best bit is here, look at the gloss chait gives to meatball ron's conspicuous cruelty:
But do these maneuvers actually resonate with the party’s rank and file? Many of his moves seem consumed with grievances that are only intelligible to those steeped in state-of-the-art right-wing social analysis.
vacuous culture war would be a sure winner, if only the rubes were smart enough to get it, lmao.
totally. im just getting a kick out of the fact that chait seems to think that the strategy of culture war isn't hitting because the right isn't made up of enough gramsci scholars, and not the fact that the knuckle dragging freaks that feed on such resentment are already disposed to be trump loyalists.
also telling is the pudding cup advert. assuming it is successful in and of itself, or because it tracks onto the contours of why desantis is sinking to trump, notice that they tie the silly pudding shit to desantis's austerity policies. the little old ladies who are deathly afraid of ms-13 and men becoming women are also worried about (and more so) their entitlements being taken away; if desantis is too smart/the base is too dumb, it's because desantis is a believer in fusionist/neoliberal conservative economic policy, lodestars for the national review, "smart" conservatives like chait, who are somehow to stupid to see what is right in front of their faces.