Trump and DeSantis, populism and conservatism.

William F Buckley once wrote, “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise. “

The battle between Trump and DeSantis is how best combine the conservative ideals and the modern populism. Populists know the institutions are not presently working but rarely do populists control those institutions to make changes and another issue is that populism is not define by policies but attitude.  Trump found himself having to populate his administration with many from the establishment to pass his tax plans and help with his deregulation plans. Trump main strength was and is rhetorical as he is on message with simple messages just as Make America Great Again whereas DeSantis is more esoteric as he understands that how government, tech platforms and corporate media work together to use their place in society to suppress freedom and entrench progressivism. Trump understands by personal experience the reach of the Deep state as he still suffers from prosecution in New York by Alvin Bragg, the special prosecutors in DC and in Atlanta Georgia. As for DeSantis, he has fought the progressives in Florida as he defended the rights of parents to remove pornographic material from school libraries and reminding others that it was the progressives who sought to ban Huckleberry Finn and to Kill A Mockingbird plus DeSantis went after the medical authoritarianism that impose the lockdowns, destroy businesses and closed schools long after they proved to be useless. DeSantis is not about burning it all down but using those institutions he can control to defang those controlled by woke ideology. 2020 Pandemic was a turning point for the Right as we saw a government literally get out of control both on a local basis and national basis as many people saw their rights trampled on and their government outright lie to them. It was not getting the pandemic wrong but when it became clear that the solutions were wrong, they refused to change course. Worse, they even attacked and censored those who disagree with the policies.

John Hinderaker observed about DeSantis, “The battle to defend normal Americans against the totalitarian onslaught of the Woke will likely be the number one issue in the 2024 presidential campaign, both in the GOP primaries and in the general election. In Ron DeSantis, Republicans have a candidate who not only understands the evil of workerism but has a solid track record of defeating it.”  Which leads me to interesting observation, if Trump wins the nomination, he will need DeSantis as his Vice President for unlike Pence, who totally failed as the head of the Covid task force, DeSantis understands the bureaucracy and knows how to fight it.

Neither men are part of the establishment, and both are hated by the progressive movement so this idea that DeSantis is some RINO is not only wrong but those make that statement are political hack or don’t fully understand DeSantis or his fight. Trump problem is less about policy and more about his own personal flaws that has hurt him in the past. Lack of personal discipline has hurt him in the past and helped undermine his support for his policies. Forget the polls for at the moment they essentially show a close race between both DeSantis and Trump versus Biden, but they show many undecided as well. Trump biggest flaw is that either you love or hate him, and as past history has shown, he is capable of not just getting his supporters out but his opponent. Doesn’t mean that DeSantis doesn’t put the same fear in his opponent but there is a quality in him that could appeal to those independents and Republicans who didn’t support Trump. We will see as the campaign unfolds.