Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.
It is, I think, a bitter day for the Republican Party and for America. This election season started with high hopes. DeSantis was, I thought, an excellent candidate with an unparalleled record of success. He would have made a fine president and may still, one day. But for now, we are stuck with Trump.
I have voted for Trump twice and I suppose I will vote for him again. But it will be with sorrow. Trump has many flaws. He is a poor manager. He is not, in some ways, a conservative; in particular, he seems oblivious to the fiscal catastrophe toward which we are rushing. He is inarticulate, and therefore incapable of moving Americans in the middle toward his (usually, our) positions. And if he wins, he will be 78 years old when he is inaugurated.
Worst of all, he may lose. I think any plausible Republican other than Trump would have beaten Joe Biden. But Trump’s baggage is so extravagant, and those who can’t stand him are so numerous, that nominating him may very well give Biden, or whoever might yet replace him as the Democratic nominee, a disastrous (for America) second term.
So it is, in my opinion, a sad day. Instead of moving beyond the anti-Trump insanity of recent years–and the only slightly less mystifying pro-Trump hysteria–we are doomed to wallow in it for at least another year, if not longer. It is a detour that, at this moment in history, America can ill afford.
