DeSantis flops on tour

The idea of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis running for president has sounded swell to many Republicans. The reality, as they are discovering, might be sobering and deflating.

This week, he began a national tour in New York City. DeSantis blamed New York’s bail laws “on Democrats trying to ‘out-woke’ each other,” as the New York Daily News reported. It’s far from clear what he means by “out-woke” — a slur usually deployed to intimate that Democrats are catering to minorities and ignoring whites’ legitimate concerns.

Regardless, any comparison between Florida and New York does not serve DeSantis well. In 2020, the homicide rate in Florida was 5.9 murders per 100,000 people, and the violent crime rate was 384 per 100,000, according to the Daily Beast, citing the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. New York, meanwhile, had 4.2 homicides per 100,000 people and a violent crime rate of 364 per 100,000 people.

DeSantis’s crime foray, however, was not his worst moment. As President Biden ventured into a war-torn country to stand with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, DeSantis pandered to pro-Russian apologists.

“The fear of Russia going into NATO countries and all that and steamrolling, you know, that has not even come close to happening,” he said in an interview, neglecting to mention that it hasn’t happened because of the heroic efforts of Ukrainians and the alliance Biden stitched together. DeSantis went on, saying of Russia: “I think they’ve shown themselves to be a thirdrate military power.” The third-rate power nevertheless has committed countless atrocities and devastated the economy and landscape of Ukraine.

He also declared, “I think it would behoove them to identify what is the strategic objective that they’re trying to achieve, but just saying it’s an open-ended blank check, that is not acceptable.” The objective is a free and independent Ukraine without Russian troops, obviously.

DeSantis might be utterly uninformed on foreign policy, or he might be pandering to the MAGA base. Regardless, his tone-deaf, reflexive know-nothingism should set off alarms for Republicans. If they want to restore the party’s image as tough on national security and find someone to make Biden look feeble, they might want to look elsewhere.