Ron DeSantis is scarier than Trump, says Vanity Fair

Cockburn has noticed a trend over at Vanity Fair, that once-esteemed publication. They write about Ron DeSantis, a lot. Obsessively, even. Searching “Ron DeSantis” on the VF site brings up ten articles concerning the Florida governor, published in the first half of February alone.

VF correspondent Molly Jong-Fast, who the New York Times recently said “wasn’t a political expert” but found a following among Democrats for her “Trump-era angst,” is particularly panicked by DeSantis. Jong-Fast made hate-tweeting Trump her bread and butter, and the unimaginative collector of colorful eyeglasses (Cockburn counted three hues in this spread) is recycling her ire for a new era.

“Florida’s wannabe autocrat and possible 2024 contender isn’t Trump, but he’s as dangerous to democracy,” Jong-Fast declared this week. “In fact, I’d go so far as to say that these days Trump is the poor-man’s DeSantis, which is pretty ironic because DeSantis created himself in the image of Trump.”

Jong-Fast warns us not to believe the media’s narrative that “DeSantis is a kinder, gentler version of Trump.” No, she writes, the paranoia palpable, “There’s a fair bit of evidence to suggest DeSantis is as dangerous as Trump — if not more.”

“A fair bit,” do you hear?! Jong-Fast is not one to make claims without backing them up: she helpfully reminds readers how DeSantis turned Florida into “a banana republic,” how the man is “the Genghis Khan of social issues” and that he favors banning books. She uses the word “autocrat” five times and “authoritarian” four times in this particular damning of DeSantis. “Trump may have sounded like an autocrat when running for president,” she forebodes, “but DeSantis has already acted like one before officially getting in the 2024 race.”

Not to be outdone, Jong-Fast’s VF colleague, Bess Levin, wrote “A comprehensive guide to why a Ron DeSantis presidency would be as terrifying as a Trump one.” Levin, too, takes aim at DeSantis’s “authoritarian behavior.” (He’s “bigoted,” too, FYI.)

Cockburn wonders about the point of a once-great left-leaning mag harping on about how bad Ron DeSantis is to an audience that would never be tempted to vote for a Republican anyway…