Not that this is a revelation, but Vanity Fair's Bess Levin relates that Gov. Ron DeSantis is an ass, and that "his bigoted policies and authoritarian behavior make him just as bad [as Trump] for the top job in Washington."
Being an ass in high politics is neither a rarity nor particular handicap, especially in the White House. Read any non-hagiography of any U.S. president and you'll discover that even your idols were, in one way or another, a jerk, from faithless womanizing to the gratuitous berating of staff.
What has been a rarity are presidents who harbor a race-based ideology, as in Germany's last-century national socialism. Among the infrequent few were Andrew Johnson, who was besottedly overt in his bigotry, and Woodrow Wilson, who celebrated his racism in excessive sobriety. We've had other racist presidents, of course, but at least they forewent making a show of it — excepting Joe Biden's predecessor.
DeSantis is a tangled cross between Wilson, Trump, a smoother-talking George Wallace and a buttoned-down Krusty the Clown. His chief contribution to modern fascism is the equal weighting of sundry sexual phobias alongside racial malevolence. He's the Marco Polo of pioneers in bigotry against all "others," and so naturally he's also a beloved article of faith among the Trump crowd.
How beloved? A recent Wall Street Journal poll pitted DeSantis against Trump before likely GOP primary voters, and the Florida governor triumphed, 52% to 38%. A concurrent USA TODAY poll showed a remarkable 23-point spread in DeSantis' favor, 56% - 33%.
Thus, barring some prohibitive incident on the governor's part — although, granted, there's really no such thing as "prohibitive" in Republican politics — Vanity Fair's Ms. Levin asks: "Wouldn’t DeSantis be a hell of a lot more preferable to send to the White House than Donald Trump?"
Seeing how her article is titled "A Comprehensive Guide To Why a Ron DeSantis Presidency Would Be As Terrifying As a Trump One," Levin's answer to her own question is rather easy to guess. And when she wrote that her guide is comprehensive in its anti-DeSantian content, she followed through with a bill of particulars in bold type:
He thinks it’s okay to treat human beings like chattel
He’s dangerously anti-science
He wants to make it harder for people to vote and had Floridians arrested as part of another one of his political stunts
He’s anti-free speech, particularly the kind of free speech that says the United States hasn’t always been great for non-white people
He’s waging a war on trans people
“Don’t Say Gay”
He’s a massive bully
He’s antiabortion
He supported Donald Trump until it was no longer politically expedient to do so
He saw “no need” for the Respect for Marriage Act
He’s made it harder for protesters to speak out about injustice and easier for anti-justice people to hit protesters with their cars
He has no interest in preventing gun violence
According to people who know him, he’s an awful person and has been for many years
Levin adduced testimony from a DeSantis college acquaintance to buttress her final point: "Ron is the most selfish person I have ever interacted with. He has always loved embarrassing and humiliating people. I’m speaking for others—he was the biggest dick we knew." From the Donald to a dick — a straight line of undifferentiated offensiveness.
Absent from Levin's list is that Gov. DeSanctimonious is demonstrably brighter than Trump. The omission is astonishing, since his comparative intellect is what makes DeSantis more "terrifying" than Trump. Perhaps Ms. Levin simply refused out of blanket negativity to credit the governor with advanced intelligence, but that would be a mistake. One should be candid about an enemy's abilities; to be blinkered is to be disarmed.
That Class-A misdemeanor aside, Levin's rap sheet on DeSantis is a memorable talking-point guide for watercooler chats in which you must defend your opposition to the Floridan goon. See Levin's article for elaborations on each point. Or, you could reduce and simplify the list to a singular declaration: "I oppose DeSantis because he's a slavocratic, obscurantist, disenfranchising, censorial, transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic, opportunistic, lawless, terroristic, gun-happy, intolerable bully.
The only problem with taking the time to itemize your anti-DeSantis opinion is that your pro-DeSantis discussant probably harbors the same attributes as the bullying governor, and thus will reply Great! to your every objection.