Trump has finally gotten around to re-starting his 2016 campaign tactic of defamation.
Trump didn't stop there. He had more to say about DeSantis in a cluster of denunciations — the governor's refusal to emphasize election fraud and his lack of "wall" enthusiasm — but Trump's technology is so crappy and crude, embedding these additional posts proved unworkable. Anyway, to Trump's "drink-party" taunting, DeSantis responded:
An angry Ron Desantis responds to Trump’s post about him partying with young female students: “I spend my time delivering results for the people of FL .. that’s how I spend my time. I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.” pic.twitter.com/LnW1O6o5Le
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) February 8, 2023
What a lovely street fight, and so soon. DeSantis is still holding back in counterattacking Trump by name, though. It will be interesting to see if he persists in this strategy — one of treating Trump as something of a ghostly figure — or eventually returns fire in kind.
For now, Trump's problem is that he's restricting himself to Truth Social posts, which means that he's preaching only to the choir. Meanwhile, DeSantis has the run of Twitter, a formidable base of operations from which he can address the party's more extremism-prone yokels — which is to say, Republican primary voters.