THE FUTURE OF TRUMP ISM

The greatest threat to Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party comes from his Florida neighbor, GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS, who may be more MAGA than the MAGA king himself.

- JONATHAN CHAIT

IN LATE FEBRUARY, as daily deaths from covid-19 tallied in the thousands across the country, Florida governor Ron DeSantis announced his latest effort to dismantle his state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Private businesses, he insisted, should stop requiring their employees to wear masks at work. Here was a perfectly selected message to build the brand he has established: Ron DeSantis, scourge of public-health bureaucrats, enemy of woke corporations, and friend of the little guy.

Both the form and content of the message reflected careful planning. As DeSantis spoke, he looked like a man who had been mimicking Donald Trump’s speeches in front of the mirror. He performed a series of hand thrusts, in which he drew his thumbs together until they were almost touching, then jerked them apart in quick horizontal motions, as if he were playing an invisible accordion. After five such accordion pulls, he swung his right hand, thumb pointing up, in a semi-circular motion back inward to the center. DeSantis tweeted out the clip, and any maga fan watching, even without the sound on, would have grasped the gist just through the eerie physical impersonation.

Republicans have collectively recognized that however much Trump may exasperate them, their president-in-exile will not be purged, nor will the changes he brought to their party be rolled back. He might, however, be co-opted. And if this is to happen, they have settled with remarkable unanimity on DeSantis as the person to do it.