Do Do Don Ron Run

By BARRY FRIEDMAN

A few weeks back — and some variation of this happens every week — Governor Chris Sununu (R-New Hampshire), former Vice President Mike Pence, and former Governor Chris Christie (R-George Washington Bridge Tie-up), were on the Sunday morning talk shows sounding a lot less certain that Donald Trump will not be the GOP presidential nomination in Milwaukee in August 2024.

Months earlier though, they were adamant he was done and that the Party was moving on.

These days, GOP officials are no longer just whistling past the graveyard that Trump will go away, they’re holding a vigil, chanting and burning incense.

It won’t matter. I’ll make you the Toby Ziegler bet (“All the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets.”) that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee — and it’s not going to be close. We haven’t seen this kind of stranglehold since Virgil Solozzo choked Luca Brasi. With Trump’s nomination all but certain, who will be his running mate? It won’t be Mike Pence, Chris Christie, or Chris Sununu, we know that much. Nimrata Nikki Randhawa and Kristi Noem are possibilities but neither excites a base that needs an insurrection to get a buzz; Michael Flynn scares even the Zombies in the party, of whom there are many; and Marjorie Taylor Greene, would be a politically cuckoo move, even for Trump.

The smart choice: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis no doubt will run, but he’ll be humiliated early, as will Haley, Christie, Pence, Tim Scott, and whoever else decides there’s a place in the Republican Party to the right of Trump but to the left of Beelzebub. They proclaim how they’re not Donald Trump, even though they love the ex-president, would never do what he did, even though they think he broke no laws, and will be new kinds of leaders, even though they think he was great for the party and for the country.

Think soft drinks. The current GOP field is Trump Zero to a base that doesn’t count calories.

DeSantis, however, unlike the others, holds a segment of the Republican base that prefers Trump’s policies but aren’t sure if his misogyny, bullying, stupidity, vindictiveness, criminality, sedition, and peculiar affinity for fascists and murderous world leaders is worth the fuss.

By offering the VP slot to DeSantis, Trump will give them someone who also hates cultural diversity, denies climate change, loves zygotes more than women, embraces conservative judicial activism, and believes libs, gays, female impersonators, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” and Black mermaids will ruin America’s way of life.

DeSantis can be an anchor on this GOP booze cruise.

Imagine, then, Trump and DeSantis standing arms raised and hands clasped the last night of the party’s convention.

Trump-DeSantis may be an American nightmare, but it’s the GOP dream team.

By picking DeSanctimonious, as Trump calls him — he’s so clever, isn’t he? — he can position himself as a leader so concerned with the Republican Party and its future that he is willing to put someone he otherwise abhors on the ticket.

That Trump will want to be thanked profusely for doing so is one of his charms.

Why would DeSantis accept the offer?

Because, other than Ted Kennedy (McGovern) in 1972 and Gerald Ford (Reagan) in 1980, I can’t think of anyone in recent memory who turned down the chance to be vice president. John Nance Garner, FDR’s veep for two terms, famously said of the office that it wasn’t worth a bucket full of warm spit (the actual quote was “bucket full of warm piss” but this is family publication); nevertheless, it comes with your own chef, an official seal, and you never have to open a beer or door on your own. As buckets of warm spit or piss go, it’s one of the best.

Lyndon Johnson, who was the Senate Majority Leader in 1960, accepted Kennedy’s invitation, even though nobody expected him to leave the Senate — and one Kennedy, Bobby, even hated the idea.

Johnson knew what was at stake.

“He said, “If I refuse it and go back as majority leader and Kennedy chooses somebody else, and he loses, they’ll blame me for it, and then my position as majority leader might be in jeopardy. If he wins, they’ll say, ‘He won without your help,’ and then I’ll have some problems. Finally, I may owe a responsibility to try to carry this country for the Democratic Party.”

But unlike 1960, if the GOP loses in 2024 (and if there’s a God, it will), Trump will get the blame, and DeSantis, who will still be in his mid-40s, will return to Florida and continue annoying drag queens who like to read out loud — and probably emerge as the Republican frontrunner in 2028. If the GOP wins, he’ll be able to fly to Oslo and yell at NATO members, which will be considerably more enjoyable than flying to Orland to yell at Disney execs. Most importantly, as vice president in the next administration, he will definitely emerge as the Republican frontrunner in 2028 — that is, unless Trump cancels the next election, invokes martial law, and decides to stay in power. DeSantis will be, in fact, a heartbeat away from the presidency — and Trump is a man whose actual heart has been under the pressure of multiple indictments of late, not to mention a lifetime of cheeseburgers and sedentary behavior.

And that’s the thing nobody in the GOP is willing to say out loud.

On the last page of Mark Leibovich’s “Thank You Four Your Servitude,” he quotes a GOP official actually concerned about the Trumpian pall over the party who said, “We’re just waiting for him to die.”

For DeSantis, there’s a presidential rainbow on the other side of the bucket.

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest book, “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman” has been released to great acclaim. In addition, he is the author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2023

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