If it weren’t for the fact that he has been in politics for more than ten years, you might think that Ron DeSantis is a candidate created by artificial intelligence. His smile is the most forced on the national public scene: so artificial that it wouldn’t even work in a casting to advertise toothpaste. The lack of charisma and sense of humor of the governor of Florida and Donald Trump’s main rival with a view to the Republican presidential primaries is beginning to seriously worry the ultra, but not Trumpist, section of the party.
The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, which favors a non-Trump 2024 Republican nominee, devoted its opinion space ten days ago to praising DeSantis’ credentials… With a few buts: the hopeful the White House “would benefit from some of Ronald Reagan’s self-deprecating humor,” wrote the council, which added that “the best presidential candidates campaign with a little poetry and optimism,” not just with “political determination and personal toughness”.
The publication of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper coincided with DeSantis’ disastrous election launch via a Twitter conversation with the network’s owner, Elon Musk. The technical errors turned the experiment into a resounding failure that its main victim did not know how to relativize using such useful resources as grace, irony or the ability to laugh at oneself to turn around an uncomfortable situation. Agility, zero.
The conservative magazine National Review, the former prosecutor and veteran of the Navy, published an article on the same day in which columnist Jeffrey Blehar spoke about the disability of the 44-year-old politician: “DeSantis is a good polemist, but I still haven’t detected the slightest hint of a sense of humor. I don’t know if he knows how to tell a joke or improvise a quick sentence, and I confess I’m afraid to see him try.”
In the same magazine, analyst Michael Brendan Dougherty commented: “He simply does not have the charisma to command a national political stage.”
The lack of humor and charisma are just two of the manifestations of the problem that DeSantis has in relating to others. A known problem since his time in Congress (2013-2018), when he became famous for his habit of putting on headphones when he wanted to avoid interaction with other human beings, that is, whenever she was obliged to him.
But you don’t have to go back that far. On the recent tour of the United Kingdom, Israel, South Korea and Japan to expand Florida’s economic ties, DeSantis made an unexpected mark. Especially in London, the final destination of the tour. In a meeting with the leaders of British industry, one of the businessmen commented that DeSantis “seemed bored” and was “staring at his feet”, according to Politico’s account. Another said: “His message was not presidential. It was horrible!â€. Other descriptions alluded to the “low voltage” of the visitor. And an attendee concluded: “No one in the room was left thinking anything like ‘this man has the world'”.
Back home, and already as a candidate, DeSantis made clear his aptitudes and his limitations as president at the first rallies and meetings. In one held in New Hampshire, he demonstrated his dominance in the ideological battle of the Woke culture, heir to the “awakening” movement against racism and inequality in the 1930s and translatable as progress. But he sidestepped almost every other hot topic and berated a reporter who asked why he wasn’t answering questions from voters. “People come up to me and talk to me. What are you talking about? Are you blind?†she scolded him.
The failures of the aspirant in his expressiveness and the relationship with his neighbor did not prevent him from being elected as a member of Congress or from winning the election for governor of Florida twice, the second time in November and with a difference of almost 20 points over the Democrat Michael Crist. The question is whether with the hook that, despite everything, he demonstrated in these elections will be enough to compensate for the lack of charisma in the fight against a Trump who may already be worn out and judicially cornered, but who continues to attest to a powerful connection with the most conservative electorate in the country. And that it continues to have a 30-point advantage in polls of voting intention for the primaries.
When DeSantis talks about Trump, usually without mentioning him, he usually says that “politics is not for entertainment.” The subconscious betrays him. He needs to understand that politics can’t always be fun, but it doesn’t always have to be boring.
