Even in a Republican primary, Extremely Online incels are not a majority
By 
Jamelle Bouie, who has said from the start that DeSantis had no shot of beating Trump, reiterates his compelling logic:
Part of this was the Florida governor’s soft skills or rather lack thereof. He is not a people person. He does not excel at the task of retail politics. He is not, to put it gently, strong on the stump, and he has a bad habit of speaking in the esoteric and jargon-filled language of online conservatives.
Consider his first major performance in Iowa last year, in front of an audience of likely Republican caucusgoers. “We say very clearly in the state of Florida that we will fight the woke in the Legislature,” DeSantis said, as he tried to rouse the crowd to applause. “We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in the businesses, we will never ever surrender to the woke mob. Our state is where woke goes to die.”
There is a relatively small group of people for whom this is a resonant message. For everyone else, it is basically static. It doesn’t speak to the animating concerns of the blue-collar voters who will make or break a campaign in the Republican primary. DeSantis’s inability to create a compelling message, however, might not have been fatal to his campaign if he had been able to distance or distinguish himself from Trump in any meaningful way. The opportunities were there. DeSantis could have used the criminal indictments against the former president to make the practical case that Trump would not win if he was in jail.
[…]
To the extent that DeSantis tried to differentiate himself from the former president, it was by running to Trump’s political right. The Florida governor in this view would be a more competent Trump — the Trump who gets things done. It was a good pitch for the conservative intellectuals who wanted to support a Trump-like figure without embracing Trump himself. But it was a terrible pitch to the Republican electorate, which did not nominate Trump in 2016 — or turn out in 2020 — because of Trump’s ability to clear a checklist of agenda items.
Needless to say, We-would-kinda-prefer-an-even-more-reactionary-alternative-to-Trump-although-we’ll-definitely-support-Trump-in-the-general Republican elites are an even smaller constituency than Cat Turd Two fanboys.
In related news, venture capital dipshits pivoting from “DeSantis will crush the competition because he literally launched his campaign on Twitter and appears on unlistenable right-wing podcasts to “DeSantis lost because he didn’t use Twitter and unlistenable right-wing podcasts enough” is some hilarious stuff:
1) DeSantis announced his campaign on X! This'll appeal to so many. MSM is dead.
2) So many heard DeSantis announce on X! MSM's crying because it means they no longer matter.
3) Please, I'm begging my X followers, vote for DeSantis.
4) DeSantis lost because he didn't engage on X. pic.twitter.com/12opymxP1S— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) January 22, 2024
If only Ron DeSantis had emulated a runaway freight train of a campaign like that being run by…Dean Phillips, he woulda won!