There are aspects of how to win a nomination and how not to win. Trump strategy was to go after DeSantis before he entered the race and taking of advantage of the prosecution that aided in his popularity.
Maybe Trump views his 30 plus points ahead in the polls not as safe as the pundits do or he would change his strategy and he has basically ignored the other candidates like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott as no threats. The real issue is how far do you go to go after DeSantis and risk tearing the party asunder?
Trump advantages, he ran a successful foreign policy that made the world safer with no war in Ukraine, the Abraham accord with unified Sunni Arabs and Israel against Iran and changed our view of China to a more realistic view.
Trump’s criticism of NATO included his view that NATO member states should contribute more toward their own defenses. This may have seen results. As Michael Barone noted, “Finance ministers, stung by Trump’s campaign criticisms, are ponying up more money to meet their NATO defense-spending commitments.”
Brexit was the first break in the European Union’s dominance of the continent. While Obama threatened Britain with being sent to the “back of the queue” if they voted to leave the EU, Trump supported Brexit and a possible future U.S-U.K. free trade agreement. Brexit could be the first step toward the formation of the Anglosphere an alliance of English-speaking nations that would support Trump’s “America First” view of the world and should be part of any GOP talking point.
In the Middle East, Trump ditched Iranian deal and boosted the Sunni-Israeli alliance against increasing Iranian influence through various peace agreements between Sunni states and Israel. These success can be contrasted with Biden approaches which abandoned the Abraham Accord and created a more chaotic Middle East, his w withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster and led Putin to think he could invade Ukraine with no real objection from the Biden’s administration. Biden’s weakness led to the Ukraine invasion and now we are supplying Ukraine in an endless war that has no real endgame.
Inflation has reduced the average worker living standard and energy independence policy ended with Biden’s administration.
Trump biggest failure was his handling of the pandemic and the panic that ensued as result of lockdown. The position of allowing federalism allowed states to decide their fate in dealing with the pandemic. He failed to change the policy openly but allowed Fauci and Birks to run the policy.
DeSantis along with Governor Kemp of Georgia, Reynolds of Iowa and Kristi Noem of South Dakota move away from the lockdown and they along with seven other GOP governors did not redo lockdowns in their states during the winter of 2020.
DeSantis record of governor dealing with the pandemic and challenging the left in his state has shown a pathway to dealing with the administrative state in DC.
For DeSantis, he has to show how he will build upon the Trump legacy the first three years and how his record will translate. For Trump, he has to show what he learned from his failure in 2020 and how it will shape his administration. Both men have their challenges.
The biggest challenge is not to forget who the real enemy is. It is the Democrats.
The Donelson Files 