On Friday, writing for The Bulwark, former Republican National Committee official and Jeb Bush strategist Tim Miller demolished the idea in some quarters of the Republican Party that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) would be a more norm-abiding alternative to former President Donald Trump.
"As for me, gun to my head, I’d side with the people saying DeSantis would be less of an existential threat," wrote Miller. "To be clear — saying someone is less of an existential threat to democracy than Donald Trump might be the faintest praise ever uttered in American politics. It doesn’t carry with it any rejection of the many legitimate concerns that we small-'l' liberals have about a potential DeSantis administration. It merely acknowledges that Trump’s psychopathy is so extreme as to put him in a category all of his own. And as such, anything that keeps him from darkening the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again is almost certainly an improvement."
The real problem, wrote Miller, is that DeSantis hasn't actually done anything to distance himself from Trump's behavior, hasn't properly condemned the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and hasn't really showed any opposition to the direction the GOP is heading under Trump.
"If it’s true that DeSantis is not a threat to our democracy, then why is this a proxy debate and not an explicit one?" wrote Miller. "As recently as eighteen months ago it wouldn’t have seemed like too big of an ask for a politician to be on the record in their opposition to a president fomenting a violent coup attempt that aimed to overthrow the legitimate result of an American election ... And yet Ron DeSantis has never even stepped over this lowest of bars. He has condemned the 'violence,' but offered nary a word about the rioters’ intent. Here’s a Newsweek roundup of what he has said on the record ... which ain’t much."
DeSantis even supported the illegal plot to push state legislatures to throw out electors in states Joe Biden carried, noted Miller, saying of the proposal, "I would exhaust every option." And he promoted conspiracy theories that the January 6 attack might have been a false flag operation.
"A hypothetical: Let’s say Ron DeSantis is the GOP nominee in 2024 and he loses a close race," wrote Miller. "And let’s pretend that the voters DeSantis is cultivating demand that 'he fights' for his rightful presidency. We are supposed to assume that in such a situation DeSantis will just ... do the right thing? That tomorrow he’ll stand up to the same voters he’s too scared to tell the truth to today?"
"Even if you are inclined to buy this pitch, you’ve got to admit that the DeSantis crowd is asking us for a lot of faith on very little evidence," concluded Miller. "I’m not sure that they’ve earned it."
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