ABOUT RON DESANTIS

It was the same old Ron DeSantis at the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee Wednesday.

Sure, the Florida governor hit his talking points. He called the United States “a country in decline.” He vowed to take on Joe Biden and “Bidenomics.” He touted his own COVID response in Florida and bragged about fighting crime by removing two “radical left-wing district attorneys” from office.. He dodged a question on whether he’d support a federal abortion ban. He wiggled away from any talk about Donald Trump’s betrayal of the country, saying we have to focus on the future, not the past. He promised to declare the border a “national emergency,” repeating his well-honed, bloodthirsty line that drug traffickers will be left “stone-cold dead.” He was energetic. He was angry. He was well-rehearsed. He was ...meh. And yet that didn’t really matter. Trump, as predicted, dominated from afar. The candidates onstage were left fighting over scraps, with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy scoring the biggest wins with his irreverent attitude and calls for “revolution.” But Trump remained the clear favorite: When former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tried to criticize the former president, the hall was filled with boos so loud he had to stop talking for a moment. Those four indictments? Jan. 6? Not important. The ex-president, meanwhile, was strutting away over on social media with his prerecorded Tucker Carlson interview and his promises that “SPARKS WILL FLY.”

Trump, naturally, cast himself as the victim. He sat out the debate, then attacked his opponents on the Milwaukee stage in a forum where they could not push back.

Watching the performance Wednesday night — of DeSantis and Ramaswamy and Christie and the others — leaves us with one question. Has the Republican Party given up trying to rid themselves of a four-time indicted leader who wanted to overturn a legitimate election so he could stay in power?