Some reasons why DeSantis is popular in Florida

The Washington Post has a piece by Jim Geraghty (from National Review) entitled DeSantis would pave the way for a post-Trump GOP return to normal, and it does offer some explanation as to why he did so well in Florida.

I don't want to come across as a DeSantis apologist, but the article makes its case pretty well, I think.  For example, as I said in an earlier post the "Don't Say Gay" stuff was Right wing populist, but it was more a case of legislative virtue signalling than making dramatic changes:

Next to his pandemic policies, DeSantis might be best known for Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act — better known by the name its critics gave it, the “don’t say gay” law. Liberals howled that the measure was pure discrimination, targeting teachers and students who wanted to discuss sexual matters openly. But many Florida parents saw it as a common-sense restriction keeping explicit materials out of elementary school classrooms.

(That said, the move then to punish Disney for complaining about it shows a dangerous side - what's he willing to do to Google and Meta in future, I wonder.)

But as Geraghty argues, DeSantis is not really as "Trumpy" in policy as it might initially seem:

If DeSantis the nominee became president, Democrats and Republicans would no doubt disagree just as strongly as before. But there would be one big difference: They’d spend more time arguing about policy and what the federal government ought to do, and less about whatever crazy thing Trump said or did that day.

Independents and centrists might find themselves disappointed or irked with a President DeSantis. But they’d be irked within normal parameters, not fearing that he’d burn the country down in a fit of rage because he thinks someone wasn’t being fair to him.

As is all too well known, Trump on social media is a taunter, a belittler, a braggart. Compare that with DeSantis’s Twitter feed, which might or might not be administered by the governor: It is an anodyne scroll of alerts about the weather, news about Florida government initiatives and occasional retweets of messages from his wife, Casey, on such controversial matters as having “a happy and safe Halloween.”

 And this next part is pretty important:

It’s worth noting that DeSantis, unlike many elected Republicans, has never claimed the 2020 presidential election was rigged or stolen, and he rejected calls for a statewide audit of Florida’s 2020 vote. It would have been preferable if DeSantis hadn’t campaigned in the midterms for bona fide election deniers such as Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Kari Lake in Arizona, but that might be too much to expect of any Republican with aspirations for higher office. By the low standards of today’s GOP, though, a Republican who ignored Trump’s 2020 bellyaching is a step in the right direction.

Now we get to the "doesn't always govern like a Republican" part:

If you let the smoke clear from the high-profile fights over pandemic policies and parental rights in education, DeSantis emerges as a committed conservative, yes, but also one with some ideological wrinkles that those on the left might find surprising.

As governor, DeSantis increased spending on environmental projects by $1.5 billion compared with the previous four years.

He and the state legislature approved $800 million to increase salaries and raises for teachers across Florida, boosting the average starting salary to at least $47,000 a year, ninth-highest in the nation.

DeSantis also launched a $100 million program for home purchases by educators, health-care professionals, child-care workers, law enforcement officers, firefighters and veterans or active members of the military.

Yes, on abortion rights, DeSantis is much more conservative than liberals would prefer, but not so drastic as leaders in many other red states. In April, he signed a law making abortion legal until the 15th week of pregnancy, or later to protect the mother from injury or death. DeSantis seems content for his state’s laws to align with those of many European countries — banning elective abortions after 15 weeks, with certain exceptions for a woman’s health.

Every now and then, DeSantis takes the not-so-conservative path when it’s popular with his constituents. This doesn’t mean liberals will embrace him; it’s just an observation that a DeSantis presidency wouldn’t mean enduring four years of an inflexible, hardcore conservative. There would be occasional areas of agreement.

On the matter of climate change and the environment, this article in The Guardian suggests that he is a very mixed bag, who seem willing to play up to climate change denial when it suits (although one would think the reality of his State going literally underwater more frequently must make that hard to sustain.  I wonder if the reality is that the advanced average age of Floridians means that their attitude is usually "well, yes, seems it might be a problem, but I won't be around to see how bad it gets.")  

An article in Time explains it this way:

DeSantis has piloted a new Republican approach to climate change by spending money on climate adaption but not on mitigation. In other words, he has sought to pay for his state to adapt to a changing climate but not to address its greenhouse gas emissions, the root causes of climate change. DeSantis’ Resilient Florida Program is politically savvy, passing nearly unanimously in a bipartisan vote in 2021 and receiving enthusiastic plaudits from local officials. And, experts say, it’s also good policy that will help allocate money to the places that need it the most. But it does nothing to cut carbon pollution, and DeSantis has dismissed such efforts as “left-wing stuff.” And there’s another issue: adaption alone isn’t enough. Florida is at risk of hundreds of billions of dollars in climate damage in the coming decades; the program allocates hundreds of millions. Even with state adaptation funds, climate change presents a dire, potentially cataclysmic problem for the state.

There are lessons in Florida’s shifting climate politics. DeSantis’ embrace of climate adaptation is an indicator that climate change will lead even the most hardened ideologues to acknowledge the real harm caused by a warming planet. But his approach should also alarm anyone concerned about the future. We will all be in trouble if merely bracing for impact becomes a mainstream approach to address climate change in the U.S.

Yeah, he's not good; but (how to put this) not completely outside the bounds of reason, which seems all that you can hope for on the Right at the moment.