Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis begin trying to destroy each other as it all falls apart for them
Neither the collapsing prison-bound Donald Trump, nor the unpopular Ron DeSantis, is going to end up being a realistic contender in the 2024 presidential election. But because the media has spent the past year chasing ratings by pretending the controversial Trump and DeSantis are 2024 frontrunners, it appears that Trump and DeSantis have each latched onto the delusional hope that 2024 might be realistic for them.
Of course, in this delusional fantasy, Trump and DeSantis would be competing with each other for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. This means that, in order for each of them to keep that fantasy alive, they have to destroy each other. Sure enough, they’re now trying to do that.
Trump, who now suddenly supports everyone getting vaccinated for COVID, has spent the past week taking increasingly thinly veiled shots at DeSantis for refusing to say whether he’s gotten the COVID booster. In retaliation, DeSantis now says he regrets having listened to then-President Trump in early 2020, when Trump was briefly on the side of shutting down public events to contain the spread of COVID.
So now we’ve got Trump attacking DeSantis for being too Trumpy, and we’ve got DeSantis attacking Trump for not being Trumpy enough. This isn’t shocking. Trump has always been willing to destroy anyone who’s stood in his way, even a loyal ally. And DeSantis is precisely the kind of political idiot who has convinced himself he can score points with Trump’s base by attacking Trump.
The kicker is that while neither of these guys is likely to be anywhere near the 2024 presidential election, the fictional narrative that they’re the top two frontrunners has prompted them to begin attacking each other in a way that’ll only serve to reduce their remote 2024 prospects even further. For that matter, if DeSantis keeps feuding with Trump, it’ll become difficult for him to even so much as get reelected in Florida in 2022.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report