Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will announce his 2024 presidential bid today in what is already a relentless political war against Donald Trump within an exacerbated Republican Party. He will do it nothing less than in a Twitter live together with Elon Musk at 7:00 p.m. on the East Coast, a time with large audiences throughout the country.
That DeSantis has become a serious threat to the former president was already clear on Monday, when Trump took advantage of the launch in the primary race of Senator Tim Scott to attack him: “Good luck to Scott. It represents a big step forward compared to Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally ineligible," Trump said, rescuing the nickname he coined a few months ago to highlight the blessed facet of the Florida governor (sanctimonious is the English synonym for gnawing altars or blessed).
The invocation of Ron DeSantis' alleged ineligibility wasn't just a huge irony coming from a politician civilly convicted of sexual assault (of writer Jean Carroll), indicted for bribery (of porn actress Stormy Daniels), and under investigation for obstruction to justice for having hidden secret papers, having instigated a coup attempt through the assault on the Capitol on 6-E 2021 or having tried to falsify the presidential elections in Georgia; Trump's allusion could be interpreted as a reiteration of the threat he made against DeSantis in the fall, when he directly threatened to pull out dirty rags on him.
“If (DeSantis) comes forward, I'm going to tell them things about him that won't be very flattering. I know more about him than anyone else apart from, perhaps, his wife..., who really runs his campaign", the former president warned his competitor. "If he applies, he could do a lot of damage. It would only harm and divide the party, he would lose the precious and massive vote of MAGA (the Trumpist faction with the slogan Make America Great Again) and he would never be able to run successfully again for the office” of governor, he warned.
In recent weeks, Trump's campaign has focused on mock ads accusing DeSantis of approving steep tax hikes in his state and intending to do the same across the country if he becomes president.
DeSantis, for his part, insists that he tell him as Trump tells him he is "a winner". And in March he took a stab at the Daniels case: "I don't know what it means to pay money to a porn star to ensure her silence about some kind of alleged affair", he let her go.
But, paradoxes of populism, the truth is that Trump gained an advantage over DeSantis after his imputation in the Daniels case. Today the difference is, according to last week's polls, 36 points in favor of the leader (56% to 20% in intention to vote among Republicans). And the governor's insistence on legislating against any advances in rights such as abortion, gender identity, or the fight against racism, as well as his war against Disney executives for criticizing his many prohibitionist laws, they don't seem to help him with more moderate voters.
The 44-year-old lawyer and ex-soldier, who in November was re-elected as Florida governor with 60% of the vote, displayed his extremism again on Monday, when at a meeting of religious communicators he defended the idea of strengthening the conservative majority of the Supreme Court. In particular, DeSantis indicated that the new president of the USA could, over the course of two terms, replace retiring judges John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor. And since the first is right-wing but the second is considered progressive, the current majority of 6 to 3 in favor of conservatives could expand to 7 to 2. And so, the court already shaped by Trump in his second mandate with the stated purpose of overturning abortion rights — as the justices in fact agreed last year — would remain conservative "for a quarter of a century," he said. Without cutting
