American society is now largely defined by year-round political campaigning — so much so that many are already attempting to predict the outcomes of elections slated for three years down the line.
For the Democrats, the top of the ballot hinges on whether President Biden will make it through the next few years, or whether Vice President Heiress — sorry, Harris — will take his spot.
For the Republican ticket, primary season could go in several directions.
In the first scenario, President Donald Trump and his loyalists — like Napoleon returning from his exile on Elba — could reclaim Washington for MAGA. In the second, a new dark horse candidate — as Trump once did himself — could secure the Republican nomination and lead the party.
A third scenario, however, appears to be increasingly probable: a ticket headed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The Harvard Law graduate, Navy officer, and former Congressman is topping polls for likely Republican presidential contenders after reversing restrictions upon civil liberties during COVID-19 before nearly any other Republican governor. For the past several months, he has enacted bold conservative policies, valiantly fought the so-called “culture wars,” and traded blows with rivals without coming off as a jerk.
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Take, for example, DeSantis’ retort to the Biden administration urging him to “get out of the way” of their draconian COVID policies:
But let me tell you this, if you’re coming after the rights of parents in Florida, I’m standing in your way, I’m not going to let you get away with it. If you’re trying to deny kids a proper in-person education, I’m going to stand in your way, and I’m going to stand up for the kids in Florida.
If you’re trying to restrict people, impose mandates, if you’re trying to ruin their jobs and their livelihoods and their small business, if you are trying to lock people down, I am standing in your way, and I’m standing for the people of Florida.
So why don’t you do your job? Why don’t you get this border secure? And until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about COVID from you.
Imagine “Governor Beast Mode” — as some have affectionately dubbed him — on a debate stage with either Biden or Harris; doubtlessly, one steely glare toward the latter would send her into an uncontrollable fit of nervous laughter.
DeSantis is all of Trump’s strengths with few of his flaws — and the Left is responding accordingly, whether they recognize it or not.
For the past five years, the Left has rejected anything positive emerging from Donald Trump and his administration, merely because it occurred under Donald Trump — a disease sometimes monikered “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Other symptoms include attributing any and all of the president’s actions to racism, sexism, or anti-Semitism; believing quite literally any accusation related to the shadiness of his business or political activities; and obsessing over his physical appearance — such as his spray tan, hairdo, and … hands.
Like a novel COVID variant, the American Left is succumbing to a new — but very similar — virus: DeSantis Derangement Syndrome.
The examples are endless.
In response to DeSantis’ ban on Critical Race Theory, Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi asserted that the driving force behind his decision was “white supremacist retaliation to an upsurge in Black liberation struggle.”
A reporter from Vox observed that the governor was “sitting very strongly” during a Fox News town hall.
A purported high school classmate of DeSantis filmed a TikTok called “I went to high school with Ron DeSantis here’s why he sucks.” In the words of Spencer Klavan, “half of this stuff” — such as attempting to place administrators before a tribunal after they started a free and reduced lunch program — “is honestly so based.”
There are hundreds more examples — conveniently chronicled by social media pages such as “DeSantis Derangement Syndrome.”
The vaccine for DeSantis Derangement Syndrome has yet to be discovered. And the Left — which has no natural immunity to competent conservatives — does not have a prayer against the Florida Man.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.