Matisyahu's Blog

I know it sounds redundant to make that glaringly obvious statement but it appears that those who are pushing the narrative that ‘Ron DeSantis is Trump but without the chaos’ ignore why Trump supporters support Trump in the first place. The video below does a great analysis of what is happening on the campaign trail:

The DeSantis campaign is making some pretty obvious mistakes right from day one, firstly they launched on Twitter in the belief that it’ll tap into younger voters in the belief that the noise making reactionaries on Twitter some how represent a large segment of the primary voter (when in reality they don’t). Secondly, they’ve pretty much set up their campaign as a reflection of the right wing culture wars that are raging on the internet but here is the problem, the internet is not the real world.

Let’s take the Daily Wire which as of the end of 2022 they had slightly over 1 million paid subscribers so let’s assume that the total audience size is 4 times larger (keeping in mind that the number of views on YouTube is around 1/8th the number of subscribers based on the most recent video that has been out for a month), even at 4 million that is miniscule when compared to the size of not only the Republican base but the number of independents that the winner of the primary will have to win over in the general election.

Thirdly, Ron Desantis believes that to beat Donald Trump he needs to move to the right of him but if you move to the right of him not only are you tapping into an even smaller percentage of the electorate you’re almost guaranteeing that you’re making yourself unelectable in the general election. The further right you go the less electable you are not only in the primaries but also in the general election. Sure, Trump rallies against ‘the woke’ but he sprinkles it on in moderation where as Ron DeSantis is ‘woke, woke, woke, woke’ not to mention the Churchillesque speech of fighting the woke in various locations as if it were some sort of fight for survival. At some point even the most ‘anti-woke’ Republican is going to ask the obvious question “is this all you have for us?”.

Regarding people who invoke arguments based on low poll numbers for Joe Biden need to be reminded that low poll numbers doesn’t necessarily translate to people looking to vote for someone else – it is possible to be unhappy with Joe Biden for example the lack of progress for student loan forgiveness and yet for that same person to recognise that the alternative is so much worse that people end up voting for Joe Biden (long term it maybe a problem of Republicans stop nominating drop kicks in favour of candidates who have a broad appeal rather than the narrow single issue voters that the Republicans appear to fixate on). Low approval does not automatically mean “so therefore I’ll vote for the opposition” any more than people being unhappy with Nicolás Maduro automatically means that those people support Juan Guaidó – sometimes the ‘devil you know is better than the devil you don’t’.

For all of Joe Biden’s flaws, I think the focus by those wanting to push for change, they should focus on senate, congress and local elections where the agenda is very much pushed. Joe Biden isn’t the obstacle to change, the obstacle to change are those who are voted in as ‘blue dog democrats’ who believe that being a corporate sell out is synonymous with being moderate when in reality the way you win is you focus on the ‘meat and potatoes’ issues in much the same way that John Fetterman did in his election campaign.