Reporters Are Making 2024 the Year of DeSantis
They can't help it. They have to create their enemies.
In 2015, Donald Trump announced he was running for President. The media gave him so much coverage it bolstered him and kept him afloat enough to make it through a massive primary field. Had the media not focused so relentlessly on him, he would have been drowned out as a fringe candidate while the actual politicians debate on the real issues instead of a wall and locking Hillary Clinton up.
Because the media was showcasing him so much, he was able to build a base of people from their audience who hated the status quo and looked for something different. They knew what they were doing. They knew that if they highlighted this guy, there was no way he could lose and no way Hillary Clinton wouldn’t win.
And then he won, and they lost their minds over him for four years. All because they created that monster.
Having not learned that lesson, they appear set to do the same thing all over again, thinking “Hey, what about Florida Man?”
Ron DeSantis has, by almost every measure, done the right thing throughout the pandemic. He focused all efforts on targeting nursing homes and isolating those exposed from the rest of Florida’s large retirement-aged population. He prioritized indoor spaces and left outdoor locations open. He prioritized as much data getting out as possible. He put shots in arms quickly by partnering with Publix.
Despite all this, he’s been attacked every step of the way by fake whistleblowers like Rebekah Jones, media personalities, a rather stupid lawyer who dressed up as the grim reaper, and anyone else who could get in front of a camera. Despite all this, Florida has, by and large, been one of the best success cases in handling the pandemic.
The media has obsessed over DeSantis, and they want everyone to think he’s some wackjob governor who has been an utter disaster when he hasn’t been. Part of it is their guilt, when Beto O’Rourke, a white man, stole all the media spotlight in 2018 while Andrew Gillum )who ran against DeSantis) and Stacey Abrams (who ran against Brian Kemp of Georgia) got ignored and lost their races. Abrams gets a ton of great media PR now, while Gillum is out of the spotlight so the media just attacks DeSantis nonstop instead.
The problem is that they don’t have much to go on in attacking DeSantis. Every attack has failed to do any sort of damage. So now they are just throwing whatever they can against the wall to see what sticks. And it isn’t.
Take this POLITICO Playbook piece.
This political insider newsletter is serving up some awful insider details on DeSantis. It should terrify everyone that DeSantis… um… doesn’t rely on political insiders and consultants? That can’t be right.
Let’s see… His inner circle is… his wife, a former TV journalism? My God. What a madman.
That… that is the damning information they have on DeSantis?
Yes, in an era of political insiders all-too-willing to go off the record to trash their bosses, DeSantis has opted to not use them. In an era of bad journalism hit jobs, he chooses to consult his wife, a former TV journalist.
Rather than use political operatives who have been in the system for decades, he wants fresh ideas. How horrifying, indeed.
It’s pretty likely that, given these accusations are coming from Florida insiders, Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson is involved in this toothless smear campaign against DeSantis. Wilson, who has no future in the GOP, is tearing down any successful Republican in retribution. The Lincoln Project was a cash cow for him and other consultants who weren’t allowed a seat at the table during the rise of Trump, and the group was their attempt at retribution, which failed spectacularly. They had no impact in the 2020 election but made a ton of money from it.
That these journalists would continue to go to these guys, and willingly take tips from them, despite their absolute lack of access or influence, is a sign this is all about agenda and not actual news. There’s no real inherent news value to this information. It should, at most, be a sentence or two and moved on from because it doesn’t mean anything right now. It’s not an active election cycle for DeSantis - either for governor or for president - and he doesn’t need to be building a team right now anyway.
But, if you’re working on agenda-based reporting and sourcing, then multiple paragraphs make sense because you’re trying to build a body of evidence against DeSantis rather than add any real journalistic value to your reporting.
They will make him a very viable contender in 2024. And they’ll be pissed about it. But that’s on them.