Happy Hour News

Ron DeSantis

(Undated File Photo)

There are so many reasons to fear a Meatball* presidency, despite what some people might be arguing in Next Door for the upper east side.

And before you take “fellow liberals” at face value, I went to this Linker’s sub-stack and learned to my great amusement he had people blurb his glorified blog:

“Damon Linker is one of the most arresting and honest writers of his generation on the subjects of faith and politics.”
—Andrew Sullivan

And if that is not hilarious enough, there’s this:

“I always read Damon Linker.”
—David Brooks

You know, just so you know about his fellow liberals.

Anyway, here’s the argument he makes:

During his time as Florida’s chief executive, he has governed from the hard right, taking aggressive aim at voting rights, pursuing politicized prosecutions, restricting what can be taught in public schools and universities, strong-arming private businesses, using refugees as human props to score political points and engaging in flagrant demagogy about vaccines. Before that, as a congressman, he supported cuts to Social Security and Medicare and voted for a bill that would have severely weakened Obamacare.

And that’s the guy who Linker says is being exaggerated. It’s a mind-boggling proposition. “Sure, he pulls the wings off of butterflies, but at least he’s not an uncouth orange hottentot.” Or something.

But none of it makes Mr. DeSantis worse than Mr. Trump, who also did and sought to do bad things in office: the Muslim travel ban, forcibly separating migrants from their children, and much else.

Could the Trump era have been worse? Absolutely, and here liberals have a point when they suggest Mr. Trump’s ability to wreak havoc was limited by his ineptness. Based on what we’ve seen of Mr. DeSantis’s performance as governor of Florida, a DeSantis administration would likely display much greater discipline and competence than what the country endured under Mr. Trump.

Not an argument in Meatball’s favor. Try again.

So let’s stipulate that Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis would both try to do bad things in office. Mr. Trump still brings something distinctive and much more dangerous to the contest — or rather, several things. He’s flagrantly corrupt. He lies constantly. He’s impulsive and capricious. And he displays a lust for power combined with complete indifference to democratic laws and norms that constrain presidential power.

[OK, I’m ditching this hot nonsense and go to the late-breaking revelation  (and a YUGE hat tip to Scissorhead Purplehead) as I was working on this post…]

It’s really odd that this story didn’t make it into Meatball’s book-like thingie (which by the way debuted at #1):

From a November discussion on the Eyes Left podcast, between Mike Prysner, an Iraq War veteran, and Mansoor Adayfi, a former detainee at Guantánamo Bay.

mansoor adayfi: As you know, Guantánamo was created out of the legal zone, out of the legal system. Torture was the mechanism of Guantánamo. Torture, abuse, and experimenting on prisoners. We went on a massive hunger strike in 2005. And there was force-feeding. It was torture.

I saw a fucking handsome person come in and he said, “I’m here to ensure that you are treated humanely.”

mike prysner: It was Ron DeSantis?

adayfi: Yes. And, “If you have any problems, if you have any concerns, just talk to me.” We were drowning in that place. So I was like, “Oh, this is cool. This person will raise the concerns.” But it was a piece of the game. What they were doing was looking for what hurts us more so they could use it against us. In 2006, when DeSantis was there, it was one of the worst times at Guantánamo.

And with that teaser, I’ll let you go to Harper’s and read the rest. Spoiler alert: he really is a fucking psychopath if any of this interview is even slightly accurate. He was supposed to be there as a JAG to ensure war crimes were not committed, and instead he participated. It’s intolerable.

ADAYFI: I’m telling Americans: this guy is a torturer. He is a criminal. He was laughing. And he was there to ensure we were treated humanely.

He should be locked up, not running for President.

• The nickname Hair Füror gave him, not mine.