Not better or worse. More.

How should we think about the great Trump-DeSantis debate?

My friend and former colleague Damon Linker generated a fair amount of Twitter rage this week with a NYT column with the provocative headline: “My Fellow Liberals Are Exaggerating the Dangers of Ron DeSantis:”

Key passage:

So let’s stipulate that Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis would both try to do bad things in office. Mr. Trump still brings something distinctive and much more dangerous to the contest — or rather, several things. He’s flagrantly corrupt. He lies constantly. He’s impulsive and capricious. And he displays a lust for power combined with complete indifference to democratic laws and norms that constrain presidential power.

The way to summarize these various personal defects is to say that Mr. Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president.

Damon thinks the idea that DeSantis might be worse than Trump is not only wrong, it’s counterproductive, as he wrote later at his Substack:

The whole country saw what Trump attempted in the two months between Election Day 2020 and January 6, 2021. Most knew it was very bad. If those same people hear liberals screaming that a man who won his campaign for re-election in a large, highly diverse state by a nearly 20-point margin is just as bad as or worse than Trump, some will understandably roll their eyes and assume it’s an example of crying wolf. That will badly undermine the liberal case. DeSantis’ threat is subtler and less acute than the one Trump posed (and for now, could pose again)

Boil it down to its essence, I think that Damon’s message boils down to two ideas:

* A narcissistic impulsive blowhard authoritarian is probably worse for the country than a self-possessed authoritarian, in ways ranging from the likelihood of mismanaging a crisis into a catastrophe to a tendency to produce another four years of people ready to fight each other for the future of the country.

* Liberals might provoke reactionary blowback by screaming their heads off about every Republican who comes down the pike. Rather than depict everybody in apocalyptic terms, Dems should make a calmer and more rational case about the specific badness of DeSantis.

I have to admit to be somewhat baffled by the whole thing, actually. By Damon’s own accounting Trump was awful and DeSantis is also likely to be terrible in his own slightly different fashion. By taking to the pages of the New York Times to discourage liberals from making the “better-worse” comparison regarding the two men, Damon actually amplified and fanned the flames of the fire he was trying to put out. ¹

But that happens sometimes when you’re writing about politics.

The whole “better-worse” dynamic seems to me to miss the point, in any case. For me, the real point of all this : Trump was awful. And DeSantis — as an illiberal anti-woke crusader who seems more intent on giving conservative everything they want than trying to broaden his appeal to the general electorate — stands on Trump’s shoulders. Would he be in a position to contend for the presidency if a few thousand votes went the other way in 2016? I’m skeptical.

Consider this editorial about a Florida bill striking down defamation standards, also from NYT:

The Supreme Court, in a case that dates back nearly 60 years, ruled that even if that speech might be damaging or include errors, it should generally be protected against claims of libel and slander. All three would lose that protection — and be subject to ruinous defamation lawsuits — under a bill that is moving through the Florida House and is based on longstanding goals of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The bill represents a dangerous threat to free expression in the United States, not only for the news media, but for all Americans, whatever their political beliefs. There’s still time for Florida lawmakers to reject this crude pandering and ensure that their constituents retain the right to free speech.

“This isn’t just a press issue,” said Bobby Block, executive director of Florida’s First Amendment Foundation. “This is a death-to-public-discourse bill. Everyone, even conservatives, would have to second-guess themselves whenever they open their mouths to speak or sit in front of a keyboard.”

Would DeSantis and his allies be trying to undo First Amendment protections without Trump showing how fast and far the Overton Window can be moved? Doubtful. Would he even be able to contemplate it, unless Trump (and Mitch McConnell) had altered the Supreme Court’s makeup so drastically as to suddenly put the First Amendment into play? Not even close. Would any of this be happening, if not for Trump as a catalyst for the nation’s illiberal sentiments? No.

Granted, DeSantis is less likely to accidentally start a nuclear war than Trump, or spend all of his time on Twitter generally inciting the country to a rage. These things definitely matter. And so I take Damon’s point. With Trump, the dangers are more immediate.

But this is like comparing poisons. Cyanide might kill you faster than arsenic. Both put you in the same place eventually. “Better” and “worse” aren’t even really comparable categories in such a situation.

So. Not better. Or worse. More. And that’s pretty bad.

1. John Ganz responded to Damon’s column with this observation: “I think one can seriously analyze important differences between Trump and DeSantis, but this need to scold or reprimand people for overheated rhetoric doesn’t really do much except piss them off more. Have you ever told someone who was upset to calm down? How does that usually go?”