D-I-V-O-R-C-E: Trump And That Douche Ron DeSantis Running For Florida Gov!
Andrew Gillum's chances keep looking better.
Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee for Florida governor, is stuck in the "monkey house" right now because he's angered Donald Trump, the owner of his certified, pre-owned soul. Trump isoffended that DeSantis "distanced himself" from his offensive denials of Puerto Rico's reported death tollin Hurricane Maria. What has Trump done to make DeSantis treat him so "disrespectfully"? He singlehandedly helped DeSantis win the GOP primary (and we know because all Trump's claims are rigorously fact-checked). And now DeSantis, the self-styled "pitbull Trump defender," won't even defend Trump at his most indefensible? What a world.
DeSantis didn't suddenly discover human decency hiding under his hairpiece. No, he's trying to win an election here. Sure, he wants to be like Trump and humiliatedhis own family in campaign ads stating just that, but he sees no path to electoral success as the political equivalent of a Beatles tribute band that only covers "Revolution 9." Race-baiting, "swamp-draining" Trump is the preferred model for young Republicans to emulate -- not the bonkers Trump who's like the creepy guy on the bus who badgers everyone with rum-soaked nonsense until you just get off two stops early.
Democrat Andrew Gillum has consistently polled ahead of DeSantis since he won his own party's primary in August. DeSantis has tried to subtly remind voters that Gillum is black but to no avail. More troublesome for DeSantis is that Florida's Puerto Rican population is already larger than New York's at 1.1 million and a reported 56,000 former Puerto Rican residents have moved to Florida since Maria. If there were hard feelings about Trump pelting them with paper towels and leaving them to die, the situation likely wasn't improved when Trump claimedthat their suffering was all a false flag to make him look bad. As the old joke goes, he "didn't need their help."
DeSantis wasn't the only Florida Republican who embraced reality. Senate hopeful and current mediocre governor Rick Scott gently disagreed with Trump, and Senator Marco Rubio tweeted his usual passive-aggressive, "can't we all just get along?" limp noodle of a statement. At least this time we were spared the seemingly random Bible verses that make Rubio look like some fundamentalist Batman villain.
People "familiar with the president's thinking" (ideally a team of psychoanalysts who specialize in malignant narcissistic personality disorders) reportedly claim Trump still maintains he was right about the inflated death totals, and he's the most "frustrated" with DeSantis for "crossing" him. Trump's own advisers weren't crazy about the president supporting DeSantis because he was a crackpot. But that was before the primary. Now he's their only shot at keeping the state in Republican control so true to fickle form, they are trying to prevent a "divorce," as one person "close to the president" (so not Melanie) describes the totally healthy situation.
Should Republicans worry that Trump has no plans to campaign for DeSantis in Florida? Absolutely not because Trump always listens to reason and never follows his baser instincts.
"So yeah, maybe the president is angry, but he'll cool off," said Michael Caputo, a former Trump advisor who lives part-time in Miami. "He knows Florida is more of a hospitable place for him in 2020 with DeSantis in the governor's mansion than [Democrat] Andrew Gillum. President Trump needs DeSantis in 2020 just like DeSantis needs Trump in 2018."
Trump is also reliably petty AF, and I think if polls continue to show DeSantis losing, he would gleefully run around insisting it was because DeSantis was disloyal and turned off the "super-elite" Trump supporters who carried him to victory in the primary. DeSantis has already strapped on the extra-strength knee pads and tried to patch things up with Trump.
"Ron DeSantis knows first-hand that President Trump honored all requests for Hurricane Maria relief and it is sad, though predictable, that Democrats are wrongly politicizing this issue and that the media is constantly trying to drive a wedge between the president and members of his own party," the campaign said in a statement. "As governor, Ron will continue to work with the president through his reelection and second term to accomplish great things for Florida."
Praise Trump. Check. Blame Democrats and the media. Double check. Well done, Ron. Do whatever it takes to avoid becoming a Maria-related statistic that Trump won't deny.
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I thought it was some sort of satire too when I first saw it. The slogan of the Trump years has to be "You can't make this sh---t up!"