Ron DeSantis just dropped a big hint for how he will run against Donald Trump

The corporatist attack.

Ron DeSantis is running for president.

No, he hasn’t exactly said it yet. But, come on. A new book. A donor retreat. Scheduled trips to Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire.

All of these things send a very specific message — and DeSantis and his team know this. They want to maker sure everyone in the Republican party knows he’s running — even if he’s not running yet.

What’s been less clear to this point is HOW DeSantis will run — particularly against former president Donald Trump.

And that is a critical — and complex — question. Especially when you consider that:

• Trump’s endorsement of DeSantis, then a member of Congress, in the 2018 Republican governor’s primary was absolutely critical to DeSantis’ win

• In the 2018 general election DeSantis ran, effectively, as a disciple of Trump — even running an ad where he told his toddler to “build that wall!”

• In his first term, DeSantis largely looked to Trump for guidance on critical matters — particularly in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. DeSantis initially resisted closing his state as the virus raged in the spring of 2020, only changing his mind “when you see the President up there and his demeanor the last couple of days, that’s not necessarily how he always is.”

• The core of DeSantis’ national message to date — “woke” views are destroying America — isn’t all that different than Trump’s sustained assault on politically correct culture.

DeSantis’ closeness to Trump then is well documented. And makes it harder for the Florida governor to peel away supporters from the former president. After all, if DeSantis is just a clone of Trump — or, maybe more accurately, just a younger model (he’s 44), why would voters just not go for the original?

DeSantis gave a hint Wednesday on how he may well work to define himself apart from Trump — in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

The piece is, ostensibly, a victory lap for DeSantis over his decision to strip Disney World of its special tax status after the company protested a piece of legislation passed in Florida that would restrict sexuality and gender conversations in the classroom.

But, buried about two-thirds of the way through the op-ed are these lines:

In this environment, old-guard corporate Republicanism isn’t up to the task at hand. For decades, GOP elected officials have campaigned on free-market principles but governed as corporatists—supporting subsidies, tax breaks and legislative carve-outs to confer special benefits on entrenched corporate interests. But policies that benefit corporate America don’t necessarily serve the interests of America’s people and economy.

When corporations try to use their economic power to advance a woke agenda, they become political, and not merely economic, actors. In such an environment, reflexively deferring to big business effectively surrenders the political battlefield to the militant left. Having private companies wield de facto public power isn’t in the best interests of most Americans.

Which is interesting!

Because, well, Donald Trump is defined — in the eyes of Republican voters and in the culture more broadly — as a big and successful businessman. A wheeler-dealer who not just knows all the biggest CEOs in the country but is on a first-name basis with them.

Trump ran his 2016 campaign on the notion that all of his success in corporate America could be directly translated to the White House. His initial Cabinet — headlined by former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson — leaned heavily on the business world.

“Five of the 15 people Trump has nominated to be Cabinet secretaries have spent all or nearly all their careers in the business world, with no significant public office or senior military service on their résumés,” wrote Pew in January 2017. “That would be more businesspeople with no public-sector experience than have ever served in the Cabinet at any one time, according to a review and analysis by the Pew Research Center.” (Only one of those 5 nominees, Andy Puzder, didn’t get confirmed.)

And, Trump’s agenda in office — broad-scale deregulation and a slashing of the corporate tax rate — made corporate America very happy.

“Our plan also lowers the tax on American business from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent,” Trump said in late 2017 of his proposed tax cuts. “That’s probably the biggest factor in this plan.”

(Worth noting: Much of corporate America broke with Trump over his role before, during and after the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.)

So, it’s not much of a stretch to think that when DeSantis writes about “old-guard corporate Republicanism,” he means Trump and the business cronies with which the former president still surrounds himself.

And that when he says “policies that benefit corporate America don’t necessarily serve the interests of America’s people and economy,” he’s talking about policies passed during Trump’s four years in office.

Under this dynamic, DeSantis is the one, true populist in the race — battling corporations and the Republican politicians they have had in their thrall for decades. He is the change candidate, the reformer, the voice of the people.

Which, again, is interesting!

I am not sure if DeSantis can pull it off. But what’s clear is he needs to find an effective way to draw contrasts with Trump in the campaign to come. This might be the leading edge of that effort.