Opinion | Ron DeSantis Is Gambling on Out-Trumping Trump – The New York Times

On April 10, 2021, DeSantis signed the Combating Public Disorder Act, a conservative response to Black Lives Matter and other protests that turn violent or destructive. On Sept. 9, 2021, however, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blocked enforcement of the law because a person of ordinary intelligence could not be sure if he or she broke the law while participating nonviolently in a protest that turned violent:

The vagueness of this definition forces would-be protesters to make a choice between declining to jointly express their views with others or risk being arrested and spending time behind bars, with the associated collateral risks to employment and financial well-being.

DeSantis has capitalized on Floridas outdoor culture to become the nations leading opponent of mask mandates and lockdowns of schools and businesses, including a May 3, 2021, executive order declaring:

In order to protect the rights and liberties of individuals in this State and to accelerate the States recovery from the Covid-19 emergency, any emergency order issued by a political subdivision due to the Covid-19 emergency which restricts the rights or liberties of individuals or their businesses is invalidated.

For DeSantis, the pandemic offered the opportunity to distinguish himself from Trump. In January, Jonathan Chait described his strategy in New York magazine:

Where Trump was tiptoeing around vaccine skepticism, DeSantis jumped in with both feet, banning private companies like cruise lines from requiring vaccination, appointing a vaccine skeptic to his states highest office, and refusing to say if hes gotten his booster dose.

DeSantis may or may not actually be more delusional on Covid than Donald Trump, Chait wrote, but it is a revealing commentary on the state of their party that he sees his best chance to supplant Trump as positioning himself as even crazier.

Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, has a similar take on the Trump-DeSantis Covid feud, writing on Jan. 18:

Whats suddenly intriguing is that DeSantis has decided to try to outflank Trump, to out-Trump Trump, in terms of his hard-trolling of the libs on the vaccine question. And its Trump Donald Trump! who is playing the role of civilizing, normalizing truth teller.

Politically speaking, however, DeSantiss stance on Covid policy, together with his culture war agenda, has been a success. His favorability ratings have soared and in the third quarter of 2021, the most recent data available, Floridas gross domestic product grew by 3.8 percent, third fastest in the nation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, behind Hawaii and Delaware.

DeSantiss aggressive posture and threats to bring legal action have created anxiety about retribution in some quarters. In January, for example, Dr. Raul Pino, the administrator for the Florida Department of Healths office in Orange County, wrote his staff to say that only 77 of 558 staff members had received a Covid-19 booster, 219 had two doses of the vaccine and 34 had only one dose, according to reporting by my colleague Patricia Mazzei in The Times. I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated, Dr. Pino added. He went on: We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50 percent. Pathetic.

Shortly afterward, Pino was put on administrative leave for a month. Jeremy T. Redfern, the press secretary for the Department of Health, said when the leave of absence was announced that the department was conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case. Redfern said in a statement that the decision to get vaccinated is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers.

This and other similar developments have certainly not hurt DeSantiss poll numbers. The latest survey released on Feb. 24 by Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida found not only that of the elected officials on this survey, Governor Ron DeSantis had the highest job approval rating at 58 percent, with 37 percent disapproval, but also that Florida Republicans preferred DeSantis over Trump 44-41 as their presidential nominee.

John Feehery, a Republican lobbyist who previously worked for the partys House leaders, argues that DeSantis is

attuned to the libertarian impulses of an electorate that simply doesnt trust the conventional wisdom coming out of Washington. DeSantis also seems willing to court cultural conservatives in ways that most Washington politicians dont, like with the sex education bill that he signed. DeSantis also seems willing to take on big corporations for their wokeness, a potent issue among the G.O.P. base.

Feehery described DeSantis as a wild card, noting he was also right on Covid, which took an incredible amount of courage.

As governor, DeSantis is wary when he senses the potential for blowback, waiting days before commenting on Russias invasion of Ukraine. When he finally did so, his comments were largely focused on domestic politics.

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Opinion | Ron DeSantis Is Gambling on Out-Trumping Trump - The New York Times