-Dr. Steve breaks down exactly why Trump will CRUSH DeSantis in the Republican primary in this HUGE interview with TurleyTalks Staff Writer Conrad Franz
-Republican donors are falling for the same Romney 2012 traps
-The rural vote is for TRUMP! Here’s why:
Conrad: I think we’re going to start with the talk, I guess of the proverbial town, the public town square, as it’s called online and on Twitter, with the DeSantis Twitter presidential announcement, which, you know, you and me, we’re on Twitter, we’re comment we’re part of this commentariat class, I guess. So it was accessible to us. But then for the first 30 minutes, even WE couldn’t listen to it! So it was a bit of a disaster. We saw even when it did go live that I think DeSantis was struggling with his charisma. Elon Musk, I think upstaged him, frankly, everyone was joining to talk about how great Elon is. And then oh, yeah, Ron DeSantis is here. So I’m wondering if you think that this kind of broader issue of both DeSantis’ charisma as well as the people he surrounded himself with being this very specific class of beltway Twitter user that doesn’t like Trump anymore, but thinks they’re ultra conservative, will be the downfall for DeSantis?
Dr. Steve: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right, Conrad. I mean, I think this is key to 2024. When you bring up the notion of bringing in the rural vote, when all is said and done, we have to remember that was the key to 2016 when Trump won nearly 200 counties in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota that had voted Democrat in every single Presidential election since 1984. Many, many of these counties voted twice for Obama, but then suddenly shifted in one of the most astonishing political paradigm shifts we’ve seen to vote for Trump, some of them by upwards of 20 to 40 points. It was something that took Hillary by surprise, clearly, Trump was one of the first presidential candidates to even come into many of those counties and do a major campaign stop there. Most people just ignored rural voting. And I don’t see DeSantis… I see no data, no data whatsoever that I’m aware of that DeSantis has any appeal at all, to these voters. None. Zippo everything I’m hearing from the pro DeSantis crowd, particularly on Twitter, smacks of Romney 2012 all over again. I mean, everything right? “DeSantis is clean. He’s well spoken, the whole party loves him. He’s the consensus candidate,” blah, blah, blah, who always always ALWAYS goes on to lose the general simply because they cannot bring out that rural vote. That turns the tide in Arizona, and in Georgia, and Ohio, and Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the like, whereas Trump? He has and will turn out that vote. What I’ve been saying here, and again, I think you alluded to it, what I’ve been saying in the videos of late is the key flaw, the Achilles heel to DeSantis, is he’s trying to appeal to the populist vote, while at the same time being fully backed by the very forces that provoked that populism in the first place. So how can you expect the anti establishment vote to come out for you, when you are the establishment back candidate? This is what sank Romney. So and this is unfortunately, what the pro DeSantis wing just simply doesn’t seem to get and that’s why I see DeSantis at this moment in time is being really nothing more than Romney 2.0
Conrad: I couldn’t agree more Steve. I really think that the biggest thing he’s gonna struggle with is his ability, I think to even relate to the rural people you were just talking about. I’ve seen these videos. He was in Iowa and a State Senator from South Dakota had driven a long time to see him. He walked up, introduced himself, and asked, how long did you drive to be here? He’s like, oh a few hours. Then DeSantis is like: “Okay, cool.” And then just walks away like it’s nothing. He’s like, yeah, I could have been a big political connection for you in South Dakota, which is a state you’re going to need to win in the primary. But I think he struggles with that. And look, I’m not trying to bring up personal stuff, but I met Ron DeSantis 2018 at the Trump Hotel and he was just playing the game like everybody else lined up to shake Trump Jr’s hand. Just like every other beltway person there. And now here he is, you know, he thinks that he’s the next guy. And he’s challenging the Trump revolution. I think one of the things about this has to do with the people that are around him as well, some of them are…well you have never Trumpers as well as some super right wingers that think that DeSantis will be more right wing than Trump. That’s the smaller group for sure. Yeah, but yeah, I sit there on Twitter. Both sides recognize the danger is the other one outflanking them from the right. And sure, DeSantis has the vaccine stuff with Trump, and he has his record in Florida, which is good. It’s a lot easier to get results in a red state than around the whole country in some regards, but at the same time, Trump, you know, sure his announcement wasn’t as much red meat for the base as I would have liked but ever since then he’s come out with… as far as his immigration plan others, he’s come out with the most stalwart America First of anybody in the race by far that we’re seeing so I’m wondering, how do you think them outflanking each other from the right on the issues is going to play out?
Dr. Steve: I think I think you’ve nailed it there. I don’t think DeSantis can. I don’t think it’s even possible. I just don’t think the ethos is there. And again, I fully concur with what you just said, don’t get me wrong. He’s done amazing things in Florida. If he were the Republican candidate, pull off the impossible, and become the nominee, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat, but yeah, with some of these guys, I like how you put it that it kind of that, peripheral right that seemed very disappointed in Trump or they just don’t think Trump can win again, (because I don’t think they’re thinking in terms of the rural vote). But they’re trying desperately to paint DeSantis as someone who can outflank Trump, in terms of right wing bonafides but it comes across as just so sterile and artificial. How do you outflank Trump on abortion, when he’s the president more than anyone else responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade? How do you outflank him on that? That’s impossible. How do you outflank him on vaccines when you basically advocated the exact same policies that he did at the beginning? Or how do you outflank Trump on wokeness when he triggers the woke more than anyone else on this planet? So just from the very ethos of the matter, I don’t think DeSantis can even come close to effectively recasting Trump as milquetoast on nationalist populist, traditionalist issues when you’re as grounded as he is on border security, economic security and cultural security. It’s just incredible. I mean, Ann Coulter has been trying to do it and she’s failed miserably as well. It’s just incredibly difficult to poke holes in your nationalist populist bonafides when…look…it’s very difficult to run to the right of someone like Viktor Orban because again, he embodies the right at this point. And again, it doesn’t mean that you can’t run to the right. But it’s very hard to convincingly communicate that to others that you’ve done that, especially when, you know, the big one for me, and I will find out more and more in the primaries, the big kicker here, is that DeSantis was basically a neocon when it came to foreign policy when he was in Congress. I mean, it’s just impossible at that point to outflank Trump when he’s the first president we’ve had, in memory, who’s never started a war.
Conrad: I think in many ways we have to ask: do we want someone with results? Or is someone going to pen us the best idea of a policy in the future? I thought conservatives were all about the “we’re done with the all talk it’s all about the action,” yet suddenly they think that DeSantis is you know, more presentable, less offensive than Trump and we’re all about all the talking again. We’re buying into all the talking. We have finally got someone that gets results and now you want to replace them with somebody else?
Dr. Steve: We do this every election. We always feel the pressure of kowtowing to the donor class, we always feel the pressure of putting that nominee, putting up that person as our nominee, who the donor class is comfortable with, hopefully 2016 and 2020 shattered that permanently as it should. And now we have a very, very different structure in place where grassroots rank and file rural populists are now running the party, not these silly, cosmopolitan donors.
Conrad: I’d be willing to go so far as to say that anybody in Congress before the Trump era that then wants to suddenly come out as to the right of Trump is cynical. If you actually felt that way you would have gotten kicked out of Congress like Steve King a long time ago for actually saying what you believe because that’s what happens.
Dr. Steve: It’s a very good point
Copyright, 2023. TurleyTalks.com
