The Real Reason Trump Is Beating DeSantis – by William Otis

I ve quoted Abe Greenwald from Commentary before, and I ll do so again now, because I think he nails it as succinctly as I ve seen. His piece is titled, ominously as I see it, The GOP Race Won t Be Decided by Arguments. Ladies and gentlemen, here s the bad news:

Arguments, vision are these even capable of altering the shape of the race? Is Donald Trump way out ahead among Republican voters because of the strength of his arguments and the clarity of his vision for the United States?

Hardly. While Trump s argument against a crooked establishment and his vision of populist retribution are welcome among a broad swath of Republican voters, they re not his alone. What Trump preaches has become boilerplate on the right. It s easier to count the elected Republicans who dissent from new-right populism than the ones who embrace it. And DeSantis not only embraces it; he speaks it more coherently than Trump and makes headline news by enacting bold new-right policies. If argument and vision counted as much as we d like to think, DeSantis would be, at least, in striking range.

We re eight years into the Trump phenomenon and long overdue in facing this simple, absurd, fact. What people love about Trump is Trump: The sub-Catskill zingers, the bronze-plated pomposity, the boundless egomania that winks at self-mockery, the tacky marketeering, the tabloid outrage, the fearless lying, the sincere disdain for standard political cant, the simpleness of his spite, even his idiosyncratic gestures and aborted sentences. They love the reality-show, pro-wrestling conflation of real life and theatrical battle.

via ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com

Probably true, God help us.