June 24 Champlain Towers South collapse ushered in our 2021 mean season early and the season has gotten meaner. Temperatures hit 90 in northern Lapland and the Arctic seas reflected the sun for the first time in hundreds of thousands of years. The United Nations Aug. 9 climate report issued stark warnings of borrowed time, and the University of Miami’s Harold Wanless figures the UN underestimated sea-level rise by about half.

Local governments envision a future of high-rise units atop parking, linked by Disney-like monorails above flooded streets. The current wave of megadevelopment bears all the signs of last call at the Florida tiki bar.

In the shorter term, Republicans can put spackle and primer over the MAGA rage and consider a 2024 presidential ticket with DeSantis looking to South Carolina, with Sen. Tim Scott or former Gov. Nicki Haley as running mates. Call it the “opportunity ticket,” exploit your diversity bona fides and play to the middle.

Meanwhile, DeSantis can grab those reins, tame that MAGA bronco and ride it to greater safety, or gallop onward to a place we know not whither – unless the horse throws him off first.