Be sure to Click LIKE at the bottom of this article, and share it everywhere!! By Craig Andresen – The National Patriot and Right Side Patriots – Commentary

Donald Trump was the right man for the job in 2016, and despite liberal efforts to subvert his presidency, he rose above the firestorm of manufactured allegations to set our country on the right track both domestically, and on the world stage. He was the right man then.

He is not the right man for 2024.

As convinced of that as I am right now, I will support him should he run and garner the nomination, a nomination that I believed (past tense) was his for the taking just a few short weeks ago, but now…today…I believe gaining that nomination is, at best, an uphill battle.

I say that based on what I saw last Tuesday in the midterm election.

What should have been a red tsunami turned out to be a ripple with several Trump backed candidates snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I don’t say this lightly, but it’s time to reassess how we approach the 2024 election on a national basis. It’s not that I think Trump’s policies need to be trashed, because we know those policies worked, but I do believe that while the goal should remain the same, and the message Trump delivered in 2016 still holds true heading into 2024, the messaging needs to change.

My Right Side Patriots partner and friend, Diane Sori made that point last week in an op-ed on her blog at The Patriot Factor, and that was before the midterm disaster last Tuesday, but now I think there’s a finer point in light of what transpired last week that we can put on it.

The liberals aren’t going to change, and why should they? Their tactics worked last week and they have no reason to change their tactics now. Our strategy failed last week and if we don’t make substantive changes to that strategy heading into 2024, we won’t like the results of the next election any more than we like the outcome of last week’s election.

Trump can fire up the base like nobody’s business. That’s a given, but the base isn’t the problem. Not only do Conservatives need the rank and file voters to turn out in 2024, we need to flip moderate blue voters into red voters and galvanize the independent voters to voting Republican and Trump’s brand of campaigning isn’t going to accomplish that task. Putting it another way, Trump can sell new MAGA hats to the same people that bought MAGA hats before, but he can’t bring new customers through the door.

We, as Conservatives need a new salesman.

The bright spot for Conservatives and the Republican party in last week’s midterm election was Florida. Ron DeSantis flipped Miami-Dade County from bright blue to red. He could have won without making the seemingly impossible into a reality, but what he was able to do in Miami-Dade County should now serve not only as the goal going forward, but as the blueprint for building a successful 2024 national platform and campaign style.

DeSantis got no help from Trump, and that turned out to be a benefit but dare I say that while DeSantis may have perfected the strategy, he didn’t invent it. That nod goes to Glenn Younkin who ran a highly successful gubernatorial campaign in Virginia by putting distance between himself, and President Trump.

DeSantis also did something else I don’t believe Trump is capable of doing at this juncture…he listened to the people rather than taking the advice of advisors or worse yet, relying solely on his own personal agenda. He focused on what the people of Florida wanted, what they needed, and what was overall best for the enrichment of his state. DeSantis was brash, but without the rhetoric. DeSantis was bold without the arrogance. DeSantis was confident without the narcissism.

He was Trump…without being Trump and it resonated with the voters not just in his own state, but across the nation, and across the political aisle in Miami-Dade County.

Since last Tuesday’s election, Trump has started going on a rampage against fellow Conservatives who he must see as a threat to his own 2024 nomination. Not only has he gone after Ron DeSantis, he’s also launched an attack against Glenn Younkin. Trump’s attacks are unwarranted, unnecessary, and way off base. In making such attacks, he is only driving his own political stock lower.

I could see it if Trump was going after establishment republicans and RINO’s like Mitch McConnell but that’s not what he’s doing. Instead, Trump is targeting the best the Party has to offer, and the only reason for doing that that I can see, is if Trump is afraid of 2024 competition from his own side of the aisle. A SMART candidate would be trying to build bridges between himself and rising stars and proven big winners to unite the Party for 2024, but Trump isn’t building bridges…he’s burning them to the ground.

Trump can’t change his style any more than a leopard can change its spots, and even if he could, or perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say even if he tried to, nobody who isn’t already a die-hard Trump supporter would believe him. Trump is Trump, and in 2016 that’s what Conservatives and the country needed.

That was then, and this is now.

Yes, we need to put America First. Yes, we need to bring back energy independence. Yes we need to cut taxes, bring manufacturing back, end this downward spiral of inflation that’s raising prices and driving our nation into the economic abyss and yes, we need to strengthen the military, reclaim our nation’s education, reestablish our border and get back to a true law and order system of justice while doing away with all the woke nonsense, and while those are Trump ideals, but he’s the wrong messenger.

The 2024 Republican nomination that WAS Trump’s for the taking just a few short weeks ago, is now wide open and based on the poor performance of Trump backed 2022 candidates, it’s a fair bet that contenders for Trump’s crown will start coming out of the woodwork over the next couple of months. I believe there’s more bad than there is good in that regard.

I believe the last thing we need heading into 2024 is a slate of 20 potential presidential candidates sharing the stage and being reduced to 30 second sound bites where deep substance is needed. I don’t think such a crowded, or potentially crowded field is helpful. I believe what we need from this point until the 2024 election is focus. We need a candidate who will laser focus on the issues while putting all the emphasis on the needs of the country rather than on the candidate.

That’s not Trump.

That IS Ron DeSantis.

When the Biden regime and his lapdog mainstream media attacked Florida and DeSantis for reopening the state during COVID, DeSantis stood strong because he knew that the people of Florida deserved better than what the Biden regime was pushing. It resonated across the country as people by the tens of thousands packed up and moved to the Free State of Florida. Businesses flocked to Florida too because unlike anywhere else in the country, they could DO business in Florida.

No matter what the liberals threw at DeSantis, he weathered the storm without flinching and when the weather threw a storm at Florida, DeSantis responded faster than Ian’s winds and rebuilt bridges faster that anyone thought possible because people simply weren’t paying attention. Those bridges to Sanibel Island weren’t the first bridges DeSantis had built because before he got truck loads of groceries to Sanibel, he bridged the political gap in Miami-Dade County.

Here’s something important that’s worth noting, and something nobody else is talking about…DeSantis didn’t build those political bridges by compromising with liberals, he built them by winning over moderate democrats, minorities and women via his actions, not his words.

But speaking of words, allow me to close with this…on election night last week, as winning politicians always do, a speech was made by Ron DeSantis, but his was different.

Yes, he thanked the people of Florida. Yes, he highlighted Florida’s accomplishments over the past four years and yes, he thanked his staff because he knew that without them, the list of grand accomplishments wouldn’t have been nearly as long or important. But there was more to it than just the standard after a victory speech.

As Ron DeSantis stood at that podium sharing the credit, not taking it, the crowd did what jubilant crowns so often do…they started chanting.

2 MORE YEARS…TWO MORE YEARS…

They see what so many of us saw that night…the future President of the United States, and they weren’t about keeping Ron DeSantis to themselves…they were letting it be known that two years from now, in 2024, they’ll push the new leader of the Republican Party in a run for the White House. There is no reason for DeSantis to wait until 2028. The time is now. His supporters in Florida know it. Those from other states see it, and if DeSantis himself doesn’t know it, or doesn’t do it he’s making a huge mistake.

That wasn’t a victory speech…it was the first campaign speech of his 2024 run for the White House whether he knew it or not.

Trump will run, but DeSantis needs to run the table and primary Trump out of the race. Trump, should he regain the Oval Office is one and done, and we as Conservatives and Republicans need to have a longer vision that just the next four years.

Ron DeSantis would be a legit two term candidate delivering the policies that made Trump and America great but with a different campaign style that does more than energize the base. DeSantis can truly unify the Republican Party and provide the sort of coattails that other candidates can ride to victory.

I’ll support any Republican that wins the 2024 primary including President Trump, but my primary vote will go to Ron DeSantis should he choose to run, and we won’t know that until May. If he doesn’t run, my primary vote goes to Trump…but there’s nothing DeSanctimonious about the Governor of the Free State of Florida.

DeSantis 2024 – Unite the Right.

 

Copyright © 2022 Craig Andresen / thenationalpatriot.com all rights reserved

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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Diane Sori’s blog The Patriot Factor to read her latest op-ed “Two More Years”…“Two More Years”…Need I Say More

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RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS…LIVE!

TUESDAY, November 1st, from 7 to 8:30pm EST, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori will discuss “Two More Years”…“Two More Years”…Need I Say More, “DeSantis 2024 – Unite the Right and other important news of the day. Hope you can tune in to RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on https://rspradio1.com. Click ‘LISTEN LIVE’ starting at 6:50 pm EST with show beginning at 7pm EST.