This captures an interesting difference between Trump and all his challengers on the Right who are attempting Trumpism without Trump: The demagogue himself can occasionally stray from the rightwing propaganda script, because the base trusts he will hurt their enemies anyway.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1664307437371809792?s=46&t=1xecvNVImNo8TKt3oEvqnA
I see all the “The worst person you know just made a great point” jokes – and there is something to that. But let’s make sure not to indulge the “Trump, the moderate” nonsense again. He isn’t criticizing the demonization of the “leftwing” enemy, with which he has no problem. 2/
But what he is doing here is nevertheless interesting: Trump might be a little annoyed by the “wokeism” talk, probably because every third word out of DeSantis’ mouth is “woke” – and so he says that. He has little filter. And, crucially, he also knows it won’t hurt him with the base. 3/
Someone like DeSantis could never do this: He is chasing the Trumpian base, craving their approval, believing his only path is to go all in, all the time, on whatever the latest rightwing moral panic propaganda is, as this will supposedly endear him to MAGA America. 4/
@tzimmer_history I think this is mostly true, but one possible nuance: I have long believed (admittedly without any smoking gun) that the primary motivating factor for making anti-trans politics THE issue for the GOP in the midterms/next presidental cycle was because attacks on the trans community were so associated with DeSantis.
It was an attempt to have a GOP identity post-Trump, and a way to test anointing DeSantis as the new leader.
It has surprised me, a little, that the anti-trans hate is hugely popular but that hasn't really helped DeSantis. I think it's just that Trump's great at being mean so, as you say, they trust him to be mean to trans people too, even though looking at their records DeSantis has more results and is more of a true believer.
@e_urq @tzimmer_history The anti-trans pogroms are a useful way of collapsing the right's entire anti-woman, anti-LGBT+ animus into one overarching issue where they can still falsely claim some kind of moral high ground in "protecting kids," especially seeing as the "pro-life" crusade has largely been exposed as a farce since Dobbs.
I don't think right-wingers associate it with DeSantis so much as DeSantis has tried laying claim to it for political reasons.
@gwynnion @e_urq @tzimmer_history
Well it seem as if the GOPs moral high ground lies in Religion, specifcally the religion associated with the church, the fact the church has committed so much child abuse, and covered it up, discredits any argument that it has any sort of moral high ground as justification for these ANTI LGBTQA policies.
