Ron DeSantis is “lost”

| 9:09 am EDT August 10, 2021
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Back in April, Palmer Report factually spelled out why Ron DeSantis was on track to not only fail to get traction in the 2024 presidential election, but also to lose reelection in Florida in 2022. Pundits from both sides called us crazy (and worse things) at the time. But now a whole lot more folks are starting to see it our way.

Part of that is because DeSantis is now beginning to self destruct in precisely the manner we predicted. He’s still committed to the strategy of pandering solely to his base, at the expense of trying to broaden his support, simply because he watched Donald Trump do it that way for four years. What DeSantis still doesn’t get is that this strategy is a big part of why Trump lost.

But even as DeSantis arrogantly and cluelessly flounders and can’t seem to figure out why things are going wrong for him, a whole lot of other people are seeing it clearly. Polls say that 62% of Floridians now support mask mandates in schools. Yet DeSantis is more committed than ever to the anti-mask position, even though it’s bad politics for him and it means a bad outcome for his state.

Now that some Florida school boards have decided to simply defy Ron DeSantis’ anti-mask mandate, CBS4 Miami says that he’s vowing to withhold their salaries. DeSantis really is this committed to screwing up. Bulwark writer Amanda Carpenter said it best in a tweet: “DeSantis is lost. He knows schools are going to do masks, against his will, and he can’t figure out a way to look tough. He’s flailing.”