Governor DeSantis despite play acting as an official of great conviction doesn’t take a position on any issue unless money is involved. It’s for this reason, DeSantis is concerned about CRT, ESG, DEI, Crypto, etc. It’s because he’s being backed by some of the most influential and malign characters in Silicon Valley – Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and David Sacks. That’s in addition to other leading GOP donor class figures who have all thrown in with him.

DeSantis’ greatest competition for the GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump has cultivated a base of non-college educated, working class voters, many either Gen X or over 65. While many in the media assume DeSantis is going after the same voter as Trump because they’re fixated on some mythical or narrative-driven view of ideology, the reality is he’s going after a totally different constituency – basically the entire non-Trump/MAGA GOP.

Like most things related to DeSantis, fealty to the donor class is the reason he is positioned as the anti-Trump…spewing ideologically conservative buzzwords which cater to a segment of the GOP that is actively contracting in the Trump era- college educated, intellectually-driven National Review-reading, Newsmax or daytime (as distinguished from prime time which remains more MAGA) Fox News viewing right-wingers. “Woke Capitalism” is something this group of donors is strongly in opposition to, though it’s odd they try and define capitalism as woke since they claim wokeness is socialism, but then again why would we expect consistency from such a bunch?

While liberals and internet-driven Democrats like to claim racial animus is what drives Trump’s electoral base, it very plainly isn’t, no matter what some MSNBC hosts or New York Times columnists may say . Resentment does, but it’s less racial resentment as it is economic anxiety that manifests itself as cultural anti-elitism mixed with misogyny. Make no mistake about it, I believe Trump’s views are antithetical to a pluralist state (though based on his recent commentary, DeSantis is even more blatantly anti-pluralist, pledging to destroy leftism in this country) and his economic policies led to disaster, but still he isn’t at DeSantis level of danger.

This is why despite liberal hand-wringing, Trump playing populist reversed a generations-worth of GOP slippage among minority voters in 2020, despite his loss. In fact, Trump’s message DOES APPEAL to some minorities – mostly male, quite possibly those with their own issues of sexism. Trump got a higher percentage of the African-American vote for President in 2020 than any GOPer since 1960. He did better among Hispanics than any GOPers since 2004 and among Asian-Americans than any GOPer since 1992. Perhaps because of all this, Trump hasn’t been as openly obsessive of things like CRT, DEI and various racial code words as DeSantis. Trump has also been less eager to play the trans or LGBTQ card. Heck he’s less likely to play the anti-vaccine card either.

DeSantis campaign, fueled by the tech bros has gone into territory that only appeals to a certain class of GOPer- but ones that seem overly obsessed with issues of race, sexual orientation and the efficacy of vaccines. Also DeSantis association with Sacks in particular potentially could force him to echo the far extreme of pro-Russian rhetoric, as Sacks own writing and podcasting has been incendiary on the war – it is the most blatant example of appeasement (just Google some of his comments about Ukraine if you don’t believe me).

So ultimately DeSantis play with the tech bros backing is to try and corral every college educated GOPer, the entire GOP donor class and the ideological conservative media apparatus. It’s not an unwise strategy for running against Trump, but it still is uphill and based solely on DeSantis blatant transactionalism.