Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign is still flailing despite the fact that his top rival, former President Donald Trump, has been indicted twice on dozens of felony charges.
Given this, Financial Times columnist Edward Luce has written a column gleefully mocking DeSantis and diagnosing him with a case of "electile dysfunction."
One problem DeSantis has, argues Luce, is that he is trying to sell himself as the more competent version of Trump without aggressively criticizing Trump's missteps for fear of angering the former president's base.
"Disbanding this cult cannot be done by focus group or contrived positioning," he writes. "You have to slay the dragon or die trying. In this regard, DeSantis has it all wrong. His pretense at being a macho man — indeed a fearless superhero — is belied by his instinct to tiptoe around the dragon. The point is not to get to the right of the dragon. It is to plunge your spear into its heart."
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The other problems DeSantis has is that the Republican base seemingly wants a candidate who will produce nonstop chaos and drama, as it gives them a thrill to see the world spiraling out of control at his behest.
"If part of the thrill of backing Trump is precisely because he is not electable — that he is unsafe and not respectable — it takes some brass to announce yourself as the electable version of Trump," he writes. "It is now clear that the DeSantis hypothesis is a fatal misreading of what MAGA wants."
