lol cool
he wrapped himself around Trump the last 4 years and doesn't seem to be pivoting
he's even doubled down the last few months with the internet law, crt, and probably other stuff I've already forgotten about. I think he even attacked the gays too
He needs Trump's base, moderates, and independents. How does that come about?
prove that he can do that and show how. don't just make cynical flippant statements
Election isn't tomorrow, there's more than enough time for him to "moderate." But yes right now, as I've said, he has to walk a very thin line. He has to be "trumpy" enough that trump's hardcore base doesn't banish him forever (hence the CRT/Internet law etc etc you mentioned) BUT still be willing to say/do things that subtly hint to everyone else that he's not trump (publicly praising Biden).
Ppl are underestimating how quickly politicians can "pivot." But that's mostly bc the vast majority of voters already know who they're going to vote for, even before we know the candidates
So to someone who knows they're going to vote for the Dem candidate, it seems ridiculous to think that one's opinion of a candidate could change so easily.
Consider this thought experiment. What if in August 2020 trump made a speech to the nation where he admitted he didn't take covid seriously, but that he was going to from that point on. He asked everyone to wear masks, offered additional money to encourage ppl to stay home and announced that he would follow any recommendations from Fauci etc etc. The fact is that even though we had seen 3.5 years of his corruption, mismanagement, racism etc etc etc etc....that almost immediately you would've seen institutions/media etc etc talk about how trump had pivoted to being a responsible president and he most likely would've won reelection. Hell, let alone August, I bet he would've won if that happened in October right after he tested positive.
The national attention span is as long as a video on Tik Tok.
Every single day there is a new story/event that completely dominates national discourse. Today it was the chick banned from the Olympics, tomorrow it will be something else. The cumulative effect of this happening every. single. day of every. single. week of every. single. month, is that when 2023 rolls around, 2021 might as well have been 1921. NOTHING DeSantis is doing right now will matter. The people who remember what DeSantis did in 2021 aren't going to vote for DeSantis anyways. Even Trump will be a forgotten figure. But trumps supporters will still want a fellow traveler in office. The "Never Trumpers" who voted for Biden did so bc they thought trump was an existential threat to the country and bc most of them are highly educated professionals (chamber of commerce types) who realized that fundamentally, trump's stupidity/corruption/mismanagement is actually bad for business. DeSantis is much more polished (Yale, Harvard Law, NAVY), he's also a white man - which by itself is good enough for a large chunk of the gop electorate. If the GOP is able to continue being successful at the race baiting, DeSantis' numbers with hispanics may be as high (or higher) than any GOP candidate in modern history (not to mention he already has some credibility with them bc he's in Florda).
Assuming there are no bombshell scandals etc in Florida over next cpl years, Dems only hope is that Biden/Harris have an incredibly successful 1st term. They also need to moderate on immigration.
