Florida’s Sun Sentinel, in a scathing editorial take down of Gov. Ron DeSantis imagines the scene at Mar-a-Lago as Donald Trump sees his potential 2024 Republican presidential rival surging in recent polls of GOP voters and drawing interest from big-time donors.
“Now as the ex-president sees DeSantis emerge as his biggest rival, Trump must have buyer’s remorse. You can practically hear the dishware breaking at Mar-a-Lago.”
The full editorial is behind a paywall. Raw Story published excerpts.
The newspaper editorial recalled that just four years ago De-Santis was “a back-bencher in Congress” when Trump enthusiastically endorsed him in a Tweet.
DeSantis fawned all over Trump during the campaign, releasing this cringe-worthy ad.
DeSantis went on to defeat Democrat Andrew Gillum in the general election by 32,463 votes, a margin of 49.6% to 49.2%.
The newspaper’s editorial board described DeSantis as a “bully” and wrote:
“He has governed with total contempt toward the 4 million people who didn’t vote for him.He’s as authoritarian as Trump, just as disdainful of democracy, no less polarizing and openly hostile to scientific evidence that doesn’t conform to his narrow agenda."
The editorial board urged voters in the 49 other states to take note of DeSantis’ record in Florida. It cited as one example DeSantis’ appointment of a “quack,” Dr. Joseph Ladapo, as the state’s surgeon general during the pandemic.
The Sun Sentinel’s editorial board observed:
"It’s terrifying to contemplate DeSantis in the Oval Office when the next pandemic inevitably comes along. When Nazis picketed at Orlando, he was silent. Exploiting society’s vulnerability to cultural warfare, DeSantis has prohibited schools, colleges and even private businesses from dealing honestly with racism and its ugly history. His law labeled “don’t say gay” by critics openly caters to homophobia, chilling sex education in schools and putting students at risk of being outed to their parents."
The newspaper also criticized DeSantis for his attacks on Disney World after the company’s CEO Bob Chapek criticized the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, his gerrymandering, "calculated to replace two Black Democrats with white Republicans," and introducing new restrictions on abortion rights.
It added that the GOP’s “post-Trump future” should not belong to “the intentionally divisive, polarizing and humorless DeSantis.”
I wonder what DeSantis really thinks about the House Jan. 6 committee’s public hearings which have been politically damaging to Trump.
One GOP donor, Dan Eberhart, told Politico: “Ron DeSantis us lying in wait, sharpening his knives.”
It would be interesting to see what Trump has to say if asked whether he intends to endorse DeSantis as he did four years ago.
The narcissistic Trump always thinks of his own interests first — and those interests would be served by a DeSantis defeat in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Time to call fellow Floridian Roger Stone to open his bag of dirty tricks.