Ron Desantis might be peaking too early

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

You guys are better off running Youngkin if you want to truly distance yourselves from Trumpism. DeSantis is much closer to Trump than he is to Youngkin.

Youngkin and DeSantis aren’t that different imo and he is my number 2 candidate for 2024 as well . It’s just that he hasn’t been governor long enough yet imo which is why I give DeSantis the edge .

You know neither have a great chance because it's a 303 map, DeSantis never faced the scrutiny a Natl campaign will undertake either from the media, Trump or Biden, and he never lost yet once he start losing primaries his ora of invincibility will be shattered and he will start losing primaries to Trump

Rs want a 20 percent across the board rate cut with Corporate, and inheritance and investment taxes it's not gonna hold up by 2035 everyone even people on 401 K take out SSA and SSA is going bankrupt we need to raise taxes to keep SSA solvent, guess what Corporate taxes are gonna be 50 percent by the time 2/45 roles around we are outliving out Boomer parents because of Anthesisia

It's silly that Rs don't want to raise Corporate taxes that the Koch brothers write because guess what who paid for our stimulus checks Corporations not us the ones we worked for that's why it's adjudicated for disability and unemployment because your employer don't want you taking our Early retirement

Bill Gates said this that taxes gonna be raised he is a D you don't see Koch brothers you only see Rs because tax cuts isn't a reality since we are living longer, we don't know when we are gonna die because technology with anthesis is so advanced that fatal heart attacks or strokes that our parents died from aren't inevitable and they did drug abuse as well and we do less so, they say we can live a century or longer you can work or retire it's your choice

[Del Tachi]

Tell that to nominees Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Mitt Romney.  They all dominated or lead early primary polls in the year before the election

[2016]

Tell that to nominees Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Mitt Romney.  They all dominated or lead early primary polls in the year before the election

Are you still on the Trump Train?

[Del Tachi]

Tell that to nominees Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Mitt Romney.  They all dominated or lead early primary polls in the year before the election

Are you still on the Trump Train?

No I support DeSantis.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Rudy Giuliani led primary polling for the entirety of 2007 and failed primarily because he was a strategic idiot who placed all his chips in Florida.

My take on Tim Pawlenty is similar to my take on Scott Walker except that Tim Pawlenty never even polled well.  Pawlenty never got above 4% and most of the hype was based on his having been considered as a VP nominee in 2008.

In short I don't think any of these comparisons for DeSantis are apt.

Giuliani followed the Florida strategy for the simple reason that his numbers tanked in Iowa and New Hampshire the moment he started campaigning there. He was one of those candidates that the more you see of the less you like.

Pawlenty was the darling of DC press corps. A two-term blue state governor who was in good standing with both wings of the party. But everyone else knew better that the guy had all the charisma of a wet blanket and he floundered in the debates. Michelle Bachmann of all people was the one who did a number on him and he never recovered.

1. Rudy Giuliani was under the gun in late 2007 for a lot of reasons that had far more to do with his personal actions and that of his associates than anything related to campaigning or strategy. His long time political ally in New York Bernie Kerik got into trouble with the law. There were accusations that Rudy had misused funds to carry on a personal affair, while his wife was ill or something salacious of that nature. And then he was out of touch with the GOP base on abortion, guns and immigration.

2. Rudy was not actually collapsing in New Hampshire. Romney had been dominating New Hampshire for months with around 30% of the vote, Rudy had been in the high teens and McCain was right behind him or tied. This only really massively changed, after he pulled out, started railing against the New Hampshire Primary and then he tanked into the single digits.

Even if you doubt my theory as to why Rudy pulled out, the established narrative of him "tanking in the polls in NH, fleeing to Florida" just doesn't hold up according to the most credible polling outfits at the time. At most he ebbed a little, but that was likely more to do with McCain's recovery than to a collapse by Rudy.

3. Pawlenty's major problem was Mitt Romney. They basically occupied the same "boring rich guy who is pushing for the border hawk vote" space.  If Romney doesn't run in 2012, I think Pawlenty actually has a path in that situation.  

[Pericles]

He might be, and he might also not be. This is all entirely baseless conjecture driven largely if not entirely by the personal preferences/wishful thinking of both sides.

Republicans could take a third option-a lot want a more electable nominee than Trump and if DeSantis for whatever reason doesn't look as good in reality as he does on paper, they won't all just flock to Trump.

[Ferguson97]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

You guys are better off running Youngkin if you want to truly distance yourselves from Trumpism. DeSantis is much closer to Trump than he is to Youngkin.

Youngkin and DeSantis aren’t that different imo and he is my number 2 candidate for 2024 as well . It’s just that he hasn’t been governor long enough yet imo which is why I give DeSantis the edge .

Politics is more about vibes than anything else, and IMO Youngkin would have a far easier time convincing swing voters that his extremist policies are actually moderate. Youngkin is a mild-mannered guy in a sweater, DeSantis is a bombastic, nasally-voiced bully who sounds like he's trying to do an impression of Trump.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

What Prez loses at 4 percent unemployment none that's why DeSantis isn't gonna win, period, they Rs not raising taxes and and insolvency of SSA is unsubstanable.

If COVID didn't happen in 20 Trump would of been fav to win reelection , like Biden is now 4 percent unemployment

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Obviously Desantis isn't someone like Walker, but since 08, a large number of front-runners have imploded. Whether it was Paul, Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Giulani, etc. The only exception is Romney and that had more to do with Perry's poor performance.

You really need to examine these contests in terms of lanes or paths. A lot of these candidates we are discussing that collapsed were either jostling for their lane with someone else who had other advantages or their lane was too narrow to be nominated at all to begin with.

I would argue that Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz were all rather unlikely to be the GOP nominees in their cycles because of baked in demographic limits to their paths, and the mood/desired direction of the party after Bush. The GOP wanted to move on from Bush, but they wanted someone more fiscally (and a touch less socially) conservative, more hawkish on the border and more outside of Washington. By 2016, with war weariness reaching into the depths of the GOP as well, a more restrained foreign policy was craved.

Romney's appeal in 2008 was far too narrow to win the nomination and he managed to piss off everyone and their supporters over the course of the contest, ensuring everyone would rather someone else be the nominee and not him.

In some ways it would have been nice if Perry had not collapsed in 2011, because Romney's strategy was to go after him for his comments on social security, Texas secession and of course, Immigration. I can see Romney just obliterating Perry in Florida the same way he nuked Newt there. Romney dominated the establishment by virtue of being "his turn", he had the money behind him and he had the immigration issue as his ace against any base candidate, with the exception of Rick Santorum who surged way too late and once again had far too narrow of a base though he did force Romney to make his tax cut plan more aggressive to win the Michigan primary.

Scott Walker and Chris Christie were never going to be the Tea Party activist candidate because Ted Cruz had a natural advantage over that space and in terms of the opposition to that lane they all preferred to compete with each other and with Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio as well for the remaining sliver of the party that was up for a return to the Bush/McCain years in terms of foreign policy and immigration. That left a massive space for Trump to claw to a plurality lead and no one really competed with him for that space, only attacked him for the positions he took, essentially hardening his base around him.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

He might be peaking, but if he runs there is only two candidates so its not that big of a deal. Its not like there are 20+ candidates like 2019 and if you peak too early its over.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He might be peaking, but if he runs there is only two candidates so its not that big of a deal. Its not like there are 20+ candidates like 2019 and if you peak too early its over.

Peaking too early is more of a factor when their are multiple candidates in a relatively open and competitive process. Here with two rather dominant personalities, any such considerations have to weighed as relative constructs to the other option.

Has Trump already "peaked" in terms of his potential? With a prior President in the mix, it changes the dynamic considerably.

[Landslide Lyndon]

1. Rudy Giuliani was under the gun in late 2007 for a lot of reasons that had far more to do with his personal actions and that of his associates than anything related to campaigning or strategy. His long time political ally in New York Bernie Kerik got into trouble with the law. There were accusations that Rudy had misused funds to carry on a personal affair, while his wife was ill or something salacious of that nature. And then he was out of touch with the GOP base on abortion, guns and immigration.

2. Rudy was not actually collapsing in New Hampshire. Romney had been dominating New Hampshire for months with around 30% of the vote, Rudy had been in the high teens and McCain was right behind him or tied. This only really massively changed, after he pulled out, started railing against the New Hampshire Primary and then he tanked into the single digits.

Even if you doubt my theory as to why Rudy pulled out, the established narrative of him "tanking in the polls in NH, fleeing to Florida" just doesn't hold up according to the most credible polling outfits at the time. At most he ebbed a little, but that was likely more to do with McCain's recovery than to a collapse by Rudy.

3. Pawlenty's major problem was Mitt Romney. They basically occupied the same "boring rich guy who is pushing for the border hawk vote" space.  If Romney doesn't run in 2012, I think Pawlenty actually has a path in that situation.  

You might be right about Giuliani and New Hampshire. But he definitely started imploding in Iowa the moment he set foot there. His positions were well known to most Republicans when he was leading in the polls. I think it's easy to say by now that the guy is a sleazy jerk and with a personality like that it's difficult to thrive in the arena of early state retail politics.

Pawlenty was not a rich guy like Romney. On the contrary, he ran as a working class, populist Republican, with his mullet and Sam's Club shtick. His biggest problem was that he was so booooooring. But people like Cillizza were convinced that he was presidential timber. It was so funny when he dropped out and so many DC pundits were despondent and couldn't explain what went wrong.  

[Agafin]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

You guys are better off running Youngkin if you want to truly distance yourselves from Trumpism. DeSantis is much closer to Trump than he is to Youngkin.

Youngkin and DeSantis aren’t that different imo and he is my number 2 candidate for 2024 as well . It’s just that he hasn’t been governor long enough yet imo which is why I give DeSantis the edge .

Politics is more about vibes than anything else, and IMO Youngkin would have a far easier time convincing swing voters that his extremist policies are actually moderate. Youngkin is a mild-mannered guy in a sweater, DeSantis is a bombastic, nasally-voiced bully who sounds like he's trying to do an impression of Trump.

The problem is that Youngkin could easily be another Romney. Romney did extremely well with republicans and independents. From what I remember he got a better % of republicans than Obama did with democrats and also won independents comfortably, by something like 4 or 5 points. But still lost because of critical turnout issues. He just didn't excite his base like Obama did and so lost.

In modern American politics, you need to turn out the base. Youngkin certainly will appear more moderate, respectable and "presidential" to general election voters but he wouldn't be capable of exciting the republican base. Whereas Desantis obviously will excite the base due to the reasons General McArthur stated. Hell, even Abbott would honestly do better. Youngkin would win 94% of republicans but with a 70% turnout whereas Desantis would win something like 92% of republicans with an 80% turnout. The latter is better.

[Saint Milei]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

In what world were Oz and Walker "Trumpy"? You keep grouping trump-endorsed candidates like the GOP establishment didn't back a majority of the candidates that lost this cycle. Trump endorsements =/= Trumpy candidates. Furthermore, what's also ignored is the fact that incumbents overwhelmingly won in 2022 across the aisle, regardless of what wing of any party they represented. That is conveniently ignored by the moderate wing of the GOP that wants to discard Trump. "Underperformed 2020". It's midterms. Candidates will underperform every year that isn't a presidential year. I never once expected a red wave. You guys did because the media told you. Maybe instead of blaming every "trumpy" candidate we should reassess everything so we don't make a foolish error. This same line of criticism of trump is the same reasoning people used in 2012 to conclude immigration was the reason Romney lost. It clearly wasn't.

As for Desantis, look man, I get it: You like Reagan. He's your guy. Desantis is NOT Reagan. Reagan in 76 and 80 wasn't even your kind of Republican. The dude backed returning to the gold standard which you always criticize me and Ron Paul for (I don't even support returning to the gold standard). The current conditions don't reflect that. Desantis is apart of the America First movement. Comparing him to Reagan or saying we need to go in that direction makes zero sense because you never liked Trump. It makes no sense. Replacing Trump with Trump jr does nothing for the party and it's more likely you and the others who want to replace him want to revert back to the pre-16 Trump GOP. You can say we tried with Trump, but we have tried your model for the GOP and we lost in 08 and 16. We also got Bush in 88, Bush in 00, and Bush in 04, and as a result, created the conditions for Trump and did nothing to improve our standing with an increasingly more diverse country both ethnically and philosophically. Desantis has no answer to this on a national level. Romney had no answer to this on a national level and if we keep painting this as the "Trump bad...Desantis/Youngkin good", you'll just end up being disliked by the rest of the GOP.

I'd also like to point out that Desantis is closer to Lake and Masters ideologically than he is the people you traditionally like. Who else were we supposed to nominate? A John Mccain clone in Arizona that pisses every conservative off? Yeah, totally the Reagan/Desantis model.


Lastly, I don't even know why this has to be stated but Reagan might have won in 80 and 84 and those were successful years for the GOP, but Trump had a larger impact on the GOP than Reagan and it's glaringly obvious at this point.

[Saint Milei]

Obviously Desantis isn't someone like Walker, but since 08, a large number of front-runners have imploded. Whether it was Paul, Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Giulani, etc. The only exception is Romney and that had more to do with Perry's poor performance.

You really need to examine these contests in terms of lanes or paths. A lot of these candidates we are discussing that collapsed were either jostling for their lane with someone else who had other advantages or their lane was too narrow to be nominated at all to begin with.

I would argue that Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz were all rather unlikely to be the GOP nominees in their cycles because of baked in demographic limits to their paths, and the mood/desired direction of the party after Bush. The GOP wanted to move on from Bush, but they wanted someone more fiscally (and a touch less socially) conservative, more hawkish on the border and more outside of Washington. By 2016, with war weariness reaching into the depths of the GOP as well, a more restrained foreign policy was craved.

Romney's appeal in 2008 was far too narrow to win the nomination and he managed to piss off everyone and their supporters over the course of the contest, ensuring everyone would rather someone else be the nominee and not him.

In some ways it would have been nice if Perry had not collapsed in 2011, because Romney's strategy was to go after him for his comments on social security, Texas secession and of course, Immigration. I can see Romney just obliterating Perry in Florida the same way he nuked Newt there. Romney dominated the establishment by virtue of being "his turn", he had the money behind him and he had the immigration issue as his ace against any base candidate, with the exception of Rick Santorum who surged way too late and once again had far too narrow of a base though he did force Romney to make his tax cut plan more aggressive to win the Michigan primary.

Scott Walker and Chris Christie were never going to be the Tea Party activist candidate because Ted Cruz had a natural advantage over that space and in terms of the opposition to that lane they all preferred to compete with each other and with Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio as well for the remaining sliver of the party that was up for a return to the Bush/McCain years in terms of foreign policy and immigration. That left a massive space for Trump to claw to a plurality lead and no one really competed with him for that space, only attacked him for the positions he took, essentially hardening his base around him.

I don't think context matters because these candidates for the most part were all different. That just tells me peaking early gives you a lot of issues and it's better to gradually improve.

[Ferguson97]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

In what world were Oz and Walker "Trumpy"? You keep grouping trump-endorsed candidates like the GOP establishment didn't back a majority of the candidates that lost this cycle. Trump endorsements =/= Trumpy candidates. Furthermore, what's also ignored is the fact that incumbents overwhelmingly won in 2022 across the aisle, regardless of what wing of any party they represented. That is conveniently ignored by the moderate wing of the GOP that wants to discard Trump. "Underperformed 2020". It's midterms. Candidates will underperform every year that isn't a presidential year. I never once expected a red wave. You guys did because the media told you. Maybe instead of blaming every "trumpy" candidate we should reassess everything so we don't make a foolish error. This same line of criticism of trump is the same reasoning people used in 2012 to conclude immigration was the reason Romney lost. It clearly wasn't.

As for Desantis, look man, I get it: You like Reagan. He's your guy. Desantis is NOT Reagan. Reagan in 76 and 80 wasn't even your kind of Republican. The dude backed returning to the gold standard which you always criticize me and Ron Paul for (I don't even support returning to the gold standard). The current conditions don't reflect that. Desantis is apart of the America First movement. Comparing him to Reagan or saying we need to go in that direction makes zero sense because you never liked Trump. It makes no sense. Replacing Trump with Trump jr does nothing for the party and it's more likely you and the others who want to replace him want to revert back to the pre-16 Trump GOP. You can say we tried with Trump, but we have tried your model for the GOP and we lost in 08 and 16. We also got Bush in 88, Bush in 00, and Bush in 04, and as a result, created the conditions for Trump and did nothing to improve our standing with an increasingly more diverse country both ethnically and philosophically. Desantis has no answer to this on a national level. Romney had no answer to this on a national level and if we keep painting this as the "Trump bad...Desantis/Youngkin good", you'll just end up being disliked by the rest of the GOP.

I'd also like to point out that Desantis is closer to Lake and Masters ideologically than he is the people you traditionally like. Who else were we supposed to nominate? A John Mccain clone in Arizona that pisses every conservative off? Yeah, totally the Reagan/Desantis model.


Lastly, I don't even know why this has to be stated but Reagan might have won in 80 and 84 and those were successful years for the GOP, but Trump had a larger impact on the GOP than Reagan and it's glaringly obvious at this point.

You must have a very pessimistic view of the GOP’s chances in 2024 if you seem to dislike all of the possible successors to Trump.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Biden Approvals are going up Rs have zero chance of cracking MI, WI and PA even with DeSantis

[OSR stands with Israel]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

In what world were Oz and Walker "Trumpy"? You keep grouping trump-endorsed candidates like the GOP establishment didn't back a majority of the candidates that lost this cycle. Trump endorsements =/= Trumpy candidates. Furthermore, what's also ignored is the fact that incumbents overwhelmingly won in 2022 across the aisle, regardless of what wing of any party they represented. That is conveniently ignored by the moderate wing of the GOP that wants to discard Trump. "Underperformed 2020". It's midterms. Candidates will underperform every year that isn't a presidential year. I never once expected a red wave. You guys did because the media told you. Maybe instead of blaming every "trumpy" candidate we should reassess everything so we don't make a foolish error. This same line of criticism of trump is the same reasoning people used in 2012 to conclude immigration was the reason Romney lost. It clearly wasn't.

As for Desantis, look man, I get it: You like Reagan. He's your guy. Desantis is NOT Reagan. Reagan in 76 and 80 wasn't even your kind of Republican. The dude backed returning to the gold standard which you always criticize me and Ron Paul for (I don't even support returning to the gold standard). The current conditions don't reflect that. Desantis is apart of the America First movement. Comparing him to Reagan or saying we need to go in that direction makes zero sense because you never liked Trump. It makes no sense. Replacing Trump with Trump jr does nothing for the party and it's more likely you and the others who want to replace him want to revert back to the pre-16 Trump GOP. You can say we tried with Trump, but we have tried your model for the GOP and we lost in 08 and 16. We also got Bush in 88, Bush in 00, and Bush in 04, and as a result, created the conditions for Trump and did nothing to improve our standing with an increasingly more diverse country both ethnically and philosophically. Desantis has no answer to this on a national level. Romney had no answer to this on a national level and if we keep painting this as the "Trump bad...Desantis/Youngkin good", you'll just end up being disliked by the rest of the GOP.

I'd also like to point out that Desantis is closer to Lake and Masters ideologically than he is the people you traditionally like. Who else were we supposed to nominate? A John Mccain clone in Arizona that pisses every conservative off? Yeah, totally the Reagan/Desantis model.


Lastly, I don't even know why this has to be stated but Reagan might have won in 80 and 84 and those were successful years for the GOP, but Trump had a larger impact on the GOP than Reagan and it's glaringly obvious at this point.

1. They were Trumpy in the fact that they were handpicked by Trump to run in their primaries and while the GOP establishment deserves blame for not picking someone to run against Walker in the primary , the fact is McCormick was the Establishment Republican pick in PA and the Trump endorsed candidate beat him so yes he is completely Trump’s fault .

2. Yes I know DeSantis is not Reagan , as we are over 40 years out from 1980 so of course he’d be different. Also yes I know that Reagan had some ideas I wouldn’t agree with but he also clearly didn’t emphasize that idea nearly as much as he did on stuff like : Passing Kemp-Roth, Reducing the amount of regulations in the economy, reducing the power of the federal government(which he did fail on ) and implementing a more aggressive foreign policy .

3. I don’t want to go back to Pre Trump days either , I don’t know why you think that . The reason why I like DeSantis is because he is a competent executive who fights for conservative ideas and has a record of doing so in a major state just like Reagan did by 76/80. I btw not have supported Reagan in the 68 primaries cause he didn’t have that record then and I care about record which is why my top 2 candidates in 16 were Kasich and Walker despite one of them running a far more conservative campaign then the other .

I do not think Bush Jr was good either because he was massively incompetent.

4. This is not true  given that Reagan was the icon for republicanism and his policies were a model for the party for nearly 30 years after he left office .

[TodayJunior]

Trump forever changed the game. That only goes so far. The type of Republican who will win a primary is the same republican that will lose a general election where it matters - see AZ/MI/PA.

As mentioned above, a Romney like candidate will lose bc of the turnout issue.
A trump like candidate will lose bc if higher turnout among Dems. MAGA of any stripe will always turn out the Dem base against the gop, so they really are screwed.

So how did trump 2016 succeed then?
1. He was a true Outsider
2. Dem Party fatigue
3. Messy Dem primary
4. Exceptional loathing of HRC
5. Dem candidate did not visit WI/MI at all. Had she, she would have won these two.
6. The rural/suburban differentials were not as pronounced as they are now and trump was able to bridge the gap between higher rural turnout as it was shifting hard red, and mitigating suburban losses as it was shifting blue.
7. Lack of state organization among Dems in key swing states. Republicans will call this fortification.


All 7 of those factors had to be true and trump still didn’t win the popular vote.

It will Require a perfect storm for any Republican to win again at the national level, and they only have trump to blame. Short term gain for long term pain for YEARS to come!

[2016]

Trump forever changed the game. That only goes so far. The type of Republican who will win a primary is the same republican that will lose a general election where it matters - see AZ/MI/PA.

As mentioned above, a Romney like candidate will lose bc of the turnout issue.
A trump like candidate will lose bc if higher turnout among Dems. MAGA of any stripe will always turn out the Dem base against the gop, so they really are screwed.

So how did trump 2016 succeed then?
1. He was a true Outsider
2. Dem Party fatigue
3. Messy Dem primary
4. Exceptional loathing of HRC
5. Dem candidate did not visit WI/MI at all. Had she, she would have won these two.
6. The rural/suburban differentials were not as pronounced as they are now and trump was able to bridge the gap between higher rural turnout as it was shifting hard red, and mitigating suburban losses as it was shifting blue.
7. Lack of state organization among Dems in key swing states. Republicans will call this fortification.


All 7 of those factors had to be true and trump still didn’t win the popular vote.

It will Require a perfect storm for any Republican to win again at the national level, and they only have trump to blame.  

You are completely out of your mind. If DeSantis becomes the Nominee he will win hands down. It will be an 2008 Obama/McCain Redux with Roles reversed and Biden be the 80+ old Gaga Figure and DeSantis the competent young, energetic sub 50-year old Challenger.

Age is a massive Problem for Both, Trump and Biden. Both have Dementia.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

When has an incumbent Prez ever lost at 4.2%, Obama won in 2012 with 6% unemployment the unemployment rate is the same as it was in 2004 under Bush W when he beat Kerry and DeSantis isn't beating Biden by a landslide it's MOE

Emerson 43/39% over DeSantis if the unemployment rate was PrePandemic levels the way Trump almost won at 9% he would of won at 4%

Why do you think Rs underperforming expectations and didn't get 240 seats that Sabato and Cook promise 4% unemployment they got 220

Trump is in trouble in NC it's tied and FL it's 51/49 and the campaign hasn't even Started

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Trump forever changed the game. That only goes so far. The type of Republican who will win a primary is the same republican that will lose a general election where it matters - see AZ/MI/PA.

As mentioned above, a Romney like candidate will lose bc of the turnout issue.
A trump like candidate will lose bc if higher turnout among Dems. MAGA of any stripe will always turn out the Dem base against the gop, so they really are screwed.

So how did trump 2016 succeed then?
1. He was a true Outsider
2. Dem Party fatigue
3. Messy Dem primary
4. Exceptional loathing of HRC
5. Dem candidate did not visit WI/MI at all. Had she, she would have won these two.
6. The rural/suburban differentials were not as pronounced as they are now and trump was able to bridge the gap between higher rural turnout as it was shifting hard red, and mitigating suburban losses as it was shifting blue.
7. Lack of state organization among Dems in key swing states. Republicans will call this fortification.


All 7 of those factors had to be true and trump still didn’t win the popular vote.

It will Require a perfect storm for any Republican to win again at the national level, and they only have trump to blame.  

You are completely out of your mind. If DeSantis becomes the Nominee he will win hands down. It will be an 2008 Obama/McCain Redux with Roles reversed and Biden be the 80+ old Gaga Figure and DeSantis the competent young, energetic sub 50-year old Challenger.

Age is a massive Problem for Both, Trump and Biden. Both have Dementia.

McCain didn't lose just on age he picked Palin, and Bush W was unpopular due to Iraq War and backlash to Katrina and the Larry gay sex scandal happened in MN where the R convention was in 2007 thatscwhy Coleman and Ensign and told Larry Craig to resign and Craig waited til after Eday to resign McCain said he should of picked Romney

But the unemployment rate is the same as it was in 2004 and Biden probably gets to 50% anyways on Eday like Obama Obama was at 46% at this stage of Prez in 2012

[Saint Milei]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

In what world were Oz and Walker "Trumpy"? You keep grouping trump-endorsed candidates like the GOP establishment didn't back a majority of the candidates that lost this cycle. Trump endorsements =/= Trumpy candidates. Furthermore, what's also ignored is the fact that incumbents overwhelmingly won in 2022 across the aisle, regardless of what wing of any party they represented. That is conveniently ignored by the moderate wing of the GOP that wants to discard Trump. "Underperformed 2020". It's midterms. Candidates will underperform every year that isn't a presidential year. I never once expected a red wave. You guys did because the media told you. Maybe instead of blaming every "trumpy" candidate we should reassess everything so we don't make a foolish error. This same line of criticism of trump is the same reasoning people used in 2012 to conclude immigration was the reason Romney lost. It clearly wasn't.

As for Desantis, look man, I get it: You like Reagan. He's your guy. Desantis is NOT Reagan. Reagan in 76 and 80 wasn't even your kind of Republican. The dude backed returning to the gold standard which you always criticize me and Ron Paul for (I don't even support returning to the gold standard). The current conditions don't reflect that. Desantis is apart of the America First movement. Comparing him to Reagan or saying we need to go in that direction makes zero sense because you never liked Trump. It makes no sense. Replacing Trump with Trump jr does nothing for the party and it's more likely you and the others who want to replace him want to revert back to the pre-16 Trump GOP. You can say we tried with Trump, but we have tried your model for the GOP and we lost in 08 and 16. We also got Bush in 88, Bush in 00, and Bush in 04, and as a result, created the conditions for Trump and did nothing to improve our standing with an increasingly more diverse country both ethnically and philosophically. Desantis has no answer to this on a national level. Romney had no answer to this on a national level and if we keep painting this as the "Trump bad...Desantis/Youngkin good", you'll just end up being disliked by the rest of the GOP.

I'd also like to point out that Desantis is closer to Lake and Masters ideologically than he is the people you traditionally like. Who else were we supposed to nominate? A John Mccain clone in Arizona that pisses every conservative off? Yeah, totally the Reagan/Desantis model.


Lastly, I don't even know why this has to be stated but Reagan might have won in 80 and 84 and those were successful years for the GOP, but Trump had a larger impact on the GOP than Reagan and it's glaringly obvious at this point.

You must have a very pessimistic view of the GOP’s chances in 2024 if you seem to dislike all of the possible successors to Trump.

Oh, I do.

[Saint Milei]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

In what world were Oz and Walker "Trumpy"? You keep grouping trump-endorsed candidates like the GOP establishment didn't back a majority of the candidates that lost this cycle. Trump endorsements =/= Trumpy candidates. Furthermore, what's also ignored is the fact that incumbents overwhelmingly won in 2022 across the aisle, regardless of what wing of any party they represented. That is conveniently ignored by the moderate wing of the GOP that wants to discard Trump. "Underperformed 2020". It's midterms. Candidates will underperform every year that isn't a presidential year. I never once expected a red wave. You guys did because the media told you. Maybe instead of blaming every "trumpy" candidate we should reassess everything so we don't make a foolish error. This same line of criticism of trump is the same reasoning people used in 2012 to conclude immigration was the reason Romney lost. It clearly wasn't.

As for Desantis, look man, I get it: You like Reagan. He's your guy. Desantis is NOT Reagan. Reagan in 76 and 80 wasn't even your kind of Republican. The dude backed returning to the gold standard which you always criticize me and Ron Paul for (I don't even support returning to the gold standard). The current conditions don't reflect that. Desantis is apart of the America First movement. Comparing him to Reagan or saying we need to go in that direction makes zero sense because you never liked Trump. It makes no sense. Replacing Trump with Trump jr does nothing for the party and it's more likely you and the others who want to replace him want to revert back to the pre-16 Trump GOP. You can say we tried with Trump, but we have tried your model for the GOP and we lost in 08 and 16. We also got Bush in 88, Bush in 00, and Bush in 04, and as a result, created the conditions for Trump and did nothing to improve our standing with an increasingly more diverse country both ethnically and philosophically. Desantis has no answer to this on a national level. Romney had no answer to this on a national level and if we keep painting this as the "Trump bad...Desantis/Youngkin good", you'll just end up being disliked by the rest of the GOP.

I'd also like to point out that Desantis is closer to Lake and Masters ideologically than he is the people you traditionally like. Who else were we supposed to nominate? A John Mccain clone in Arizona that pisses every conservative off? Yeah, totally the Reagan/Desantis model.


Lastly, I don't even know why this has to be stated but Reagan might have won in 80 and 84 and those were successful years for the GOP, but Trump had a larger impact on the GOP than Reagan and it's glaringly obvious at this point.

1. They were Trumpy in the fact that they were handpicked by Trump to run in their primaries and while the GOP establishment deserves blame for not picking someone to run against Walker in the primary , the fact is McCormick was the Establishment Republican pick in PA and the Trump endorsed candidate beat him so yes he is completely Trump’s fault .

2. Yes I know DeSantis is not Reagan , as we are over 40 years out from 1980 so of course he’d be different. Also yes I know that Reagan had some ideas I wouldn’t agree with but he also clearly didn’t emphasize that idea nearly as much as he did on stuff like : Passing Kemp-Roth, Reducing the amount of regulations in the economy, reducing the power of the federal government(which he did fail on ) and implementing a more aggressive foreign policy .

3. I don’t want to go back to Pre Trump days either , I don’t know why you think that . The reason why I like DeSantis is because he is a competent executive who fights for conservative ideas and has a record of doing so in a major state just like Reagan did by 76/80. I btw not have supported Reagan in the 68 primaries cause he didn’t have that record then and I care about record which is why my top 2 candidates in 16 were Kasich and Walker despite one of them running a far more conservative campaign then the other .

I do not think Bush Jr was good either because he was massively incompetent.

4. This is not true  given that Reagan was the icon for republicanism and his policies were a model for the party for nearly 30 years after he left office .

That makes zero sense. Trump picking politicians doesn't make them trumpy. Neither took extreme positions like that ayt all. They were moderate Republicans running with a trump endorsement. That's an indictment on that wing of the party.

Desantis has no serious success besides the culture war issues.



Most states didn't even adopt the Reagan approach. There wasn't a successor after him. The gop was already failing by 1982. The right had changed by 96

[OSR stands with Israel]

I think the difference between Scott Walker and Ron DeSantis is that DeSantis actually did all this trolly stuff that the base loves.

DeSantis can get up on stage and talk about "banning the woke agenda from our schools" and "sending illegal immigrants to blue states" or "stopping Dr. Fauci from telling us how to live our lives" and people will cheer and applaud.

Meanwhile Walker was known for making life miserable for unions and rejecting Obamacare funds, neither of which are issues that resonate with the base.  They resonate with the billionaire donor class and writers for The Federalist which is how he got so much hype.  And then nobody cared once he actually got on stage.

This is why I think that a lot of the hype around DeSantis as some god-tier general election candidate is very odd. Most of his major 'accomplishments' are just culture war nonsense that only appeals to the GOP base. Normal people and swing voters don't care about that stuff. I'm not convinced why DeSantis whining about Disney being too woke is any less embarrassing than most of the stuff Trump does.

DeSantis/Kemp/Abbott all did very well despite being pretty conservative. It was clear that wasn’t the issue in this election but rather the Trump factor and the terrible candidates we nominated were

This argument doesn't hold since trumpy candidates also performed well and establishment candidates performed poorly and lost. Blaming trump because you want to move on from trump doesn't make your argument correct

Uh the most prominent Republican candidates who were Trumpy this cycle were : Doug Mastriano , Kari Lake , Blake Masters , Dr Oz , Joe Kent , Hershel Walker and guess what the 5 of them lost and the 6th will likely lose as well . While you could cite JD Vance the fact is he underperformed 2020 GOP numbers in a year when the republicans won the popular vote nationally so he was basically saved by the state’s partisan lean .


It’s clear DeSantis is the way the party should go , just like in 1979 it was clear the party needed to choose Reagan and while you may not like Reagan he was undeniably was the most successful conservative president in the modern era and DeSantis has that potential as well . We already tried it with Trump and guess what he failed .

In what world were Oz and Walker "Trumpy"? You keep grouping trump-endorsed candidates like the GOP establishment didn't back a majority of the candidates that lost this cycle. Trump endorsements =/= Trumpy candidates. Furthermore, what's also ignored is the fact that incumbents overwhelmingly won in 2022 across the aisle, regardless of what wing of any party they represented. That is conveniently ignored by the moderate wing of the GOP that wants to discard Trump. "Underperformed 2020". It's midterms. Candidates will underperform every year that isn't a presidential year. I never once expected a red wave. You guys did because the media told you. Maybe instead of blaming every "trumpy" candidate we should reassess everything so we don't make a foolish error. This same line of criticism of trump is the same reasoning people used in 2012 to conclude immigration was the reason Romney lost. It clearly wasn't.

As for Desantis, look man, I get it: You like Reagan. He's your guy. Desantis is NOT Reagan. Reagan in 76 and 80 wasn't even your kind of Republican. The dude backed returning to the gold standard which you always criticize me and Ron Paul for (I don't even support returning to the gold standard). The current conditions don't reflect that. Desantis is apart of the America First movement. Comparing him to Reagan or saying we need to go in that direction makes zero sense because you never liked Trump. It makes no sense. Replacing Trump with Trump jr does nothing for the party and it's more likely you and the others who want to replace him want to revert back to the pre-16 Trump GOP. You can say we tried with Trump, but we have tried your model for the GOP and we lost in 08 and 16. We also got Bush in 88, Bush in 00, and Bush in 04, and as a result, created the conditions for Trump and did nothing to improve our standing with an increasingly more diverse country both ethnically and philosophically. Desantis has no answer to this on a national level. Romney had no answer to this on a national level and if we keep painting this as the "Trump bad...Desantis/Youngkin good", you'll just end up being disliked by the rest of the GOP.

I'd also like to point out that Desantis is closer to Lake and Masters ideologically than he is the people you traditionally like. Who else were we supposed to nominate? A John Mccain clone in Arizona that pisses every conservative off? Yeah, totally the Reagan/Desantis model.


Lastly, I don't even know why this has to be stated but Reagan might have won in 80 and 84 and those were successful years for the GOP, but Trump had a larger impact on the GOP than Reagan and it's glaringly obvious at this point.

1. They were Trumpy in the fact that they were handpicked by Trump to run in their primaries and while the GOP establishment deserves blame for not picking someone to run against Walker in the primary , the fact is McCormick was the Establishment Republican pick in PA and the Trump endorsed candidate beat him so yes he is completely Trump’s fault .

2. Yes I know DeSantis is not Reagan , as we are over 40 years out from 1980 so of course he’d be different. Also yes I know that Reagan had some ideas I wouldn’t agree with but he also clearly didn’t emphasize that idea nearly as much as he did on stuff like : Passing Kemp-Roth, Reducing the amount of regulations in the economy, reducing the power of the federal government(which he did fail on ) and implementing a more aggressive foreign policy .

3. I don’t want to go back to Pre Trump days either , I don’t know why you think that . The reason why I like DeSantis is because he is a competent executive who fights for conservative ideas and has a record of doing so in a major state just like Reagan did by 76/80. I btw not have supported Reagan in the 68 primaries cause he didn’t have that record then and I care about record which is why my top 2 candidates in 16 were Kasich and Walker despite one of them running a far more conservative campaign then the other .

I do not think Bush Jr was good either because he was massively incompetent.

4. This is not true  given that Reagan was the icon for republicanism and his policies were a model for the party for nearly 30 years after he left office .

That makes zero sense. Trump picking politicians doesn't make them trumpy. Neither took extreme positions like that ayt all. They were moderate Republicans running with a trump endorsement. That's an indictment on that wing of the party.

Desantis has no serious success besides the culture war issues.



Most states didn't even adopt the Reagan approach. There wasn't a successor after him. The gop was already failing by 1982. The right had changed by 96

1. Well I have a bigger problem with Trump than Trumpism and that has always been the case. I stated multiple times in 2020 if Trump didnt behave as badly as he did , I would have voted for him.

2. DeSantis has done a good deal of stuff on economic issues, education etc.

3. This is false, the core of what Reagan actually did was replace the prior New Deal economic consensus with a new neoliberal one by slashing taxes, reducing regulations , expanding free trade and on foreign policy to put the US on a far more aggressive footing and pretty much every Republican until Trump pretty much agreed with the Reagan neoliberal consensus.