Amid the chatter of the 2024 presidential campaign, some prognosticators have described Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a “Trump-Lite” candidate. They suggest DeSantis will have the same policies as Trump, but without Trump’s drama. A Trump-Lite president, however, will not be able to meet the challenges the nation faces. What America really needs is Trump-Plus. Could DeSantis grab that mantle?
Illegal border crossings, our trade deficit with China, and overdose deaths are all worse today than when Trump was elected president in 2016. Inflation is making it harder for families to make ends meet. Most urban centers now reek of urine and skunk marijuana. Federal law enforcement has moved from targeting political opponents to targeting parents attending school board meetings. And Washington is pursuing energy policies that drive up prices while empowering our adversaries.
These problems demand a more deliberative approach than Trump showed during his years in office. While Trump provided a necessary wake-up call in 2016 and effectuated positive change, his lack of attention to detail and his personnel choices demonstrate why another Trump term would disappoint. That is if he could even get elected again.
Nowhere were Trump’s shortcomings more evident than in his outsourcing of the management of the COVID-19 pandemic to Dr. Fauci. As the country was shutting down in March 2020, Trump said of Fauci, "[h]e’s become a major television star for all the right reasons." It would seem the media’s adulation of Fauci affected Trump’s ability to lead decisively through the emergency. Meanwhile, DeSantis dug into the science of COVID and focused on those to whom it posed the most danger. By September of 2020, DeSantis was so well-versed in the COVID literature that Stanford University Medical Professor Jay Bhattacharya suggested DeSantis understood the science of COVID as well as epidemiologists did. It is hard to imagine Trump having the discipline or ability to “delve” into the science of COVID. Perhaps if he had, he would have fired Fauci and put better people in charge of the crisis.
Trump showed a similar naivete in appointing Mark Milley to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This Trump appointee defended, before Congress, the teaching of Critical Race Theory at West Point. Milley also spoke woke, saying he wanted to understand something he called “white rage.” As with his deferring to Fauci, Trump, in elevating Milley, showed an inability to assess critically those to whom he gave power.
Unlike Trump, DeSantis has a more suitable background to fix a military that is losing its way and missing recruitment goals. As a veteran himself, DeSantis better understands the commander-in-chief’s solemn responsibilities. During our years in Congress, Ron was among two dozen members who would join me in visiting Arlington National Cemetery the Thursday before Memorial Day. These were particularly reflective moments for him as he considered the ultimate price so many have paid. That’s a reference point Trump simply does not have. DeSantis’s military experience, which includes tours in Iraq and Guantanamo, should certainly be considered as Republicans look for a Trump-plus candidate who can lead the rebuilding of our armed forces.
Fauci and Milley weren’t Trump’s only personnel mistakes. His failure with so many of his appointments was exposed during a recent interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. Baier reminded Trump that as a candidate he had pledged to surround himself with “the best and most serious people.” Now, however, Trump ridicules his former appointees, using epithets such as “gutless pig,” “weak and ineffective and born with a very small brain,” “born loser,” and “dumb as a rock.” DeSantis, however, has demonstrated a keen ability to put the right people in place to make Florida the success story it has become.
In addition to appointments and digging into policy details, Republicans should consider whether DeSantis might be Trump-Plus in other ways. For example, DeSantis seems to have his family priorities right. While leading the nation’s third-largest state through unprecedented challenges, he made sure he was there for his wife Casey, who was literally going through the fight of her life. During Casey’s treatments for breast cancer, DeSantis took the time to be with her while his left-wing opponents criticized him for being unavailable. Also, DeSantis can authentically claim a middle America upbringing. His parents hail from the rust-belt towns of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania and Youngstown, Ohio, and they raised their son in the middle-class community of Dunedin, Florida. While Trump can tell stories about the rust belt, those stories are part of DeSantis’ family history.
America is different than it was in 2016 and a president with a different skillset is needed if we are to secure freedom and opportunity for another generation. While President Trump achieved much in the late 2010s, a leader with additional talents is essential for the 2020s. In the coming months, Republicans have an opportunity to assess Ron DeSantis’s ability to meet that standard.
Keith Rothfus represented Pennsylvania’s Twelfth Congressional District between 2013 and 2019. He and his family live near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is on Twitter @KeithRothfus.