Newsom-DeSantis debate is about the future of America
I'm going to make a prediction.
The forthcoming debate between Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis, hosted by Sean Hannity on Fox News, will humiliate Ron DeSantis. It will demonstrate how extreme Florida politics has become, and effectively end Ron DeSantis's life in national politics.
Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, will emerge from the Fox lion's den unscathed and victorious with his national stature cemented.
MAGA extremists have no idea how to handle California's razor sharp and habitually underestimated second term governor, who is a first rate communicator, fearless on issues of liberty and freedom, and aggressive on the debate stage. Newsom will maintain an affable bearing and friendly smile, while skewing the absurdities and delusions of the Tallahassee Mussolini, who seeks the presidency of the United States to "slit throats."
Gavin Newsom has a very different temperament and character. Here is a true story about Gavin Newsom. He gave me the best parenting advice anyone has ever given me, and I will always be grateful to him for that:
James Redford produced and directed an HBO documentary called 'The Big Picture: Rethinking Dyslexia,' in which Governor Newsom is featured. Newsom subsequently created a brilliant children's book about dyslexia that has helped multitudes of American parents and kids deal with the challenges and opportunities facing dyslexic kids.
Many years ago, I found myself having a conversation with Newsom about my then five-year-old son, who had just been diagnosed as dyslexic. There was a room full of people who were eager to talk to the Lt. Governor, but he didn't excuse himself from the conversation. He said there would definitely be obstacles to face and overcome, but that, in the end, my son would come to realize that his learning difference was "his great gift." Whatever anyone else may think of what he told me, I regard it as brilliant, and more importantly, true. More than that, on every occasion I have seen him since, he has asked how my son is doing.
He is a good man. He is decent, and he cares about leaving the world better off. He cares about leaving America stronger for our descendants. He understands the concepts of obligation and responsibility that defend liberty that Ron DeSantis disdains and denigrates with his actions and performative cruelties. This will all come through during the Hannity debate. Newsom's fearlessness of the MAGA mob will give courage to decent Americans — even those who disagree with him on some issues — to take a stand against the smallness, vindictiveness, and appalling disregard for the American way of life that DeSantis demonstrates through word and deed.
The American creed and the MAGA creed are oppositional, irreconcilable and diametrically opposed. The MAGA creed is a grotesquerie that imposed a dogma of obedience and submission upon the weak-minded who believe jingoism is patriotism and progress is revanchism. The concept of individual responsibility has been replaced by a gospel of grievance and resentment. It is accompanied by a shrill chorus of victimization and whining that has abandoned grit, perseverance, duty, responsibility and self-respect in favor of their opposites.
Today, the taker reigns supreme inside of the MAGA delusion-sphere in which a vast audience of brittle sheep have been coddled in their hallucinations, as opposed to being confronted directly with reality through a medium that used to be called "The News." The world that Gavin Newsom is entering believes the lies they have been fed. The propaganda has been ceaseless and effective. Generally speaking, there have been few antidotes offered against it, and it has spread far and wide.
The Hannity audience is as deluded as it gets. No doubt vast segments believe Portland and Seattle were destroyed as thoroughly as Hiroshima by Black Lives Matter and Antifa. They have been primed to be abused with lies, lies, lies and more lies. It is tragic, but also predictable because the lie is a feature of every autocratic system and movement there has ever been. The lie is to the tyrant what gravity is for everyone else. It anchors everything. Everything is touched by gravity, as all things are touched by the lie — until the moment the veil is pierced with the truth. In this regard, Gavin Newsom is playing the role of a Cold War president speaking directly to the Soviet people without the filter of state propagandists interfering. What Hannity's audience will hear is a profound moral choice laid out. Gavin Newsom will be making the case for America.
A twisted theology has taken root in America over the Trump era. Its despicable apostles have become the everyday voices of extremism to which we have become desensitized, at our peril. The rhetoric of fascist Charlie Kirk calling for prison or the death penalty for President Biden isn't just a federal crime, but an inherently political proposition. The MAGA right is now explicitly embracing the murder, assassination, mayhem, street violence, and disorder that it had previously intimated. Listen:
Revenge. Intimidation. Threats. Retribution. Death. Is this what we want? Is it possible this is what the American people will choose on the eve of the 250th anniversary of American independence? Does the coalition of the extreme and apathetic outnumber the patriotic, tolerant and decent? Is thuggery appealing? If not, why are Biden and Trump running even in the polls? Shouldn't we the people talk about such things?
Ron DeSantis may be the worst presidential candidate of the last 50 years who has received any attention whatsoever from the national media. He is a most peculiar man — to say the least.
Rarely, if ever, is the sheltered Fox crowd exposed to the concept of complexity and pragmatism. The governor of California is afforded no such luxuries, given that he has one of America's most complicated jobs. He will be a worthy messenger from the world where there isn't much appetite for civil war, shooting protesters, locking up political opponents, or excusing the most reckless and depraved behavior possible as essential to protecting America.
This debate will be one worth watching. It is always worth watching when America is being defended against treachery and corruption. The argument matters. The principles matter. I can't wait to watch.
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