Sane and rational people will have to learn to live with the New Republican Party, and it’s a very curious current dynamic. The best I can offer is the feeling we need to take deep breaths, stay calm,  and outlast them. They seem incredibly self-destructive to me. But fear and loathing accomplish nothing.

Understanding people like Ron DeSantis will make it easier, if not easy. They will frighten us and infuriate and sadden us. But I believe they are creating a movement bigger and angrier than they are. And in my mind, more patriotic.

The more people like Ron DeSantis pander to the worst elements of the American populace, the more they alienate and anger the best of us. Consider the Martha’s Vineyard exploitation, the week’s outrage in a time of wrath.

The governor of Florida is approaching his time.

He is vicious enough to be the next Republican Candidate For President, but is he more intelligent than Donald Trump? I’m not so sure.

Yesterday, at taxpayer’s expense, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent two private planeloads of Venezuelan immigrants, along with his videographer (for his future presidential run) to Martha’s Vineyard to help inflame America’s already bitter class war, persecute more desperate people, please more billionaire donors and send Trumpists into orgasm.

Once again, he proved his arrogant willingness to use the power and resources of government to harm and intimidate enemies and endanger the helpless.

DeSantis seems more and more like our own Little Putin, threatening opponents, setting up special police units and teachers, terrorizing voting and school officials,  targeting gays and trans children, and telling companies that they will embrace his Draconian policies or face government retribution at taxpayer expense.

Be cruel, or be sorry is the idea. Micky Mouse is peeing his pants.

This time, he went too far and sank too low.

Even in American politics in 2022, there is still a sense of right and wrong, of what it means to be human. Queen Elizabeth has reminded me that there is still honor and integrity in the world.

Governor DeSantis says he believes everything Trump believes (he’s lying, obviously).

Still, he is much more focused than Trump, who understands nothing but his power and greed to use government as a club to frighten and silence opponents and keep or gain muscle. If you follow the news, this is precisely how Vladimir Putin governs. DeSantis’s plan is to out-Trump Trump without ever mentioning his name.

It’s successful but very transparent.

Exploiting the needy and vulnerable for political gain in the way he did yesterday feels repulsive, not bold or creative. It’s over the line, over the top.

Trumpists will love it, of course, and send him a lot of money. Martha’s Vineyard symbolizes everything they have come to hate about our country. Martha’s Vineyard has always annoyed me a bit as well. I would not wish to live there.

The immigration system is a hot mess, and our legislators will not work together to fix it.

De Santis and Trump share one gift: making enemies, not solving problems. De Santis’s big idea for the immigration mess is to ship helpless people to states that will oppose him if he runs for national office.

In this polarized time, no presidential candidate can afford to do too much of that and win. It seems clear that America does not want a president who is about nothing but hate and abuse of power. We’ve tried that, and the weakest candidate the Democrats could have chosen beat him.

The Martha’s Vineyard stunt may have been De Santist’s most repulsive yet, (maybe persecuting gay and trans children is lower). The powerless and helpless refugees, all poor and confused, exhausted from their trek to America, had no say in where they were staying, no knowledge of where they were going, no way of speaking our language,  and no work or housing or food when they got there.

It is the literal definition of inhuman.

No one had warmed Martha’s Vineyard authorities or given them a chance to prepare. But Fox News was notified in advance.

Martha’s Vineyard is a wealthy, exclusive island off of Boston, and local police and firefighters have to commute by boat to work because they can’t afford to live there. The refugees were shocked and frightened; they had no idea where they were. They spent the night sleeping in churches. They might as well have been flown to the moon. Fortunately, the governor of Massachusetts is also a decent human being, and he ordered state agencies to rush in and help. There is a contrast of governors there if we need one.

DeSantis was giving the political finger to the “elitists” that elitists like him love to pretend to hate. DeSantis, a child of the Ivy League, is showing himself to be a phony and a real prick. I wonder what they are teaching at Harvard Law School these days.

He seems to have grown a new set of feathers since Donald  Trump endorsed him for governor and helped him win several years ago.

DeSantis only sends these poor and exploited people to states with sanctuary laws.

Massachusetts and islanders responded by finding places for the immigrants to sleep, providing medical care, and their first warm and healthy meal in many weeks. It’s hard for me to imagine someone like this getting suburban women, moderate voters, or compassionate people and patriots to vote for someone like him.

There is no evidence to suggest that they will; quite the opposite. I think of what I call Kansas Syndrome. It’s the most significant political story of the year.

We will hear a lot from Ron DeSantis, a/k/a Trump, with a plan and a brain in the coming year and beyond.

He wants to be President, and he’s decided the best way to do it is to be as cruel and offensive as his competitor.

Best to prepare for it and keep some perspective. We’ve danced this dance before.

If I were running for office, and as a former political writer, there are two people I would be happy and lucky to run against. Donald  Trump and Don DeSantis. The media, of course, will go into a frenzy over both, and desperate Republicans may think they are choosing the lesser of two unelectable evils.

They are not, not really. Everything people hated about Trump is true of Ron DeSantis., times one or two.

DeSantis is turning himself into an even bigger target than Trump and a more significant threat to our democracy.

He loves the abortion ban and is outraged that the FBI would dare to take back the secret documents that Trump stole and most likely sold or traded to his pals overseas.

DeSantis, a once moderate elitist from Harvard and Yale (far from Wyoming), is pretending to be Donald Trump Plus without the lawsuits and investigations. Like many Republicans now, he is taking positions on the far right that he has never before espoused and advocated. His big idea is to shock, be as offensive as possible, and be as authoritarian as a governor can be. He is said to be driving the real Trump crazy.

Florida is now surpassing Texas as our leading State Of Hate. Is it any place to go and have fun?

It’s not the most stirring of accomplishments.

The DeSantis strategy is simple, obvious, and effective in a narrow and limited way.

But when you watch DeSantis closely (someone in my family is seeking European passports so she and her children can flee to Europe if DeSantis ever gets to be President), he doesn’t look nearly as innovative or strategic as the media suggests, at least not to me. If he mimics the policies of Trump, he also has absorbed his mistakes. He has one idea – go after the “woke” and repeat it repeatedly. People got very tired of Donald Trump. DeSantis is using the same playbook.

Even Trump had a more appealing and fun side and a sense of humor. DeSantis is like an Edgar Allen Poe poem: “Quoth The Governor: Kill The Woke!”

I don’t believe DeSantis will ever get to be President because he is busy digging the same deep hole Mr. Trump had dug since going to Washington for all of his smarts and boldness. He never expanded his audience, not by a vote. That is the cardinal rule of good politicians.

He is also a grim and joyless human being.

DeSantis is pitching only to the same extremists and focusing on the same culture wars. The War Against The Woke.

Nobody will get to be President in 2024 by harassing gay and trans people, suppressing black people’s right to vote,  fighting with Mickey Mouse, or sending illegal immigrants to Eastern States (that would never vote for him; you won’t see any going to Wyoming).

When I see a candidate like that (I am close to but somewhat detached from liberal politics, always close to the middle), I ask, does this person offer one thing to me or for me?

There are many millions of people like me, and if the answer is no, not one thing, I wonder about their genuine electability. It’s not that I’m especially important; I am pretty ordinary and viscerally moderate. I am never comfortable around extremes, left or right.

This is a vast country with many diverse and different people. With only one note to sing, candidates like Trump and DeSantis rarely get all the way. The cheap,  easy, and wrong road is tough for politicians to travel if they have national ambitions. That is not an opinion. That is a fact.

They have to offer people something better, not just something angrier. Both men know how to tap into the vast reservoir of hate that has been growing in rural America and among the men of the white working class, who feel abandoned and supplanted by the changes in the country.

That is why Biden won when he had little else going for him. Stopping “the woke” is not as stirring as John Adam’s call for democracy and freedom. It sounds like an awful movie title.

Prepare yourself for DeSantis electrifying the crazies who have seized control of the Republican Party and represent the worst of conservatives and Republicans, many of whom are trembling behind their computers and afraid to speak. The competition is for the worst, the cruelest, the most shameless. DeSantis is winning this contest, hands down.

He loves doing hateful things politicians have never wanted or dared to do. In that awful and destructive way, he is a pioneer.

The country learned a lesson from Trump. Nobody, not even many Republicans, wants to go back there.

One of DeSantis’s closest advisers now is Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who the FBI is investigating for having sex with a minor. DeSantis is also a supporter of Marjorie Taylor Green and various far-right cable crackpots. People who know him say he doesn’t make friends.

He supports the overturning of Roe Vs. Rade, won’t admit Biden won the 2020 President Election, harasses gay and trans people at every turn, and insists Clarence Thomas is the most brilliant Supreme Court Justice in history.

What a sweet target for a political opponent. The abortion issue is nuclear for women and, apparently, to most Americans. They are registering to vote in record numbers.

A Trump with brains appeals to Republicans; it’s a way out of the loony bin Trump has turned the party into. They can get Trump without all the baggage.

But here is the DeSantis problem, which is, in many ways, the same as Trump’s (minus the coming indictments.) If he wins the governor’s race in November (which he will, since the Trump-loving billionaires are showering him with money and the Democratic party in the state is a mess), he has to go out and face the country and explain why people should vote for him as President.

He can’t simply ask the Florida legislature to order them to do it.

What is attacking Mickey Mouse, school teachers, and trans children going to do to better people’s lives, which is the idea of a Presidency? Trump was always furious, but you had the sense he was constantly winking and faking it.

Unlike Trump, DeSantis is just running now for the Republican Party nomination. Every day that Trump stumbles and bumbles, which is just about every day, the odds grow that he will come apart or go on trial, and DeSantis will sail right through the open door. The people around DeSantis say his blood us up; he’s running.

De Santis will then modify his positions and pivot towards the center. It will be difficult for him to escape his legacy.

We’ll see many videos of those frightened and bewildered Venezualan staring at the Captain’s Mansions all over Martha’s Vineyard.

I can hear the groans, nausea, and this of a population growing weary of fake populists, extremists, and unashamedly cruel and bigoted leaders. Will the taxpayers of Florida want to see their taxes pay for this flight to Martha’s Vineyard?

Poll after poll this week shows that Americans loved Queen Elizabeth, what she stood for, and how she conducted herself with dignity and compassion. That showed they would love a leader who could touch people’s hearts in return. This is the opposite of Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis, a Trump doll without the MAGA hat. Trump is warm and lovely next to DeSantis, who has the warmth of a potato.

In the background is Ukraine, whose incredible fight for their democracy is stirring many people worldwide, as did the death of a gentle and empathetic Queen.

That is what people want from a President in this country – courage, honesty, and decency. DeSantis has shown none of those things. Here, we are just beginning to appreciate them again.

Honestly, you can trust the media to miss the point, from Trump to Biden to Ron Desantis, their fascination of the moment.

Trump was too hot to survive, and DeSantis was cold enough to sleep in the freezer. He is the One Dimensional Governor; his only note is anger and cruelty. Unlike my family member who is making plans to flee, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to watch the fight for democracy and jump in when I can do so in a positive way.

Everybody hates the media, but almost no one wins by attacking it. DeSantis has taken on vicious and cruel attacks on the media as another way of charming and luring eternally outraged Trumpists to his side.

The Democrats, like the media, can usually be counted on to miss the point. Kansas is the point for people to remember as they grow increasingly fearful and unhinged about Ron DeSantis.

This year, Kansas is the point.

Enraged women in record numbers in one of the reddest states ever turned out great numbers to support women’s right to choose.

A few weeks ago, 750 thousand women in Michigan signed a ballot resolution to protect abortion rights in that state. The Republicans who control voting machinery in that state tried to disallow the answer because there were spaces on some pages. They said people wouldn’t be able to understand the words.

The Michigan State Supreme Court, still an actual court, overruled that decision with a scaling judgment that called them out for their fraud and suppression efforts.

The resolution is going on the ballot. Expect another Kansas, with many more to come.

Next to Mr. Trump himself, DeSantis is the most significant, sweetest target of all in a time of anger and turbulence. A true politician looks down the road.

And the sad truth about Republicans who preach hate and division is that there are just not enough to win a national election, no matter how they pander to the angry people of a country or how many billions they spend.

They don’t get the power and anger of women. They are the party of the past, of going backward. Trump, DeSantis, and their white nationalist supporters will never get the country to go for that. They are looking in the wrong direction.

Women will beat Trump, DeSantis, and anyone who has taken or tried to take their rights away in this cruel and unjust fashion.

That’s my free and early preview of the 2024 election. The big blank is the Democratic candidate.

(And it won’t be Joe Biden. He’s just about shot. Catholics disapprove of suicide)

To get into the White House, Ron DeSantis will have to figure out the Kansas Syndrome, and so far, he doesn’t seem that smart.