Despite DeSantis\u2019s obvious flaws, he was promoted by conservative elites eager to create \u2018Trumpism without Trump\u2019<\/p>\n
So long, Ron. After a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the Republican presidential primary and endorsed Donald Trump. This outcome has looked inevitable ever since the campaign\u2019s botched launch announcement<\/a> on Twitter, but it was surprising how quickly and totally DeSantis surrendered after losing just a single contest. Many people had heralded DeSantis as the man who could take down Trump, but it was not to be. His campaign began with a whimper \u2013 then ended with one too.<\/p>\n The political flaws of DeSantis and his campaign have been so numerous that it\u2019s amazing the Florida governor ever generated so much buzz. He looked politically impressive operating in the safely conservative state of Florida, but he was completely unprepared for the intensity of competitive national politics. He lacked the empathy and personal warmth necessary to connect with voters and donors alike. He proved a poor administrator<\/a>. He tried to run on his management of the Covid-19 pandemic when voters had moved on. Worst of all, he could offer no plausible reason why Trump voters should opt for him rather than for the real thing.<\/p>\n Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University and the creator of America Explained, a podcast and newsletter<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite DeSantis\u2019s obvious flaws, he was promoted by conservative elites eager to create \u2018Trumpism without Trump\u2019 So long, Ron. After a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the Republican presidential primary and endorsed Donald Trump. This outcome has looked inevitable ever since the campaign\u2019s botched launch announcement on Twitter, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}