Ron DeSantis’s Joyless Ride

Real-life Ron DeSantis was here, finally. In the fidgety flesh; in Iowa, South Carolina, and, in this case, New Hampshire. Not some distant Sunshine State of potential or idealized Donald Trump alternative or voice in the far-off static of Twitter Spaces. But an actual human being interacting with other human beings, some 200 of them, packed into an American Legion hall in the town of Rochester.

“Okay, smile, close-up,” an older woman told the Florida governor, trying to pull him in for another photo. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, had just finished a midday campaign event, and the governor was now working a quick rope line—emphasis on quick and double emphasis on working. The fast-talking first lady is much better suited to this than her halting husband. He smiled for the camera like the dentist had just asked him to bite down on a blob of putty; like he was trying to make a mold, or to fit one. It was more of a cringe than a grin.

“Governor, I have a lot of relatives in Florida,” the next selfie guy told him. Everybody who meets DeSantis has relatives in Florida or a time-share on Clearwater Beach or a bunch of golf buddies who retired to the Villages. “Wow, really?” DeSantis said.

He was trying. But this did not look fun for him.

Retail politicking was never DeSantis’s gift. Not that it mattered much before, in the media-dominated expanse of Florida politics, where DeSantis has proved himself an elite culture warrior and troller of libs. DeSantis was reelected by 19 points last November. He calls himself the governor of the state “where woke goes to die,” which he believes will be a model for his presidency of the whole country, a red utopia in his own image.

From the May 2023 issue: How did America’s weirdest, most freedom-obsessed state fall for an authoritarian governor?

What does the on-paper promise of DeSantis look like in practice? DeSantis has performed a number of these in-person chores in recent days, after announcing his presidential campaign on May 24 in a glitchy Twitter Spaces appearance with Elon Musk.

As I watched him complete his rounds in New Hampshire on Thursday—visits to a VFW hall, an Elks Club, and a community college, in addition to the American Legion post—the essential duality of his campaign was laid bare: DeSantis is the ultimate performative politician when it comes to demonstrating outrage and “kneecapping” various woke abuses—but not so much when it comes to the actual in-person performance of politics.

The campaign billed his appearance in Rochester as a “fireside chat.” (The outside temperature was 90 degrees, and there was no actual fire.) The governor and first lady also held fireside chats this week at a welding shop in Salix, Iowa, and at an event space in Lexington, South Carolina. The term conjures the great American tradition started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Those were scary times—grim visages of malnourished kids and food riots and businessmen selling pencils on the street. FDR’s cozy evenings around the radio hearth were meant to project comfort and avuncular authority.

Sitting on gray armchairs onstage in Rochester—Casey cross-legged and Ron man-spread—the DeSanti reassured their audience that the Florida governor was the candidate best equipped to protect Americans from contemporary threats no less serious than stock-market crashes and bank closures. He was focused on a distinct set of modern menaces: “woke indoctrination” and “woke militaries” and “woke mind viruses” and “woke mobs” that endanger every institution of American life. He used woke more than a dozen times at each event (I counted).

Also, DeSantis said he’s a big supporter of “the death penalty for pedophiles” (applause); reminded every audience that he’d sent dozens of migrants to “beautiful Martha’s Vineyard” (bigger applause); and promised to end “this Faucian dystopia” around COVID once and for all (biggest applause).

Also, George Soros (boo).

Mark Leibovich: Just wait until you get to know Ron DeSantis

Casey talked at each New Hampshire stop about the couple’s three young children, often in the vein of how adorably naughty they are—how they write on the walls of the governor’s mansion with permanent markers and leave crayon stains on the carpets. Ron spoke in personal terms less often, but when he did, it was usually to prove that he understands the need to protect kids from being preyed upon by the various and ruthless forces of wokeness. One recurring example on Thursday involved how outrageous it is that in certain swim competitions, a girl might wind up being defeated by a transgender opponent. “I’m particularly worried about this as the father of two daughters,” DeSantis told the Rochester crowd.

This played well in the room full of committed Republicans and likely primary voters, as it does on Fox. Clearly, this is a fraught and divisive issue, but one that’s been given outsized attention in recent years, especially in relation to the portion of the population it directly affects. By comparison, DeSantis never mentioned gun violence, the leading cause of death for children in this country, including many in his state (the site of the horrific Parkland massacre of 2018, the year before he became governor). DeSantis readily opts for the culture-war terrain, ignoring the rest, pretty much everywhere he goes.

His whole act can feel like a clunky contrivance—a forced persona railing against phony or hyped-up outrages. He can be irascible. Steve Peoples, a reporter for the Associated Press, approached DeSantis after a speech at a VFW hall in Laconia and asked the governor why he hadn’t taken any questions from the audience. “Are you blind?” DeSantis snapped at Peoples. “Are you blind? Okay, so, people are coming up to me, talking to me [about] whatever they want to talk to me about.”

No one in the room cared about this little outburst besides the reporters (who sent a clip of it bouncing across social media within minutes). And if the voters did care, it would probably reflect well on DeSantis in their eyes, demonstrating his willingness to get in the media’s face.

Yair Rosenberg: DeSantis is making the same mistake Democrats did in 2020

Journalists who managed to get near DeSantis this week unfailingly asked him about Donald Trump, the leading GOP candidate. In Rochester, NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez wondered about the former president’s claim that he would eliminate the federal government’s “administrative state” within six months of a second term. “Why didn’t you do it when you had four years?” DeSantis shot back.

In general, though, DeSantis didn’t mention Trump without being prompted—at least not explicitly. He drew clear, if barely veiled, contrasts. “I will end the culture of losing in the Republican Party,” he vowed Thursday night in Manchester. Unsaid, obviously, is that the GOP has underperformed in the past three national elections—and no one is more to blame than Trump and the various MAGA disciples he dragged into those campaigns.

“Politics is not about building a brand,” DeSantis went on to say. What matters is competence and conviction, not charisma. “My husband will never back down!” Casey added in support. In other words: He is effective and he will follow through and actually do real things, unlike you-know-who.

“Politics is not about entertainment,” DeSantis said in all of his New Hampshire speeches, usually at the end. He might be trying to prove as much.