Florida’s governor DeSantis plans to announce his bid for the US Republican presidential nomination today. He is considered Trump’s fiercest competitor – his former sponsor, who today showers him with malice.
For weeks, America’s television viewers have been bombarded with abusive videos from the Trump camp that are intended to politically damage Ron DeSantis and make them despicable. It’s not just the sharpness of the criticism – after all, directed at a party friend – that makes the campaign so remarkable: there were no doubts about DeSantis’ ambitions, but he’s only throwing his hat in the ring today. In a Twitter interview with Elon Musk, he wants to announce his candidacy in the evening (US time, midnight CEST).
Has Trump to thank for something
The fact that the possibility of his candidacy alone made Trump nervous could even be counted – from the numerous nicknames that the ex-president gave his former political foster child. “Which of these nicknames did you like the best?” DeSantis is asked by a TV host. Maybe “Ron DeSanctimonious” – “the hypocritical Ron”?
DeSantis lets Trump’s malice roll off with humor: He doesn’t even know how to spell it or what it’s supposed to mean, is his answer. In doing so, he owes something to the man he is now challenging: Trump’s campaign support once gave him what was perhaps the crucial momentum to win the governor’s chair in the former swing voter state of Florida.
Similar content but better style
“Actually, I always had a good relationship with him,” says DeSantis in an interview on Fox News, “until the midterms: he’s been attacking me ever since.” In fact, the Republicans’ poor performance in last fall’s midterm elections has been blamed on Trump. Since then, the call for a personnel alternative among the Republicans has become louder and louder.
Bob Turner, Republican voter from Cape Coral, Florida, is also bothered by Trump’s personally hurtful style. The conservative pensioner thinks Trump is sometimes funny, but that’s a shame for the party. DeSantis, on the other hand, doesn’t need insults.
This is how the DeSantis campaign should present its candidate: similar content to Trump, but better style. In addition, more freshness and youthfulness: The lawyer DeSantis is just 44 years old. Trump 76th
“Florida, where woke comes to die”
But like Trump, DeSantis fights with a coarse saber rather than an elegant foil: “Woke ideology is a form of cultural Marxism,” says DeSantis, who had the topics of sexual orientation and systemic racism removed from the curriculum of Florida schools. That could be his weakest flank in the nationwide election campaign: the ultra-conservative positioning in the Kulturkampf, which is likely to deter swing voters in the center.
In Florida, however, with DeSantis fans like Bob Turner, the slogan “Florida, where woke comes to die” resonates brilliantly.
What does “woke” mean?
The term “woke” or “wokeness” comes from English and means “woke up” or “alert”. It is used above all in social networks to denounce social grievances such as discrimination, racism or sexism.