CNN
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Ron DeSantis’ decision to announce his 2024 White House bid in a conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter Wednesday will make a typically blunt statement about his campaign, the unruly populism of the modern Republican Party and a conservative media revolution that accelerates
Florida’s governor will finally jump into the race by throwing a gauntlet at former President Donald Trump with a launch strategy that frames him as the race’s true anti-establishment rebel who is willing to smash the conventions of traditional presidential politics.
His choice of venue on Twitter Spaces, the site’s audio platform, also exemplifies the transformation of the Trump-era GOP into a party that prizes gesture politics and whose activists respond to the unrestrained jungle of social media while flouting traditional standards of conduct and governance.
But while Twitter’s appeal to conservative voters under Musk, who has 141 million followers, means DeSantis may be making a shrewd move in a Republican primary, it could further damage an already questionable reputation among more moderate voters that he would need in a general election. appearing on an increasingly polarizing platform.
That’s because Twitter, which once provided a platform for democratic movements in the Arab Spring, has been transformed by its new owner into a feverish circus of unbridled free speech, conspiracy theories and unverifiable information. Just this week, a fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon went viral, sparking a stock market rout in a possible preview of a presidential campaign that could be riddled with AI-generated misinformation and falsehoods. Meanwhile, Musk has shown a willingness to ignite his own Twitter hells, so his increasingly prominent role suggests the 2024 presidential race could be as turbulent as the rhetoric-ridden 2016 and 2020 editions extreme and Trump’s election fraud allegations.
Another mind-bending twist to the election season came Tuesday with the former president’s virtual court appearance in a case stemming from a hush money payment to a former adult film star in which he has already pleaded innocent Judge Juan Merchan set a trial date for March 25, 2024, in the middle of the primary season. The timing raises the possibility that Trump could use the trial as a stage to clarify his claim that he is the victim of political persecution. But it also creates a risk for Trump that he could be criminally convicted while still fighting for the GOP nomination, an extraordinary and unprecedented scenario.
By choosing Twitter to make his own splash, DeSantis appears to be aiming for a dramatic moment that could restore a sense of momentum to GOP primary aspirations that soared six months ago but have been undermined by his own missteps and Trump’s recent political rebound.
By embracing Musk, DeSantis associates himself with a hero of conservatives who have long claimed they are being censored on social media. It’s taking a swipe at Trump, who was banned from tweeting by the company’s previous owner and has so far preferred the foundation of his own platform, Truth Social, even after Musk restored his account. Trump’s 2016 campaign and entire presidency unfolded in a torrent of conscience tweets that he used to great effect, even if it left his nation stressed and exhausted.
DeSantis is striking a blow to the mainstream media, which is reviled by many conservatives, by showing that he is willing to eschew the usual conventions of presidential campaigns. His launch will also create a stark contrast to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago keynote address in November, which lacked any sense of political dynamism.
The Florida governor will also show how far the GOP has come from its roots as a bastion of tradition and how much the Internet and the fragmentation of the media into partisan blocs have changed presidential campaigns. In 1979, for example, Ronald Reagan announced his presidential candidacy with a grandpa speech from a cozy study that looked like the inside of a country club. George W. Bush marched to the White House 20 years later from a farm in Iowa. Now the best way to reach most GOP voters is online.
By breaking the mold of presidential announcements, DeSantis has borrowed from Trump’s unconventional playbook. One lesson of the 45th president’s wild political career is that anything calculated to offend liberals and mainstream media commentators is often very popular with popular GOP primary voters.
DeSantis is already running to the right of Trump by pointing to what he calls “woke” measures on diversity, equity and inclusion and championing conservative positions on social issues. Now, he’s also looking to steal Trump’s reputation as the great disruptor.
DeSantis’ announcement will also help enshrine an emerging power shift in the conservative media. His choice of Twitter recognizes the social network’s importance to right-wing voters under Musk and may accelerate Fox News’ shift as the most dynamic platform for new champions of the conservative movement. It comes after Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he would relaunch his show on Twitter after being kicked out of Rupert Murdoch’s lineup after the company paid $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit related to his promotion of electoral lies and disinformation after the 2020 elections.
With his appearance, DeSantis drives home his argument that social media has tried to suppress conservative speech, a popular viewpoint on the right. In his autobiography “The Courage to be Free,” DeSantis criticized companies like Facebook and Twitter, under their previous owners, who he said made “censorship decisions that always seem to err on the side of left-wing orthodoxy , they distort the American political system because so much political discourse now takes place on these supposedly open platforms.”
Still, DeSantis is unlikely to turn his back on Fox, which has offered him plenty of airtime, a possible sign that the Murdoch family is growing tired of the former president.
DeSantis’ launch strategy will not be without risk. Twitter’s wild environment and its association with Musk threaten to undermine the case DeSantis has been implicitly making to Republican voters: that he can offer a more stable and disciplined leadership style than Trump displayed in his tumultuous tenure in the white house
And by avoiding the kind of big, staged political announcement in front of a large crowd, DeSantis risks fueling Trump’s mocking criticism that the Florida governor is eroding support by the day, after polls show he he’s further behind the former president, though ahead of candidates like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
The virtual announcement could also fuel Trump’s claims that his former protégé, who he now accuses of treason to run for president, lacks the political skills to compete in a less controlled arena. A pro-Trump super PAC mocked DeSantis ahead of his announcement online, calling it “one of the most disconnected campaign launches in modern history.”
“The only thing less identifiable than a niche campaign launch on Twitter is DeSantis’ afterparty at the elite Four Seasons resort in Miami,” MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC, said in a announced on Tuesday.
However, people familiar with DeSantis’ campaign plan indicated that the Florida governor would soon launch a relentless barrage of campaign appearances in key swing states, aiming to contrast his energy with that of his older rivals. , Trump and President Joe Biden.
The Trump team and its allies are planning an aggressive operation to try to drown out DeSantis’ release on Wednesday. MAGA Inc. is already criticizing Florida’s governor for his early support for a Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic, as he seeks to undermine his credibility among conservatives who rejected the government’s health advice.
But this is another sign of how head-turning the Republican primary could be. After all, it was Trump who claimed all the credit for developing the vaccine during his presidency. Now his supporters are condemning DeSantis for trying to save lives with it.
