RON DeSANTIS'S THREE-WORD PLATFORM: EMPOWER RON DeSANTIS

We've all had a good laugh about Ron DeSantis's Twitter launch, but last night CNN examined what he said on Twitter and what he's been saying in subsequent interviews. Among his messages is a promise to accrue power quickly and use it maximally:

Doing so will require pushing the limits of the executive branch like never before, DeSantis has suggested in multiple interviews in the past 24 hours. He told conservative radio host Mark Levin that he had studied the US Constitution’s “leverage points” and would use his knowledge to exercise the “true scope” of presidential power.

“You’ve got to know how to use your leverage to advance what you’re trying to accomplish,” DeSantis told Twitter CEO Elon Musk during their conversation.

This, of course, is exactly what he did in Florida, starting in the transition:

He directed his general counsel to figure out just how far a governor could push his authority. He pored over a binder enumerating his varied powers: appointing Florida Supreme Court justices, removing local elected officials and wielding line-item vetoes against state lawmakers.

Then he systematically deployed each one.

... Mr. DeSantis’s willingness to exert that power in extraordinary ways has led him to barrel through norms, challenge the legal limits of his office and threaten political retribution against those who cross him.

You know the specifics:

He seized control of the state’s environmental protection agency, deployed the state’s police force in novel ways, created a law enforcement team to monitor voting, removed a democratically elected local prosecutor and orchestrated a takeover of a small liberal arts college.

DeSantis has treated state bureaucracies that previously operated independently as extensions of his executive offices. He has stocked state regulatory boards with like-minded political appointees, who have followed his lead in banning gender affirming care for minors and extending restrictions on school lessons about sexual orientation and gender identity. He has punished Disney ... for challenging him over those restrictions, and forced state lawmakers to pass a new congressional map drawn by his office.

When Donald Trump complained as president that he couldn't compel the attorney general of the United States to be his Oval Office Roy Cohn, we assumed it was because he's a criminal and an ignoramus who has no idea how the American government is expected to work. DeSantis knows precisely how the American government is expected to work, and he assures us that the Justice Department won't work the way it's meant to if he's elected:

He would dispel with the longstanding tradition that government institutions like the US Department of Justice operate independently from the president – embracing a philosophy that Trump often governed by but never articulated so succinctly.

“Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the DOJ and FBI are quote, independent,” DeSantis said. “They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected President of the United States.”

We know that Trump has promised to fire thousands of career government employees who now have civil service protection, replacing them with loyalist hacks. We assume that this is a Steve Bannon/Stephen Miller pipe dream, and that in a second term Trump might not get around to it. DeSantis? He'll absolutely get it done:

Among his top priorities, DeSantis said, would be to “re-constitutionalize” the federal government, which he described as a plan to “discipline the bureaucracy” and agencies that he saic are “detached from constitutional accountability.”

DeSantis plans to fire the FBI director on "day one." He's vague about pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists, but he says he'll start using his pardon power almost immediately, particularly in cases of “disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization.” If DeSantis is elected, he'll be Jim Jordan with presidential power.

And if there are constitutional questions about DeSantis's use of power, we know the Republican Supreme Court will back him nearly every time. That's why I believe that a DeSantis presidency would pose a greater danger to American democracy than a second Trump term.

One reason DeSantis might never be president is that he seems not to realize that he's supposed to portray his agenda as what he wants to do for the people. David Frum quotes previous presidential campaign launches:

Barack Obama expressed such a vision in 2007:

This campaign can’t only be about me. It must be about us. It must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice to push us forward when we’re doing right, and let us know when we’re not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

George W. Bush hit the same notes in 1999:

We will also tell every American, “The dream is for you.” Tell forgotten children in failed schools, “The dream is for you.” Tell families, from the barrios of L.A. to the Rio Grande Valley: “El sueno americano es para ti.” Tell men and women in our decaying cities, “The dream is for you.” Tell confused young people, starved of ideals, “The dream is for you.” This is the kind of campaign we must run.

Even Trump says he's doing what he's doing on behalf of the people, or at least the MAGA people. Trump's message is that he wants to make America great; DeSantis's message is that he wants to make himself great.

I hope that's enough to keep him out of the White House, even if the Republican alternative is approximately as dangerous.