Alas, Poor Meatball

Post-mortem

Office of the Florida Governor.

I won’t take up much of your time, but I feel it necessary to say a few words over the remains of the DeSantis campaign.

You may recall (especially if you follow me on social media, where I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen) that in October I explained why DeSantis was not going anyplace. It had to do with the miserable, joyless nature of his brutal, stupid policies and politics.

These were not fundamentally different from the policies and politics of the fash load he was trying to supplant, mind you. But DeSantis was very clearly a tryhard — the kind of person who could not even smile normally because he was so tensed up about how it would be perceived by those inscrutable creatures called human beings — whereas the Trump pricks demanded their bullies be thoroughly un-self-concious, DGAF, loosey-goosey Good-time Adolfs. Sample:

Folks, I assure you, when MAGA look at DeSantis they see the same charmless, maladroit fuckface you do. They see a numpty who does everything out of a playbook, who can’t improvise, who can’t dance, who has no soul, no verve, no jam. As I wrote in 2015, they wouldn’t vote for Scott Walker for the same reason:

…Trump broke out. And suddenly there went Walker’s whole reason for being. It turned out his dollar sweaters and latex gloves and his lack of schooly airs weren’t what appealed to them — it was his willingness to be mean to the people they hated; and if you want a candidate to be mean to the people you hate, isn’t it much better to have one who seems confident about it?

They hate people like Walker and DeSantis. It’s frankly their most relatable quality.

I will say now that DeSantis wasn’t even much fun to parody, especially at first. When I wrote this February 2023 sketch where he auditioned Republicans of Color as prospective VPs, I didn’t think I’d quite gotten the swing of him — that is, I didn’t have a sense of what the character would be like when he was relaxed.

But by the time I got to this May 2023 sketch, I realized there wasn’t much of swing to get — which is why I gave most of the scene to DeSantis’ personality trainer, Richard Simmons:

SIMMONS: But there are a lot of things people don’t know about you, aren’t there, Ron? And don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about any dirty political skeletons-in-the-closet kind of thing. Because you know what I’ve found?  I’ve found people are more likely to have angels in their closet than skeletons. Because when I learn something new about someone I thought I knew, it’s always, always something kind and admirable and nice. That’s the angel in their closet!

[DeSANTIS nods. SIMMONS comes in closer.]

And you know, I bet there’s a lot more to Ron DeSantis. I know you’re not just the man in the suit on the TV. No, you’re also another Ron DeSantis entirely. One who’s relaxed. Who’s warm. Who’s compassionate. Who’s funny. A man people would want to be with even if he weren’t governor. But how are they gonna see it, Ron, that angel in your closet, if you don’t show it to them? How?

DeSANTIS: That’s a good question.

Ha ha ha I kill me.

Normal people were always out of the question for DeSantis and, as has become apparent, the New Model GOP leadership is not interested in normal people, either, and promotes creeps and freaks to represent it. Obviously Trump is the boss creep-freak at the moment; DeSantis’ sub-optimal creep-freak act could not compete.

Still… you have to wonder: If the party (and democracy itself!) were running true to form or anything like it, it would take longer than this for the front-runner’s major competitor to founder, especially if he were a sitting governor who’d won his last election in a landslide.

Think about it. The Republicans haven’t renominated a losing presidential candidate like Trump since Tom Dewey, and he only got it because they thought Truman was a goner. And you saw the cold shoulder they gave one-termer George Bush the First. Plus, even when a major party candidate is anointed, as former VP Mondale surely was in 1984, the race can run right up into late spring. What does it take to crap out as quickly as DeSantis did?

We could explain it away by saying Trump is a phenomenon, a black swan etc. But that’s bullshit. All that’s extraordinary about Trump is how big a crook he is and how fucked up his tiny base is and how devoted the prestige press is to sucking him off. Trump lost in 2020 to Joe Biden, a perpetual also-ran, because normal people hated him so much, and he’s probably going to lose this year, too, for the same reason.

So why didn’t DeSantis hang in longer? Two theories: First, megadonor Robert Bigelow: He’d been threatening to pull the plug on DeSantis since last summer (and refreshing the threat at intervals), and political campaigns these days are like what Wall Street used to be: Subject to sudden panics and sell-offs. Eventually the market got spooked by the uncertainty and that was the end of him.

But I have what I think is a better theory: These days nearly no one runs for President with the goal of becoming President. President is a tough job and the “Best Man” is increasingly the least likely person to get it. It’s a great way to get a TV talking head gig, though, or some other related scam.

Shit, look at Andrew Yang! That goofy-ass motherfucker is still pushing his lame act and he doesn’t care if he paves a way for fascism so long as his name stays up in lights.

These days presidential politics is mostly an endless audition for prestige media gigs, seats on corporate boards, and think-tank sinecures. The only ones who really want the gig are lifers with antique notions of public service (Biden) and megalomaniac Nazi psychopaths (Trump).

DeSantis is almost as ill-suited for those positions (in terms of affect) as he is for the presidency (in terms of, well, everything). But he got his name out there, goddamnit, and he worked for it, and he’s going for that non-presidential gusto. No old-soldier fading-away for him!

So that’s why DeSantis “failed” so fast — he wasn’t really trying.

I predict you will see Meatball Ron — perhaps after hundreds of hours of comportment training that will make him look almost human on camera — as a Public Figure, which in his value-free world is at least as meaningful a title as POTUS. And thank God for America that’s as far as he’ll ever get.