Meant To Do It

While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Florida)

When I asked him specifically if he regretted using the phrase “territorial dispute,” DeSantis replied, “Well, I think it’s been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded (last year) — that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — That was wrong.”
Piers Morgan “DeSantis brands Putin ‘a war criminal’ who should be ‘held accountable’ for Ukraine invasion”

In politics, it’s difficult to not only be all things to all people (at least all the people whose votes a candidate wants) but to put on a convincing show of having always been all things to all people. Granted, the task is somewhat easier in a modern partisan environment, where those people who like a given candidate enough will decide that they can do no wrong, and so of course they’ve always been the best person for whatever office they’re running for. But still, it means that politicians spend a lot of time effectively claiming that while they meant what they said, everyone somehow managed to misunderstand what they meant in the same way.

If, as is widely expected, Governor DeSantis does run for President, he’s going to have a fairly tricky time of it. Mainly because he's not beloved enough by Republican partisans. So he has to be enough like former President Donald Trump to appeal to people who like him, while being different enough from Mr. Trump to appeal to those people who don't, and in the process, hopefully cobble together enough of a coalition to make it through a primary election, while not alienating enough people who consider themselves independent to have a shot at winning the general election.

And a lot of that is going to mean spending time telling people that things were mischaracterized, while hoping that those same people don’t see those words words as an excuse, or worse, a blatant pander. It’s a situation that demands, even more than it encourages, dishonesty, denial of missteps and looking for people to blame. Predictable side effects of a culture (or maybe species would be more accurate) that seems to hold that actually learning what the public wants, and then shaping one’s public persona to fit that is the wrong way to actually serve the public. (I think this is because being responsive to the public means turning one’s back on one’s voters if they wind up in the minority.)

I’m not sure that I expect Governor DeSantis to actually make a go of it. But whatever happens, it will have been the plan all along. Or so we’ll be told.