Ron DeSantis Is So Painfully Awkward That People Who Despise the Guy Feel Sorry for Him: Report

If recent polls—or commentary from his allies—are anything to go by, Ron DeSantis does not have a shot in hell at winning the GOP nomination for president, despite effectively being declared the future of the party approximately nine months ago. That turn of events can probably be chalked up to a combination of (1) the chokehold Donald Trump maintains on millions of Republican voters, even the ones who believe the ex-president is a criminal, (2) the Florida governor’s hateful policies back home, which he refuses to stop talking about, and (3) DeSantis’s overwhelming awkwardness.

How awkward are we talking? So awkward that The Washington Post wrote an entire article about people who, while being fully transparent about how much they think DeSantis sucks, say they see a lot of themselves in the governor—because they too find it near impossible to interact with other humans. That article is titled “Awkward Americans see themselves in Ron DeSantis,” and if you’re wondering, Wait, could this somehow be a good thing for the Florida governor’s candidacy?—the answer is very much no.

Per the Post:

“Like Ron DeSantis, I spend every day trying to act like a human,” said Michelle Witherspoon, an environmental consultant in California. “Every time I watch the videos, I cringe,” said Kate Ecke, a therapist from New Jersey who recently forgot to bring identification when picking up her child at summer camp and subsequently “really weirded out” a counselor by offering to show her C-section scar as proof of motherhood. “But I’m cringing because I’ve been that person.”

“It’s extremely relatable to me,” said Audrey Kamena, an incoming freshman to Yale University who said she once called her high school history teacher “Mom” and still thinks “about it every night before bed.” Alex Whitlock, a stay-at-home dad and a “Never Trump” Republican from West Virginia, found himself relating to DeSantis after reading an article that mentioned that the governor made people uncomfortable with his “propensity to devour food during meetings.”

“I don’t always have an appropriate sense of when to eat or not eat,” Whitlock told the Post. Joseph Coll, a Florida native, told the outlet: “Before he ran for president, he was this abrasive governor, always fighting with reporters and giving off an impression of being extremely confident. Now he’s like a sad puppy, and it’s surprising that he actually feels relatable to me.” Is relatability generally considered a good thing, nay, something most candidates would kill for? Yes, but probably not when people are saying things like “I definitely came across as a DeSantis,” when that means acting like, as one social media musing memorialized by the Post put it, “an extraterrestrial in a skin-suit trying to learn to be human.”

“I can’t tell where the awkwardness that I relate to ends and the malicious figure begins,” Whitlock, the Never Trumper, told the outlet. Making it clear that relatability aside, there’s no way in hell she’d cast a ballot for the guy, Ecke put it this way: “Given the decision between voting for him and getting a Pap smear from a girl I went to high school with, hand me the paper gown.”

Nevertheless, DeSantis’s allies still believe he has a shot and are clearly hoping that next week’s GOP debate will be an opportunity for him to break through to voters. Which they apparently think he can do by trashing Joe Biden, defending Trump, and following every other directive laid out in a recent debate-focused memo.

Per The New York Times:

A firm associated with the super PAC that has effectively taken over Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign posted online hundreds of pages of blunt advice, research memos, and internal polling in early nominating states to guide the Florida governor ahead of the high-stakes Republican presidential debate next Wednesday in Milwaukee. The trove of documents provides an extraordinary glimpse into the thinking of the DeSantis operation about a debate the candidate’s advisers see as crucial.

“There are four basic must-dos,” one of the memos urges Mr. DeSantis, whom the document refers to as “GRD.”

“1. Attack Joe Biden and the media 3-5 times. 2. State GRD’s positive vision 2-3 times. 3. Hammer Vivek Ramaswamy in a response. 4. Defend Donald Trump in absentia in response to a Chris Christie attack.”