May30

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Make a Wish!: The Decline and Fall of Ron Weaselly

There was a time when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was a rising star in the GOP. In fact, he was arguably THE rising star, and the heir presumptive to the MAGA throne. These days, it looks more like he was a shooting star, one who burned bright and is now fading away.

The governor is currently beset by all sorts of problems that speak to his much-reduced status. Here is a solid, but not comprehensive, list:

• Uncharitable: As we have noted, DeSantis' wife Casey, who is also his preferred successor, is at the center of a scandal involving the charity she founded and more than $10 million in (alleged) grift. The stench has also attached itself to the governor, especially since the people who received money they should not have received were mostly HIS friends and allies, not hers.
  
  
• The Legislature: There was a time when the state legislature was terrified of DeSantis, and largely unwilling to defy him, for fear he would kill this project or that investment in a member's district. That time has passed, perhaps because Florida Republicans have recognized that DeSantis is done in about a year, while Donald Trump (who dislikes DeSantis) will be in power for much longer than that. So, the legislators are now rebelling against the Governor on a frequent basis, both in terms of their official actions and in terms of their public pronouncements. To take one example, Speaker of the Florida House Daniel Perez (R) just did an interview with Florida Politics in which he accused DeSantis of telling "lies and stories that never happened" and "throwing temper tantrums."
  
  
• The Bureaucracy: Similarly, much of the state bureaucracy was scared of DeSantis. But again, that appears to have passed. For example, this week, the regents of the University of Florida met to choose a new president for the system, as former senator Ben Sasse threw in the towel after just one year on the job. And the person they chose was a clear poke in the Governor's eye. It's Santa Ono, currently the leader of the University of Michigan, and thus the fellow who oversaw that school's DEI programs. Ono is certainly a liberal, but he's also a politician (of a sort), as all major-university leaders are. So while he wrote an op-ed in which he said he's no longer a supporter of DEI, conservatives aren't buying it. Here's Paul du Quenoy, a right-wing columnist for The Telegraph (UK):

  Until only recently, Ono was a public supporter of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as well as other radical Left shibboleths. Oddly, he was the only finalist for the Florida position, which comes with a salary of as much as $3 million per year. Ono must still be approved by the Florida state university system's Board of Governors. This is usually a formality, but a majority vote of that body should end this un-American charade and send him packing.
  
  Critics of DEI are reeling at Ono's appointment, in what they correctly see not only as a betrayal of everything DeSantis has stood for as governor but also as a major threat to the cause of education reform, which president Trump has put into policy via executive orders released in the first days of his presidency.

  Obviously, DeSantis opposed Ono, but he was ignored.
  
  
• Whining: As his influence has been slipping through his fingers, like so many grains of sand in an hourglass, the Governor has developed the habit of traveling around the state and holding press conferences where he whines and moans about whatever is on his mind—woke judges, drag shows, the "big, beautiful budget," immigration, whatever. It would seem that most people, on both sides of the aisle, find it off-putting.
  
  
• Body Slammed: On Saturday, trying to remind everyone that he's a "man of the people," DeSantis attended WWE's Saturday Night's Main Event in Tampa. Pro wrestling, in Florida... those should really be DeSantis' people. Remember how many pro wrestlers/MMA figures were given prime spots at the Republican National Convention, for example. However, on Saturday, when DeSantis was shown on the Jumbotron, the crowd erupted into a chant of "You suck! You suck! You suck!"

When DeSantis first burst onto the national scene, a few years back, we thought he might just be able to position himself as the heir to the MAGA throne. But since then, he's grossly overplayed his hand with all the crazy authoritarian stuff, he's gotten in ethical/legal trouble, he's shown that he's got the charisma of a boiled potato, he's alienated much of the MAGA base, and he's been the butt of many a joke. He's cooked, just like the last governor of Florida who was so overconfident in his chances, he'd already begun looking at patterns for the Oval Office curtains. All that's left is for DeSantis to announce that his new, high-energy slogan is "Ron!" (Z)