If Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, it’s already obvious what one of the main Democratic lines of attack will be: He’s just like Donald Trump, only worse.
“He increasingly acts like his role model, the tyrannical Donald Trump,” the Orlando Sun-Sentinel editorialized last year. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote at CNN’s website that he has a “mini-Trump brand” (and also reminds her a bit of Mussolini). Molly Jong-Fast, in a newsletter for The Atlantic, concluded her tour of press clips about the governor with this conclusion: “DeSantis may prove to be the Trojan Trump who finally brings down American democracy.”
What makes DeSantis, or any other Republican, “too Trumpy”? The critics offer a wide variety of answers. Jong-Fast is willing to put the label on anyone who opposes either mask mandates in schools or abortion. Charlie Sykes, in the Bulwark, claims that DeSantis is hostile to civil liberties, quoting a report that he signed a bill that “grants civil immunity to people who decide to drive their cars into protesters who are blocking a road.”
