The event’s logistics are questionable. The event itself bespeaks a campaign that is too online and should be less so if DeSantis wants to win.
Jeff, Michael, Noah, and Jim have already provided their reactions to Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s reported decision to launch his presidential campaign tomorrow in a Twitter Spaces conversation with Elon Musk, moderated by DeSantis supporter David Sacks.
Jeff acknowledges that the move “seems like the decision of a campaign that is ‘terminally online,’ i.e., far too embroiled in the navel-gazing bubble of online media and political commentary,” but observes some advantages: novelty, the possibility of reaching both younger voters and the “mainstream-media journalists and commentators” who congregate on the platform, and association with the brand of Musk. Jeff further believes that Musk, a DeSantis fan, is likely to go easy on DeSantis.
Noah appears to be rethinking how he was “initially skeptical” of the move after seeing that it has been covered to an extent he believes a more-traditional campaign launch plan would not have been.
Michael had none of either Jeff’s or Noah’s reservations, claiming he’s “not sure why” DeSantis’s decision has been greeted skeptically:
The alternative is what? Staging an event in Florida and hoping that cable news carries the whole thing live, I guess. You’ll get what? Hundreds of thousands of viewers, many of whom are trapped in bank lobbies or airports.
Jeff’s doubts are more persuasive than his assertions; Noah’s initial skepticism was sound. This is the decision of a campaign that is, in fact, too online. One can credit that campaign for a kind of novelty and perhaps even for its apparent recognition that a mere announcement would be insufficient to break into the desired level of coverage. But neither attribute inherently recommends a Twitter-focused campaign launch. Launching a presidential campaign in this manner is both questionable in itself and a possible sign of a broader strategic misconception on the part of the DeSantis campaign.
Concerning the former, consider the following. Will this “event” produce video? (Twitter Spaces, essentially a conference call function, is not set up to do so naturally.) Leaving Musk’s quirks aside, isn’t it also possible that, instead of boosting DeSantis, Musk’s mere presence will smother DeSantis during what ought to be one of DeSantis’s main opportunities to introduce himself to voters nationwide? Will clips from the Spaces disseminate outside of Twitter, or will it remain a circular phenomenon, never escaping the medium in which it was born — like much of the coverage of the decision thus far?
To ponder the details of this event is to be reminded again of the utility of a more-typical campaign launch of the sort that DeSantis will doubtless undertake once he puts this stunt behind him. Indeed, he will be interviewed on Fox News immediately after the Spaces ends. So if supplemental traditional/in real life (IRL) events will be necessary, what is the point of this one?
Answering that question reveals a broader strategic misconception that appears to be at the heart of DeSantis’s nascent campaign. An essential element of its emerging strategy appears to be rooted in the belief that Twitter is not merely a means to disseminate information and messaging produced elsewhere, but an essential political battleground in itself – a digital Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina. DeSantis appears to be actively seeking out the kind of Terminally Online aura that gave us such electoral juggernauts as Blake Masters in 2022 — or, on the other side of the aisle, Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. These campaigns went from believing in Twitter’s power to letting it define their reality, and it doomed them. That is a real risk here.
Reality is primary; Twitter is secondary. Even Trump’s own success in becoming a political force depended considerably on his non-Twitter behavior; regardless, attempting to imitate Trump will be foolish if a) the goal is to beat him and b) the genuine article is still on offer. Michael is right to point out DeSantis’s impressive 2022 reelection victory. But it was not a result of his tweets; it arose from successful and competent governance in the real world. That, not danker memes or more-“based” influencers, is what DeSantis could offer against Trump. He is foolish and doomed if he thinks otherwise and campaigns accordingly — i.e., to the exclusion of the IRL. Conservative politicos who live on Twitter are a deeply idiosyncratic lot, and many of the ones who have not already committed to DeSantis are ride-or-die with Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the voters DeSantis will need to persuade mostly do not live on Twitter (even if, as Jim notes, Musk’s ownership of Twitter has seen a notable warming of feelings from Republicans toward the platform). Relatively speaking, mercifully few of the people Michael calls “normal people” and that Jeff describes as the “greater public” (who, to the extent they think about Musk at all, are unlikely to take political cues from him) do. It’s not implausible to wonder if they will be ignored in such a campaign strategy, or even repulsed by it.
There are plenty of reasons, then, to be skeptical of the manner in which DeSantis has chosen to launch his campaign, even (or perhaps especially) if you don’t want Trump to win the Republican primary. For DeSantis’s sake, and perhaps for ours as well, let’s hope his campaign does not end up being defined by such endeavors.