Why Were We So Afraid of Ron DeSantis?

A Psychological Answer

Ron fell victim to a classic blunder. Never go against the Mouse House.

Author’s note: The following article is quoting several F words because they are something Jeff Tiedrich is famous for in his headlines and commentary, so it does not feel right to censor him, but please do not read any further if swear words will offend you. I personally rarely swear in my writing to avoid offending people, but after trump, F words almost seem quaint in comparison to the horror show that was his Presidency and his continuing poisoning and toxification of American culture and democracy.

Additionally, as many know, a deeper psychological follow-up to the still highly relevant, The DeSantis Variant: A Psychological Profile has long been planned and often put off for more effective timing. It still seems like bad timing now because if someone evil is digging their own grave, it is always best to just get out of their way, and let them keep digging, but Jeff did at least inspire the answering of his question.

Why Were We So Afraid of Ron DeSantis? - A Psychological Answer

As I scanned Notes yesterday morning, I saw, “Ron DeSantis is a twenty-megaton shitshow. why the fuck were we so afraid of this guy?” By Jeff Tiedrich

I have seen Jeff for years on Twitter, so I knew what to expect. If you are looking for someone who eloquently speaks with swear words to the incredulous part in each of us wanting to say, “WTF?” more and more these days, he is your man. Ergo, It is not surprising that he is one of the first to ask, “why the fuck were we so afraid of this guy?”, and many other fair questions and schadenfreude funny comments about DeSantis.   

“Hey, remember when we were all terrified by the idea of a Ron DeSantis candidacy?

he’s super competent, we were told. he’s going to be a lot worse than Trump, they said, because he’s smarter and he won’t be a lazy fuck-up. he’s going to be our worst fascist nightmare.

it was a pretty compelling story and we all bought it.

but now that we’ve gotten to see DeSantis on the campaign trail, holy shit — what the fuck were we so afraid of?”

“the guy’s a joke. he’s stiff. he’s awkward. he can’t make a human connection. he does bizarre, inexplicable shit. he makes every unforced error in the book.

even Republican strategists will that you that Ron DeSantis is the worst candidate they’ve ever seen.”

“how bad is Ron doing? he’s now polling below Vivek Ramaswamy. come on, when you’re less popular than a political tourist who no one has ever heard of, what the fuck are you even doing?

donors are running away from this guy even faster than the voters are.

“the guy can’t even hold a beer like a normal human being. here’s Ron, doing his patented “I’m a space alien in an ill-fitting skin suit” stance, telling the very people he’s trying to woo that he’d rather be in bed than be talking to them.”

Tell us how you really feel Jeff, could not agree more and...

I Can Answer That

Indeed, this is one of those psychological questions I can answer fairly easily because I studied DeSantis for a few months for a DemCast requested psychological profile, The Dangerous Case of the DeSantis Variant. If you read the 2021 profile, you saw warning signs like:

“After studying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, I was surprised to learn how little I knew about who he really is or his master plan. It is almost as if he purposely avoids mainstream media both to build a covert base of support in the right-wing shadows and to camouflage his far-right extremism. In fact, his story could easily be turned into a complex political mystery, down one man’s dark psychological rabbit hole.” - The DeSantis Variant

Clearly, another reason DeSantis only goes on right-wing media and avoided and attacked local media was to camouflage the fact that he was lacking some basic aspects of humanity as well.

“as his response to the Covid-19 Delta variant has made obvious, we all better start thinking about DeSantis’ dark psychology, whether we want to or not. Because as many Floridians now know, he is an existential threat coming for all of us and the most likely Republican nominee for president after trump.” - The DeSantis Variant

Therefore, before it is too late to stop a more dangerous trump, we must start with the political lens that asks: Who is this Disney villain?”

Yes, I somewhat prophetically saw DeSantis as a Disney villain who hates fun and all other humans long before he became an actual Disney villain, because that was the psychology I observed. Upon studying him, it was clear fairly quickly that he seemed like a horrifically dark malignant narcissist, and as such would do all the evil he is allowed to do in everything he does, but especially as President, because no one could stop him. And yes even darker sh*t than trump.

At least trump could be manipulated into doing the right thing via shame or popularity cravings, where DeSantis did not seem to GAF about anyone or anything other than himself, so will just keep going down his dark path, and no one seems to sway him except for his handler, Casey his wife.

She was always put out as his secret weapon because she was a polished TV “personality” before they met. Everyone said she humanized him, but what I saw was a puppet-master guiding a lifeless yet relentless dark empty vessel towards the power he had craved (for psychological reasons) since his early youth, so she could have the power too.

“How does someone so blessed and educated become such a callous, right-wing extremist in sheep’s clothing? According to his little league friend Brady Williams, ‘I always knew he was going into politics. … His goal was to be the president of the United States.’”

This means DeSantis’ desire has always been to become the most powerful person in the world, and his belief system was formed well before college. It also means his glossy backstories were likely calculated steps in a devious plan, to create a staged image. The question is how and where did he get his beliefs?

His 2015 co-founding of the extreme right “conservatives” into a “Freedom Caucus,” that is now populated with the furthest right, toxic, “bomb-throwing,” white supremacists and insurrectionists in Congress (like Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, along with QAnon “Looney Toons” like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie “Jewish Space Laser” Taylor Greene) certainly puts DeSantis in a more racist light.” - The DeSantis Variant: A Psychological Profile

For years Fox News could not get enough of his relentless poison, cruelty and toxic bomb throwing. As time went by, Rupert Murdoch and his Fox minions did all they could to boost DeSantis as Presidentially-fit, superficial illusion. Gee, why would Rupert Murdoch and his rogue’s gallery of ghouls support someone as dark and creepy as DeSantis? Because he was always Murdoch’s kind of racist, bigoted, heartless, shameless, and purchasable cruel henchman ghoul, which seems clearly Murdoch’s type.

“DeSantis’ rise to power mostly came about because the Big Liar liked the way DeSantis defended his lies on Fox News. DeSantis would become a regular, because in their view, he was the newer, better trump, and completes their Four Horseman of the Apocalypse box set, along with Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson. As my Florida friend Justice says, “Faux News and #DeSatan are two peas in a pod.”

“They [CNN] think you're going to be the Republican nominee and that's why they're attacking you.” – Tucker Carlson to DeSantis, Jan. 5, 2021

Superficially, DeSantis has a picture-perfect, conservative, Faux News backstory. Little league baseball star, baseball captain at Yale, Harvard law, Navy JAG officer at Guantanamo during the “War on Terror,” legal advisor to Seal Team One in Iraq, elected to Congress in 2012, and elected governor in 2018.

He even has an attractive, professional TV personality wife, Casey, and three cute kids, who complete their well-crafted Ken and Barbie public image as the First Family of Florida. Casey runs everything for him and they are “a brain trust of two.” There is no doubt they are a tight team, and it is reported that everyone else is treated as expendable.” The DeSantis Variant: A Psychological Profile

DeSantis' picture-perfect Florida Ken and Barbie backstory was indeed part of what made DeSantis so dangerous and scary. We have all seen too many bad people sneak into power because they have a good image and contrived backstory. Few have contrived a better backstory than DeSantis. It is one that certainly could have fooled a lot of low information voters into voting for him, as it apparently has done in Florida. It has been astounding how the Florida GOP who knows him submit to Desantis’ vacant soul, unless theirs’ are fairly hollow and narcissistic as well, then totally normal.

Conclusions

First and foremost is the terrifying reality that if this likely malignant narcissist had even the slightest bit of charm, charisma or dark empathy almost every other narcissist has, we would be under serious threat of him winning the Presidency. The reason we feared him so much was it was impossible to conceive that someone who had won the Florida governorship twice was so completely devoid of any traces of humanity or campaigning skills, and was incapable of even faking it.

In hindsight, the main questions are how did he get so far in Florida politics? Are Florida Republicans and those who voted for him so clueless or party-first groomed and programmed that they never saw what the whole nation has seen fairly quickly, or are they so cold, callus and cruel, that they did like a racist/fascist as their governor and future President to end American democracy? Has there ever been a more cruel, cold, callus and authoritarian governor in modern U.S. History? There may be. If there was, I would like to hear about them.

As Jeff noted near the end, “a DeSantis presidency would be a nightmare for the country,” and that is also a big part of why we were so understandably afraid of him, and we still need to be afraid of the fact that if DeSantis had the normal amount of charm and charisma of your average narcissist, he could have been stealing the cult from multiply-indicted trump, and well on his way to becoming the GOP 2024 nominee for President.

What we need to stay motivated for in this lesson is the way other narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths running the Republican Party have been systematically rigging, disadvantaging and gerrymandering everyone who votes against them. If another “dark passenger” like DeSantis comes along with a little more charisma, they could “win,” and then it is game over American democracy. I know none of us want that!

Again, our fears were well justified because DeSantis had created this perfect backstory to give the illusion of a pro-military hero, with his wife showing enough human emotions, to trick people into thinking he had them too. 

So Jeff is 100, but to be fair, we were within a hair’s breadth of President Ron DeSantis, which is truly terrifying if you recognized him for what he was before the national spotlight revealed him. The DeSantis lesson also reveals that many who supported him can be easily fooled by a superficial image, were groomed by a narcissist/s to see cruelty and narcissism as strengths, or they really do like and want his level of fascist darkness, cruelty and authoritarian inhumanity. What’s it going to be Florida GOP?

Comments are open - The main reason I set several commentary comments to paid mostly came from the thought, “That’s all I have to say about that,” but obviously want to give something extra to those who help financially support the work. If I had to guess, for now open comments will be about 50/50 because I know we all appreciate and need each other’s constructive comments. However, as hard is it may be, let us try not to go much harder than Jeff did, because we do not need to perpetuate DeSantis’ nastiness or negativity anymore than necessary to fully reveal him as the empty dark villain he always has been. 

Sam Ray © 2023 Counter-Narcissist Intelligence