There is a major exception when it comes to the “holy trinity” of liberalism, that is topics having to do with race, gender, and sexual orientation, but even here the problem is not lies as much as that the press is blinded by ideology. The facts they give you even on these sensitive topics are usually correct, but it’s simply that the interpretation of these facts is wrong.

The mainstream understanding of Trumpism has now gone through three iterations. In 2016, his success was said to prove that Republican voters wanted something other than Paul Ryanism. Trump voters were angry about the loss of manufacturing jobs, racists lashing out at a changing America, or patriots justifiably angry at a changing America.

In the face of political science data and real-world experience, people eventually dropped the “economic anxiety” talking point. Trump for the most part governed like a typical Republican on economic issues, yet his support stayed constant, and the cult of personality only deepened.

Somewhere near the end of the Trump presidency, we therefore moved towards a new conventional wisdom, at least among smarter analysts, that his movement was about political correctness and social issues, with economics having little to do with it.

Anti-woke conservatives therefore came to believe that they knew what to do: give the people “Trumpism without Trump.” Wouldn’t it be nice to have a candidate who could take on Cultural Marxism directly, without all the distractions, legal troubles, and election denial? Surely the voters who saw Trump as the answer to their grievances would jump at the opportunity to vote for such a leader, if only given the chance.

With overwhelming majorities in both state legislatures, the Florida governor went about checking every box on the list of conservative grievances: critical race theory, gender ideology, DEI, abortion, vaccines, election integrity, universal school choice, guns, immigration, taking on Disney as the purveyor of woke propaganda. According to the Florida Speaker of the House, DeSantis just in the last year has signed “four sessions’ worth of legislation.”

All of this should have mattered. But here’s what’s happened as DeSantis has been signing one conservative bill after another, just over the last two months alone.

Now that we’ve run the “Trumpism without Trump” experiment, I see us entering the third era of our understanding of Trumpism. Analysts are finally coming to the realization that this isn’t about trade, immigration, or gender ideology. It’s not about issues at all. There’s simply a deep and personal connection between Trump and the Republican voter. At most, how one talks about issues matters in an indirect way; Trump has to pay just enough lip service to things that Republican voters believe to reassure them that he is their leader.

But unlike DeSantis, he has little to fear from contradicting them, like he’s done over the years on things like Planned Parenthood and vaccines.

Take the war in Ukraine. [Please! - Ed.] When Tucker asked his opinion on the conflict, DeSantis responded by calling it a territorial dispute that wasn’t that important to the United States. This position works for Trump because he’s been saying NATO is stupid and we should try to get along with Russia for eight years. DeSantis moving towards a similar position at the most convenient time possible, in response to a question from Tucker no less, looks extremely weak.

It’s interesting to contrast how the two candidates have dealt with the rise of anti-vaxx sentiment within the Republican Party. DeSantis has taken the most anti-vaxx position of any national politician, successfully seeking a grand jury investigation of pharmaceutical companies. This goes beyond the normal positions of simply opposing mandates or questioning the safety of the vaccines, but involves potential legal consequences, although I’m pretty sure this will go nowhere. Trump, meanwhile, says he’s had a booster, and has attacked DeSantis for refusing to discuss his own vaccine status. When he gets booed for it, Trump backs down, granting something to his followers, but in a half-hearted way. The DeSantis conversation goes something like this:

Republican voters: We hate vaccines!

DeSantis: Oh my God, you hate vaccines? You won’t believe this, but I hate them even more!! Other guys talk about leaving you alone not to take them, oh, but we need to go much further. I’m calling a grand jury to investigate this, we’re going to lock Pfizer up! It’s about time us conservatives started pushing back against these tyrants…

On the other side:

Trump: You know, I was boosted. The vaccine was a great accomplishment of my administration.

Republican voters: Boo! We hate vaccines!

Trump: Fine, whatever, do what you want, let’s talk about something else. Hey, did you guys see that women’s weightlifting thing?

Republican voters: cheers, laughter.

They both chase the voter. But there’s a difference between chasing a girl by trying to morph into what she wants, and making compromises in the process of drawing her to you.

I’ve also been fascinated by the contrast in the way each candidate has handled the liberal press. The DeSantis team has labeled journalists as the enemy and refused to talk to them. Trump, meanwhile, has scheduled a CNN townhall for next week, even as he kicks an NBC reporter off his plane.

At a gut level, people understand that part of the reason DeSantis won’t talk to the media is that he’s afraid of them, while pretending that he’s standing on some kind of principle. We all know that if DeSantis goes on CNN, he might be forced into a gaffe, or his voice might crack at the wrong time in response to a hostile question.

Does the term “gaffe” even have any meaning in relation to things Trump says? Can you imagine his voice cracking under any circumstance? And it’s not just Trump’s voice. Observe how little his facial expression changes when a hostile reporter lands a blow, and compare it to other politicians. Some men worry about saying the wrong thing when talking to a woman, but the higher status male is the guy who can say whatever he wants. This is the difference between DeSantis and Trump.

When I note things that Trump has done right and DeSantis has done wrong, I don’t mean to imply that Trump has been consciously playing 4D chess every step of the way. Trump may not have an explicit model of what he’s doing at any point in time, any more than a spider weaving a web can visualize the end product that results from following its instincts.

The “Meatball Ron” slur lands because it hits at another immutable characteristic — that is, the ethnic issue, an underexplored topic in our race-obsessed culture.

The catch-22 of the DeSantis campaign is that he can’t credibly stand up to the bully, nor ignore him. One hesitates to ever say that a campaign is over this early, but if there were ever circumstances to do so, it would be in this race.