This is Ron DeSantis Trying to Appear Reasonable

Anatomy of a failed governor and failed presidential candidate

Photo by Done By Alex on Unsplash

The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has lost count of how many times Florida governor Ron DeSantis has attempted to reboot his flailing 2024 presidential campaign.¹ I do know that in the latest iteration of this, DeSantis made headlines for saying categorically that Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. “Of course he lost,” he told NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns in his first broadcast network interview since formally announcing his presidential campaign.

This statement prompted a lot of follow-on coverage and social media posts about how maybe DeSantis really was changing tactics in challenging Trump for the GOP nomination. For example, the New York Times’ Nicholas Nehemas wrote a story headlined, “DeSantis Bluntly Acknowledges Trump’s 2020 Defeat: ‘Of Course He Lost’” with a subhed of “He and other Republican presidential candidates have been testing new lines of attack against Donald Trump.”

Sounds interesting! But there was a very odd kicker² at the end of Nehemas’ story:

[The Florida governor] provided more of an explanation for his campaign-trail promise that migrants suspected of smuggling drugs across the southern border would be shot. Mr. DeSantis has often said that smugglers who try to break through the border wall would be left “stone-cold dead,” usually to thunderous applause at campaign events. But he has not said how U.S. law enforcement would identify them.

“Same way a police officer would know,” Mr. DeSantis replied when asked to explain the mechanics of his policy. “Same way somebody operating in Iraq would know. You know, these people in Iraq at the time, they all looked the same. You didn’t know who had a bomb strapped to them. So those guys have to make judgments.” (emphasis added)

Okay, so a few things. First, are you fucking kidding me with “they all looked the same”?! Isn’t that the very definition of bigotry?! At a minimum, it’s the kind of sentiment that does not inspire confidence DeSantis has any sense of what he’s talking about here.

Second, the notion that securing Iraq, routine policing, and enforcing border control are analogous seems risible at best and blinkered at worst. The problem of drug-runners trying to sneak into the United States is pretty different from the problem of Iraqis trying to attack U.S. forces on their soil. DeSantis is presumably suggesting that experienced individuals can tell the difference between a hardened criminal and just someone trying enter the U.S. and claim asylum. Based on external reporting on U.S. Customs and Border Protection, I have my doubts.

Third, this is all of a piece with DeSantis trying to get to Trump’s right on issues. The link embedded in the Times quote above goes to a late June NYT story covering a DeSantis speech delivered near the Texas border in which he proposed more crazy, illegal shit more extreme policy proposals:

Mr. DeSantis said that if elected, he would seek to tear down some of the pillars of American immigration law, such as the automatic granting of citizenship to those born in the United States.

And he said his administration would “fully deputize” state and local law enforcement officers in states like Texas to arrest and deport migrants back to Mexico — a power now reserved for the federal government — and to detain migrant children indefinitely, despite a court order imposing strict limits on the practice. He also promised to end “phony asylum claims.”

It would also appear that DeSantis has tried as governor to aid and abet such policies. The Tampa Bay Times’ Ana Ceballos reported earlier this summer that, “Gov. Ron DeSantis has spent millions of dollars this year to support Texas in deterring migrants from entering the country through its border security initiative. Now, some of Texas’ efforts are coming under scrutiny amid reports that officers were ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande.” Last month the New York Times’ Frances Robles reported on the clusterfuck that is the Florida State Guard, a quasi-substitute for the Florida National Guard that DeSantis activated for the first time in 75 years. It has not gone well:

The deployment this spring has been mired in internal turmoil, with some recruits complaining that what was supposed to be a civilian disaster response organization had become heavily militarized, requiring volunteers to participate in marching drills and military-style training sessions on weapons and hand-to-hand combat.

At least 20 percent of the 150 people initially accepted into the program dropped out or were dismissed, state officials acknowledged, including a retired Marine captain who filed a false imprisonment complaint against Guard sergeants with the local sheriff after he got into a dispute with instructors and was forcibly escorted off the site….

Of the nine original State Guard recruiters and commanders who spent months recruiting for the organization, fewer than a third remain. The staff director who had been a proponent of the less militarized version of the program, appointed in January, was removed from his post just days before the inaugural graduation. The program’s personnel director was fired this week.

As first reported jointly by the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald, the state leaders responsible for the program sound like they’re trying to implement DeSantis’ hardline, militarized immigration vision. Major General John D. Haas, Florida’s adjutant general overseeing the Florida National Guard. In a statement, told the Miami Herald that “the State Guard was a ‘military organization’ that will be used not just for emergencies but for ‘aiding law enforcement with riots and illegal immigration.’” Little surprise, then, that DeSantis and the state of Florida are now the target of litigation when it comes to his immigration policies.

Wealthy GOP donors are desperate for a non-Trump alternative who will “shift to get to moderates” in the words of one DeSantis backer. And all I am saying here is that even in instances when DeSantis is trying to go there, he inevitably reveals just how hard to the right he would govern.

1. I know for sure is that DeSantis still ain’t flying commercial.

2. Annoyingly, since I published this the Times has updated the story to eliminate this kicker. DeSantis definitely said this however: check out the original NBC News coverage or The Guardian’s write-up.