At the risk of returning yet again to the Trump vs. DeSantis wars, here’s a roundup:
— David Byler in the Washington Post has a similar take to mine on why it’s not 2016 anymore for Trump, and anyone who thinks it is making a mistake. Jon Favreau at Pod Save America, coming from a Democratic partisan perspective, thinks so, too:
"There was no one like Ron DeSantis in 2016. No one was as strong as he is right now… Polling, state polling, money, relationship with the rightwing media…"
We react to to Ron DeSantis' huge early polling lead in the Republican primary on a new Pod, out now. pic.twitter.com/t5mKQ2uZYX
— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) February 2, 2023
— Ben Domenech in the Spectator asks why Trump is distancing himself from his greatest achievement as president (actually, second-greatest, after appointing the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade), Operation Warp Speed:
Trump, via his TruthSocial account, has been posting at record pace criticizing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — whom he maintains he voted for — as a “globalist,” knocking DeSantis for favoring lockdowns (which he didn’t) and for pushing people to get vaccinated (which he did). In the process, Trump is essentially eliminating any political benefit he could realize as the head of Operation Warp Speed, the deregulatory effort through which pharmaceutical companies were able to provide incredible amounts of the Covid vaccine at record speed. It wasn’t too long ago that Trump was happy to tout the vaccine as a great triumph and demand credit for it… Instead, Trump’s team is actively pushing opposition research that shows Ron DeSantis doing the awful thing of — wait for it — pushing the wheelchair of an elderly woman to get the vaccine. . . .
It’s an illustration of how difficult a challenge the Florida governor presents to the former president, who makes a big deal about endorsing him in the first place. What a mistake! If only Trump had known Ron would be so successful, he never would have done it.
— Quin Hillyer in the Washington Examiner makes the (futile) case that Trump should stop running:
All along, Trump has acted as if he believes his best way to “beat the rap” (or “raps,” plural) is to get elected president again. The thought is that power is the ultimate trump card (pun not intended). Increasingly, the greater likelihood is that he has it backward: His pursuit of renewed power is part of what makes him a target. Trump seems to truly believe the investigations against him are all politically motivated. Well, if that’s so, then the way to remove the motivation is to remove the political incentives. If Trump is no threat to take office again, his scalp is less valuable to prosecutors, and the sympathy he could elicit from jurors would be greater. His effective appeal to jurors could be, “Why are they still persecuting me? Do they hate and fear me so much, because I did such a great job draining the swamp, that they can’t let go even when I just want to retire in peace?”