No major elected Republican politician except DeSantis has wanted to touch wokeness

No major elected Republican politician except DeSantis has wanted to touch wokeness. By Rod Dreher.

I woke up this morning in London hoping — not just hoping, but expecting — to see news of a Red Wave having crashed upon the shores of an America sick of the woke Democrats. I was disappointed. The Red Wave talk turned out to be bullshit. …

DeSantis’s smashing Florida victory last night makes him the head of the conservative movement, such as it is. His victory speech was exciting. Good excerpt here:

What a contrast between DeSantis, a conservative who actually gets things done, and wins (even a majority of Latinos!), and Donald Trump, a has-been whose candidates — with the exception of Sen.-elect Vance — fared poorly on Tuesday.

The underwhelming election results on Tuesday, in a country suffering from high crime and high inflation, ought to send a big sign to the conservative electorate: the more the Right stands by the fatmouthing loser Trump, the further behind we will fall. …

I wish to associate myself with these tweets from Matt Walsh:

No courage to confront the important issues head on. It has fallen to Matt Walsh, Chris Rufo, Libs of Tiktok, and others to take on the scourge of gender ideology. With the exception of DeSantis, no other major elected Republican politician has wanted to touch wokeness. I cannot understand why. The country is falling apart, the libs are becoming totalitarians who are coming after children, and most of the GOP just sits there with its thumb up its backside, running on the thrilling platform of “hey, at least we’re not the other guys.” No, forget it. That’s over. …

To the MAGA diehards, I say: is this really what you want? A Republican Party that can’t decisively whip the Democrats even in an extremely favorable year? Because this is what you are going to get if you keep sticking with Trump. Like it or not, a lot of independents just hate the guy, and that’s never going to change. Conservatives like me would vote for him in 2024 just to keep the Democrats out of office, but in that case I would vote knowing I was checking the box for a big mouth who won’t get much done, because whereas Ron DeSantis would actually govern, Trump would do nothing but preen and talk about himself.

The Democrats might tolerate losing to DeSantis, but they won’t tolerate losing to Trump again. That matters, because of the Dem’s ability to rig the vote (though it costs them credibility and pride, so they won’t do it until they feel they have to).

hat-tip Stephen Neil