The GOP's Great White Hopeless: "Ron DeSantis's fall from grace: 'He's completely crashed to the ground'" (Guardian) [View all]

[Miles Archer]

"It's your wife! It's your fucking wife! You can't fucking play!" - Nigel Tufnel to David St. Hubbins, "This Is Spinal Tap"

Ron DeSantis’s fall from grace: ‘He’s completely crashed to the ground’

Florida governor stands isolated from Trump and is feuding with Republicans at home – is he drifting to irrelevance?

Richard Luscombe in Miami
Tue 20 May 2025 07.00 EDT

These are challenging days for Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who would have been king. Barely two and a half years since his landslide re-election and anointment as “DeFuture” of the Republican party in a fawning New York Post cover, he stands isolated from the national political stage, feuding with his once blindingly loyal Florida legislature, and limping towards the finish line of his second term with an uncertain pathway beyond.

It has been, in the view of many analysts, a fall of stunning velocity and magnitude. And while few are willing to completely rule out a comeback for a 46-year-old politician who was the darling of the Republican hard right until he dared to challenge Donald Trump for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, it is also clear that everything has changed.

“He’s completely crashed to the ground at this point and is certainly being treated like a more standard, average governor now,” said Aubrey Jewett, professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.

“He’s lost the ability to push things through. He’s lost that luster he had that at one time seemed like he could do no wrong in Republican conservative circles. He’s definitely come back down to earth and some of it is his own doing because if you govern with an autocratic style, that doesn’t usually make you a lot of allies.”