Ross Douthat: 'Right now it looks as if DeSantis will be able to sell himself as the Republican who overperformed amid general underperformance, the only Republican who fully exploited the openings the Biden Democrats gave the GOP.'
Powerful narratives have a way of burying caveats and doubts, and right now it looks as if Ron DeSantis will be able to sell himself as the Republican who overperformed amid general underperformance, Ross Douthat writes.A red wave swept Florida, but elsewhere, it barely lapped the shore.
That theory, basically, is that there’s a decisive right-of-center majority there for the taking in American politics, an opportunity magnified by the Biden administration’s unpopularity. It’s a majority that Donald Trump pushed the party toward, by picking up working-class white voters in 2016 and then Hispanic voters in 2020 — proving that the GOP coalition could be more blue collar and multiracial than its Romney-Ryan iteration and better optimized for Electoral College success.
Crucially, the DeSantis theory emphasizes, “normal” doesn’t have to mean “squishy.” Instead, his sweeping success in Florida proves that you can be an avatar of cultural conservatism, a warrior against the liberal media and Dr. Anthony Fauci, a politician ready to pick a fight with Disney if that’s what the circumstances require. You just also have to be competent, calculating, aware of public opinion as you pick your fights and capable bipartisanship and steady leadership in a crisis.
But powerful narratives have a way of burying caveats and doubts, and right now it looks as if DeSantis will be able to sell himself as the Republican who overperformed amid general underperformance, the only Republican who fully exploited the openings the Biden Democrats gave the GOP, the Republican who actually achieved the kind of realigning victory that Trumpism’s theoreticians kept promising was just around the corner.
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