Fear fuels the politics of hate

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This past Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States after a botched launch on Twitter that made him the butt of jokes from his would be opponents, former President Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis

As if DeSantis, 44, being derided for his social media failure by two powerful men old enough to be his father isn't bad enough, when the transmission finally got to transmitting on Twitter (and later on the more comfortable confines of Fox News), what became immediately clear is the reason why there's so much excitement among Republican elites and prominent conservative news concerns like National Review—it's because DeSantis channels the fear that fuels the modern Republican Party in ways that sound more intelligent than the words of his former mentor and for many Republicans, the party's "tormentor," Donald Trump. 

True to his wanna-be comedian form, Donald Trump allowed his media team to add pictures of Adolf Hitler and Satan to a fake audience to Ron DeSantis's botched Twitter announcement this past Wednesday

Seriously, there is very little, next to nothing of substance actually, that distinguishes Trump from DeSantis—and vice versa—politically. If you like one, you might as well like the other, because they are variations on the EXACT same themes. 

Disagree, Republicans and Republican leaning voters?

Well, If you think that illegal immigration from Central America is a problem, DeSantis and Trump do, too!

If you think that progressive pushes for greater strictures against harming the environment is a problem, DeSantis and Trump do, too!

If you think that "wokeness" and teaching accurate facts about how white supremacy led to the founding and development of the United States is troubling, or teaching that white supremacy and racism remain problematic is offensive to white people in 2023, DeSantis and Trump do, too!

If you think that the police and vigilantes are heroic when they shoot, beat, or choke unarmed citizens to death, especially when they are citizens of color, DeSantis and Trump do, too!

Just last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis called Daniel Penny, 23, a “Good Samaritan” after he choked an unarmed mentally ill man, Jordan Neely, to death on a NYC subway

A few months after teenager Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murdering two Black Lives Matter protesters in Wisconsin, former President Donald Trump flew him down to Mar-a-Lago and called the killer “a very nice young man…”

If you think that Vladimir Putin is the model of a strong leader, and that Russia has a right to run over Ukraine and other former Soviet satellites free from U.S. intervention, DeSantis and Trump do, too!

If you think that the LGBTQ community offends your Christian values and that specifically, the Trans community's fight to self identify while maintaining their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a problem, DeSantis and Trump do, too. 

The difference, again, is in the packaging; DeSantis says racist things and does bigoted acts with a high vocabulary and a frown, while Trump says racist things and does bigoted acts in a clownish manner and with a smile!

Disagree, again?

During his media rounds on Wednesday, DeSantis, an honors graduate of Yale (BA-History) and Harvard Law, waxed rather philosophically about academic "cultural Marxism" and “accreditation cartels”  like S.A.C.S. (the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) causing a “leftist tilt to academia” in Florida's universities. DeSantis added that alternative accrediting organizations should be created to lean towards more conservative "anti-woke" indoctrination.

Now, the average Republican voter, most of whom have never stepped foot in a college classroom to study, will not readily understand the grandiloquent concepts espoused by DeSantis as easily as when stated plainly with Trumpian phrasing that calls “Critical Race Theory" in academia “a bunch of crap."

DeSantis also waxed philosophically on Wednesday about the “E.S.G. movement.” If you don't know what that is, that's ok because it's not something that most Americans talk about at the office water cooler or the barbershop. But E.S.G. is a type of investment activity which considers "environmental," "social," and "governance" factors along with central banking digital forms of currency.

Trump, on the contrary, isn't going to get all professorial on environmental matters during a debate or speech, he will just yell out that he will "bring back the factories in the Midwest" (which he did not during his term), and encourage the mining of "good, clean, coal" (which he did not) and his base—which is also DeSantis's base—will eat his words and totally undeliverable platitudes right on up!

Again, while highly educated white MAGAs are VERY intrigued by Mr. DeSantis, the majority of the less educated white MAGAs very likely will stick with the far less articulate (or knowledgeable) Mr. Trump because they understand him much better.

Remember, the souls that both Trump and DeSantis now fight for are overwhelmingly white, male, and the type of voters who believe that whites, in general, are at risk of being marginalized in "their" country. Such is why the worst of this cohort, the assorted Neo-Nazis and Neo-Confederate "Proud Boys” types, have ALWAYS supported Trump and DeSantis in their prior political campaigns because in the two, they see kindred spirits who prefer white supremacy to diversity, equity, and inclusion regardless of race or other social factors!

Such is also why Gov. DeSantis, only weeks after the U.S. Department of Defense removed the name of racist Confederate General Henry Benning and renamed the Army installation in Columbus, Georgia "Fort Moore," chose to be contrary by authorizing the naming of his presidential volunteer training camp as "Fort Benning." 

DeSantis also promised this week that if elected president, that he would aggressively pardon the men and women who stormed the Capitol during the January 6th MAGA riot—and that he would pardon Trump, too, for his role in sparking anarchy on a day that saw six people killed—and over $50 million dollars in property damage to the very seat of American legislative governance!

To be clear, poorer white racists are not the only Republican and independent voters that DeSantis and Trump share in common; both hold intrigue for a great many non-white first and second generation immigrants who fear other immigrants arriving and thriving in America.

Both also hold sway over a small but growing number of Black Christians who overlook the dastardly duo's obvious racism by using the Bible to justify their ridiculous fears that the LGBTQ community is seeking to establish a modern day Sodom or Gomorrah in a nation that, lest we forget, was founded to be secular and totally free from religious dogma guiding public policy!

Here's hoping that those Americans who do not fear modernity, humanity, or intolerance of what makes us different will outnumber those who do in the 2024 general election. 

Stay tuned...