This, from former Florida Republican Rep. David Jolly, is worth sitting with for a minute:
I think Ron DeSantis is far more dangerous than Donald Trump for a very specific reason. Donald Trump is willing to ignore the rules, ignore the Constitution, and frankly lead to the incitement of January six. But Donald Trump is a transactional figure and he’ll do whatever it takes to win. Ron DeSantis I believe actually in his ethos, is a cultural warrior who wants to take us back 100 years and believes he can use the Constitution to that, to that end, and ultimately has a very dark vision of what America will be.
The argument at the center of this view goes something like this:
Trump lacks any sort of core beliefs. And, therefore, isn’t ever going to push a certain agenda on the public. He will do whatever he thinks will make him more popular. And that tendency makes him less threatening
DeSantis, on the other hand, is a cultural warrior. He’s demonstrated his willingness to use the levers of government — and use them effectively — to forward his own ideological agenda. (The fight against Disney is the most obvious example here.) Because DeSantis has a belief system, he poses more of a danger of imposing that belief system on the country. Ergo, he is more dangerous.
There’s some truth in this.
Trump is utterly transactional. He has been on both sides of virtually every issue you can think of — with trade being the notable exception. His beliefs are totally and completely fungible.
(Sidebar: I still remember during the 2016 campaign when someone asked me whether Trump or Tex Cruz was more conservative. I laughed — because there is no comparison. Cruz, whether you like him or not, has a conservative belief system that he, generally speaking, adheres to.1 Trump, um, does not.)
DeSantis is like Cruz. There’s a belief system undergirding his policy proposals and strategy. He has an image of America and is committed to using his position in government to seeing it realized.
So, there’s that.
The fundamental flaw with Jolly’s argument, however, is that Trump’s transactionality — not a word but you get my point — is the very thing that makes him oodles more dangerous than DeSantis.
The only thing that undergirds Trump’s actions is a belief that he must win at all costs. Or, as one smart Republican consultant put it to me: “Trump is forever building a mansion for his own ego.”
There’s no regulator on Trump. No sense that he might be taking things too far. Or that what he is doing is detrimental to the well being of either his party or the country.
This is not simply a theoretical discussion.
Donald Trump has, in both of his national elections, contested the results.
In the 2016 election — which he won! — he claimed, with zero proof, that 3 to 5 million illegal votes had been cast. He did so because he was insecure about losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
Then there is the 2020 election, which Trump not only refused to concede but actively sought to overturn — both at the federal and the state level.
And, when it was clear he wasn’t getting his way, Trump helped foment an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Let me say that again: The sitting president of the United States contested his electoral defeat, tried to pressure various state and federal officials to overturn the results and, when that didn’t work, rallied a mob to the U.S. Capitol.
Not only has Trump never apologized for his actions after the election but he has doubled and tripled down on his false claims about the election. And, of late, he has begun to express sympathy for many of the rioters who were arrested for storming the Capitol on January 6.
Ron DeSantis is not even in the same UNIVERSE as Trump on this stuff. Like, not close.2
Here’s another way to think about the threat posed by Trump versus that posed by DeSantis. Say you are drawing a line from the most liberal politician you can think of to the most conservative.
That might look something, for the sake or this discussion, like this3:
But, Trump — again due to his pure transactional nature and complete lack of belief system — doesn’t fit on that traditional spectrum. He is entirely driven by what’s good for him and what makes him look and feel like a winner. Which makes everything justifiable.
So, if you were going to add Trump to that line chart, it would looks like this-ish:
DeSantis is, put simply, just another conservative politician who wants to install his ideological agenda nationwide. If you are a liberal, that’s probably scary to you — and understandably so.
But, DeSantis exists within established boundaries of political thought and speech. There is nothing in his background to suggest that if he lost the 2024 election — primary or general — he would insist he had been done dirty, the victim of a massive conspiracy designed to keep him from the presidency.
Trump has not only done just that but has also taken to suggesting — already — that the 2024 election is rigged.
Trump represents a unique threat to American democracy because he already came damn close to overturning the results of a free and fair election. DeSantis, while you may disagree with his views and what he sees as the proper role for government, isn’t even in the same ballpark as Trump.
Put simply: Trump is infinitely more dangerous to the American democratic experiment than DeSantis. Apples and oranges stuff.
Notice that I said “generally speaking.” Because, yes, Cruz has, like most elected Republicans, lined up behind Trump over the last few years.
I suppose Jolly’s argument is that he could be? But, like, there’s nothing in DeSantis past to suggest he is an insurrectionist. Unless I am missing something.
We can debate if Bernie Sanders and DeSantis should be the poles of this line chart. But you get what I am going for.
It would be comforting to think DeSantis is not as likely to behave in unhinged ways as Trump has and is. However, we don't know yet because DeSantis hasn't had quite the opportunity. He has spoken of pardoning Trump and other insurrectionists, which indicates to me an insouciance about that extraordinarily serious threat to our country that I find alarming. Saying that when there really is not urgent need to go there says to me that DeSantis can be pretty transactional and focused on his success, just like the person he so admires.
To say one is worse than the other is saying you would rather die from one disease instead of the other. They are equally bad for this country because they lack the character to do what is right for the country. Both would rather fight a culture war than actually solve a problem. This is the existential difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party at this moment in history. Culture wars do not solve problems they only create different problems. We need someone who will tell the truth and not divide us further with culture wars. Republicans look to blame others instead of solving the differences that divide us. We need someone who will stand up to the NRA and pass an assult weapons ban and a ban on high capacity magazines.