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Some Early and Brief 2024 Thoughts

For some, I’m sure the temptation to comment on the upcoming 2024 Primaries and Presidential Election will be like coming back to your dealer after four years of sobriety. Others, feeling scorned by the Trump administration, or enlightened by whatever kind of new political pill they’ve taken in recent years has them scoffing at the idea of taking this seriously. Here at Prudent Perceptions, we’re here to offer a nice kick to your morning coffee, the much needed political chicory for you to kickstart your day.

After much speculation in the midst of other candidates making their announcements for the 2024 Presidential Race, the long touted “Trumpism without Trump” had arrived in the name and face of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. This has been in the backdrop of much talk of DeSantis in the last two years being the alternative to Trump, someone with less drama, more policy chops, and actual executive experience in government rather than the controversial-but-entertaining New York Playboy Billionaire. Out of all the candidates that have announced (excluding Trump) he has certainly received the most media attention, although we have to give Don Lemon the honorable mention here for being blatantly honest about Nikki Haley not being in her “prime”. I will admit that it is difficult to talk about this race without mentioning Trump, after all this is meant to be a discussion on the recent news; but Trump’s shadow looms long in the upcoming election.

DeSantis has much going for him, whether that be an established local political machine, some early congressional endorsements, and a very fractured Republican Party that doesn’t want to see if it can survive another bout with Trump. Those surrounding DeSantis will be discussed shortly, but he has been seen as the welcomed alternative that will rise above the other Trump challengers, like that of Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy. I suppose we’ll see come the fundraising numbers and the media attention.

Media attention was something DeSantis was hoping for and boy did he get it, for better or for worse. Appearing on Twitter’s audio chat and broadcast platform, Twitter Spaces, he had announced his candidacy on air to hundreds of thousands of people live, with technical glitches abound at every corner. NuTwitter certainly had trouble with the density of people trying to tune in, but to Ron’s credit (at least for fundraising) he can spin that as a good thing.

I hope you’re cracking wise in Heaven buddy.

Aside from the dynamics of twitter spaces or even a livestream, it was a relatively calm and somewhat run of the mill announcement speech. Listed some policy platforms, discussed the “woke mind virus” (I’ll laugh if “mind virus” originates from UR) and the need to kickstart the “Great American Comeback”. I’ll admit it’s hard to find something that’s as smooth as “Make America Great Again” for an easy #MAGA on a tweet, but that does come to show the difficulties with marketing. Why not Make America Florida? All of this reminded me of Glenn Youngkin’s recent advert, posing him as the spiritual successor to Ronald Reagan, transitioning from Reagan’s famous 1964 “Time for Choosing” speech to him standing before the podium. Whether or not the Virginia governor runs is still an open question, but I think he of all governors needs to stay in the Governor’s Mansion and try and salvage the great state of Virginia.

There has been many on the right, from The American Sun writers to former Trump staff asking “Why is he running now?”

Ron has to bank off his political capital now, if his speech was any indication he has to take advantage (perceived or otherwise) of his time in the Governor’s mansion during the lab leak pandemic. Additionally, the culture war inroads he’s made gives Ron’s campaign the ability to walk a fine line on cultural issues ranging from transgenderism to critical race theory, without the baggage that Trump will most assuredly face when it comes to reshaping the Supreme Court and by extension overturning Roe v. Wade. Whoever, and there are plenty of people whispering in his ear, seems to be making the case that Ron is the no-nonsense serious kind of candidate with policy chops who knows how to get things done. The space featured Elon Musk, Chris Rufo, the governor and many others in the short time the space actually worked, all giving softball questions after his stump speech of an announcement to illustrate he can competently govern and take on Washington and the world.

In the long shadow of Trump, and a party desperate not to be forever tainted by the Orange Man, who else do you throw in? Asa Hutchinson? He’d most assuredly get bullied in the debates for not standing up to child castration. Nikki Haley? Get real. While no one is going to be paying attention to policy for some time, Ron’s comments on taking at look at ways to leverage presidential powers under Article II of the US Constitution was interesting. I had speculated in the wee hours of the night that it might mean taking advantage of Article II, Section Three Powers.

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

>he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;

There’s something there, but perhaps constitutional manipulation for power is a substack for later time.

NuTwitter and Branding

What was mentioned on this NuTwitter Space was the subject of being a candidate with substance and policy and experience, rather than just branding. Policy matters, but voters are going to see how you respond to being called a DeSantoid or comparing you to the infamous Jeb! campaign of 2016. Perhaps trying to be the “No Nonsense” kind of candidate will do you some good because what’s coming from the DeSantis War Room is just awful.

Outside of the beltway, how much a desire is there for the average American to go back to some kind of regular ol' politician? He talks like a regular politician, he answers things like a politician failing to connect to the people. It seems that the Washington establishment for the GOP assumes that they have an obligation to return to supporting regular politicians? I don’t have a high expectation out of anyone running for high office, but for all of this push for Ron DeSantis astroturfed or otherwise the game will be on the records of the respective candidates however it will boil down to personality.

Perhaps this comes down to my own biases, I have voted for Trump twice, he was the first man I got to cast a presidential ballot for. I have participated in either helping out with elections or being a precinct chair and active member in my local GOP since I first turned 18 nearly a decade ago now. Yet seeing how much of Elon is featured here in the DeSantis War Room Video one must remember this tweet.

DeSantis to Musk, is the “Sensible and Centrist” choice.

I’ll try and keep this all brief, but I think we’re going to see new power brokers and players enter the scene, Musk being one of them. There is a very nouveau riche, counter-cultural “right wing” scene, in addition to the Techno Optimists of California who have only just begun to whet their appetites in the 2022 midterms. You’re not getting 2016 back, you’re not even getting 2020 energy back, this will be a slug fest that requires the best election lawyers in the country to ensure any kind of victory for 2024. Heck, we don’t even know what will happen once Tucker Carlson gets his show running on twitter and how that will affect the primary space, but Musk welcoming him on and asking DeSantis questions on the space is indicative that Twitter will play an even larger role than it ever did for Trump in the last two elections. This raises the important question, if DeSantis clearly has Musk’s backing, how will Trump be treated when he inevitably returns to Twitter? If we thought it was bad under Agrawal or Dorsey, imagine a guy who has some political chops for a specific candidate or agenda. What does loom over everyone’s head, Trump to Ron to RFK Jr., is the electoral process.

“The System”

In an effort to keep this brief, we will talk Trump in a later Substack post, but I feel the need to address the same question that was asked at his CNN Townhall, which is that of electoral integrity. I don’t need to post the TIME article about election fortification, or how ballot harvesting is the game to play, these things are known regardless of your candidate or affiliation. The question becomes, how do you game it to your favor?

Trump has famously decried mail-in ballots, harvesting, the obvious extrajudicial changes during the state of emergency that led to changes in election law for 2020 to play out the way it did. He stands in opposition to Ronna McDaniel standing for them, and the desire for more GOTV efforts and registration attempts in neighborhoods that historically don’t have high turnout or don’t vote republican. Is anyone willing to slug it out over the results? At the same time you’ve got the popular vote compact to get around the “electoral vote count is what really matters” fact of life.

Additionally, the polarization of the nation has gone so far off the reservation that anarcho-tyranny and tacitly endorsed domestic terrorism is a fact of life. Whether that’s being mum on the Covenant School Shooting while promoting the Trans Day of Visibility, or the obvious 2020 Riots that make 1968 blush. (It just happens to be the third anniversary of George Floyd’s overdose, how fitting.) Just now we had this from the Biden administration, whose definitions of hate and anti-semitism can mean anything from flying an American flag on your yard or criticizing George Soros.

It doesn’t bode well for the right in America, with many fulcrums ranging from opioids to people sadistically cheering on a White Minority USA, this probably is the last real election. Perhaps Michael Anton will write us another anonymous essay?

There will be more to cover, which you can tune later on one of the shows I co-host, The Digital Archipelago as we cover the news this afternoon.

I’ll wrap it up for now with these thoughts. I know many are checked out from electoral politics, but for better or worse they still matter and you can’t ignore them.

Although if we’re going with the junkie analogy, the hit does feel very, very good.

Until then.