By now, most people who follow politics are aware of Ron DeSantis’s latest campaign ad. (If you have not seen it, click HERE.) On one level, it is a typical, slickly-produced celebration of why the candidate is so much better on an issue than his opponent. In this case, Ron’s polemic boasts of how he is a stauncher ally of homophobes than the GOP's current godhead, the LGBTQ-tolerant Trump. On another level, it is a kinetic montage of homoerotic images featuring the ripped abs of an oiled bodybuilder and Brad Pitt as Achilles.
I am not the target audience, thank God, so I have no idea what DeSantis’s marketing people are thinking.
Liberals have greeted this marketing effort with bemusement. They cannot grasp how this — along with Tucker Carlson’s celebration of testicle tanning — has any credibility among the MAGA base. Mainstream conservatives are gobsmacked. And Log Cabin Republicans (gay conservatives) are up in arms at this dagger in the back.
Pete Buttigieg had the best reaction of all. Today on CNN, Dana Bash asked the Transportation Secretary what he made of DeSantis’s ad slamming Trump’s past pledges to protect the rights of LGBTQ people. He replied:
"You know, I'm going to choose my words carefully, partly because I'm appearing as secretary, so I can't talk about campaigns.”
"And I'm going to leave aside the strangeness of trying to prove your manhood by putting up a video that splices images of you in between oiled-up shirtless bodybuilders. And just get to the bigger issue that is on my mind whenever I see this stuff in the policy space, which is, again, who are you trying to help?" (Bolding mine)
Political pundits should analyze every policy through the lens of “Who are you trying to help.” With that question in mind, let us ask who Desantis is benefiting with his homophobic screed. Number one is himself. This ad offers nothing concrete. Its sole purpose is to win Ron the Republican nomination. DeSantis gives his supporters nothing except the warm and fuzzy feeling they are not alone in their bigotry.
DeSantis does not tell us how his homoerotic attack on gays increases wages, reduces the deficit, tames inflation, or improves our trade balance. He is silent on how this helps the environment, bolsters national defense, or repairs our infrastructure. It is merely substance-free grunting. And proof that Republican policy-making is a dead letter.
Contrast that with Trump's signature issue in 2016 — the border wall. It was an expensive boondoggle. Nobody believed that Mexico was going to pay for it. Unbiased experts knew it would do nothing to stop the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants across the border. Like Republican tax cuts, it would not do what it said it would do. However, it was a concrete project with defined aims.
In 2016, the GOP crammed its platform with the usual conservative celebration of American exceptionalism and laissez-faire government. It hailed ‘tax and regulatory reform’ as the road to prosperity. The rubric explained how pro-tech and anti-union policies would benefit the taxpayer. It offered funding for small businesses and the electrical grid. It promised to shrink the national debt. And it pledged to free Americans from the tyranny of Obamacare. There is more, but you get the point.
On social issues, it confined its attacks on LGBTQ to a push to redefine marriage as between one man and one woman. And it demanded that sexual orientation “or other categories” be discarded as a protected class. On school policy, the GOP limited itself to banning federal input and promoting school vouchers. As vile as it was, there was no hysteria over CRT, dangerous books, and grooming. And anti-LGBTQ policies were not featured on the Republican list of priorities.
All-in-all, it was a standard Republican fairy tale of fantastical promises. However, at least it spelled concrete actions with nominally specific benefits.
In 2020, the Republican National Committee (RNC) gave up the pretense that it stood for something. On August 22, the RNC declared the party would not adopt a new platform because "it did not want a small contingent of delegates formulating a new platform without the breadth of perspectives within the ever-growing Republican movement."
Today the two Republican front runners offer the voters two choices. Trump promises retribution and temple destruction as revenge for a stolen election. While DeSantis offers hate of racial and sexual minorities. Who does this benefit? Presumably, MAGA thinks they would emerge winners with either of these nihilists. But have they asked themselves, “How is this helping me?”
America is in the bread and circuses phase of its empire. Although, while Republicans are a circus they do not offer a lot of bread.
I suppose Trump and DeSantis fancy themselves as these muscled men, their mirrors clearly lie in more ways than one , thank you Pitt