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Ron DeSantis continues to find himself in the news. At various times he’s been called America’s Governor, a hypocrite, even a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Here are three reasons why the next headline might read President-elect DeSantis:
- Post-Roe America
- Election Denial-lite
- Wokeness Becomes Bipartisan
With the repeal of Roe v. Wade last year, abortion became one of the defining issues of the midterm election. Many conservative candidates responded with a shrug if they responded at all. Some even celebrated the decision. Liberals seized on this opportunity to brand their opponents as the “No abortions, no exceptions” party. Though some Republicans did officially take this stance, labeling the entire party as such is inaccurate—in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis’ legislation allows for 15 weeks of legal abortion access. Nor does this slogan represent the country’s views overall. Only 8% of Americans oppose all abortions. 61% feel that they should be legal in all or most cases, with the number of people supporting abortion dropping the longer a woman is pregnant. Only 34% of Americans believe in abortion after 14 weeks.
Perhaps this is why Governor DeSantis chose 15 weeks as the legal cut-off. While this was unpopular with liberals of the state, the decision allowed DeSantis to separate himself from the more extreme wing of his party. Maybe it was strictly strategic, but by allowing 15 weeks of abortion access, DeSantis positioned himself much closer to the majority of Americans, coming off as something of a moderate—at least in the eyes of many on the Right (38% of Republicans think that abortion should be legal in all/most cases). This has the added benefit of presenting DeSantis as someone reasonable enough to compromise—a novel concept in today’s political arena. If more Republicans had modeled their campaigns after DeSantis in the midterms, I wonder if there might have been an actual "Red Wave" rather than a "Red Ripple."
For their part, Democrats risk suffering some self-inflicted harm on this issue. All but one of the House’s 220 Democrats voted for H.R. 8296, a bill which effectively allowed 9 months of abortion access. This opened them up to being labeled the "Abortion on demand until birth" party. While such claims are just as misleading as “No abortions, no exceptions” (the legislation permits late-stage abortions only if it is deemed necessary to protect the life of the mother), it allowed Republicans to be the ones who could cast their opponents as the extremists. If Democrats don’t mount a clear defense against these claims, they risk losing moderate voters to DeSantis because the fact is that the majority of Americans do believe in a timeframe when abortion should no longer be legal.
The second issue that defined the midterms was the 2020 election. In general, election-deniers did not do well. This might be why Governor DeSantis was tight-lipped when it came to the most recent presidential election. When asked directly in June of 2021 if the election had been stolen from Trump, he evaded the question, offering some political word-salad instead, followed by, "This ballot harvesting that you see across the country is a huge, huge problem..." DeSantis’ strategy has been to walk the tight rope between outright election denial and simply suggesting that not everything was above board—We’re not saying it was stolen, we’re just saying...
As with the issue of abortion, it appears that DeSantis is reading the room. While the most vocal election-deniers may have performed poorly in the midterms, some 70% of Republicans do not believe that President Biden was elected legitimately. It is this type of voter that DeSantis is addressing when he hints at election impropriety. The fact that there has (still) been no evidence of systemic, coordinated voter fraud produced in court doesn’t really matter. Many feel like Trump (and the Republican party) got screwed—to what degree remains unclear. Also unclear is just how many are truly ready to move on from Trump. Given how Republicans who oppose Trump have fared, DeSantis would be wise to continue delaying any direct confrontation with Trump as long as possible.
One thing is certain: if he does run in 2024, DeSantis won’t be able to hide from questions about the 2020 election and their inevitable follow-ups in a Presidential debate. But if he can answer them while using his indoor voice, he will distinguish himself from Trump.
It’s no secret that Governor DeSantis sees himself as a crusader against "wokeness." Besides his ongoing feud with Disney about whether or not schools can instruct children about sexual orientation, DeSantis has made a name for himself by opposing the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) to high school students. Here’s why that may help him:
For some time, Democrats have had an education problem. Branded as the party of the elites, they control 77% of the country's most highly educated Congressional districts. Within academia, the situation is similarly skewed. Professors overwhelmingly identify as liberal, creating an ideological imbalance that has grown much worse since the early 2000’s. And as Democrats have increasingly espoused views and ideas generated in academia, like CRT, they have (inadvertently) distanced themselves from non-college educated voters, a substantial portion of whom are minorities. This might explain why Democratic support among this demographic dwindled in the last few elections, despite many Democrats assuming that they have their vote. How much of this is due to CRT, specifically, is up for debate, but unless Democrats recognize that their education problem is also a working class problem, they’ll likely continue to lose minority votes and fail to connect with average Americans.
By branding himself as the anti-woke, anti-elite candidate, Governor DeSantis stands to gain a lot from this educational divide, just as Trump did. While many on the Left downplay or dismiss the threat of wokeness, DeSantis has pushed back publicly and forcefully against a movement that has even begun consuming its own. One college’s diversity chief, Tabia Lee, who happens to be black, was fired for what she says was "not being woke enough." Before that, Lee was also accused of "whitesplaining" to students. Such surreal scenarios are becoming more common on college campuses and in the rest of society. While Progressives in the party deny even the possibility that some aspects of CRT have gone too far, many liberals and Left-leaning independents find elements of these teachings problematic: Maybe not capitalizing the letter "b" in black, doesn’t make me a racist... If liberal focal points such as CRT are in fact problematic, the current makeup of the Democratic party’s leadership may be such that those on the inside will be the last to know and the least able to address it.
Governor DeSantis’ willingness to adjust his position away from the extremes of his party and closer to the middle could prove to be his greatest strength. President Biden won in part because he sold himself as politically Right of Bernie but Left of Trump. If DeSantis can convince voters that he is less crazy than Trump (which isn’t asking much) and more centrist than Biden (slightly more difficult), he may indeed swap the Governor’s Mansion for the Oval Office.
