It’s that time of the year again.
No, I’m not talking about the time of year when the temperatures get even warmer and the urge to take a vacation trip to the beach gets much stronger.
I’m talking about that time of year when the mainstream media ramps up the dooming and glooming on Republican presidential candidates whom they don’t like.
The Republican field has broadened considerably in the last six months, with former President Donald Trump being the first to declare followed by several others, including former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
DeSantis is this campaign season’s lucky winner in the media “doom and gloom” sweepstakes, with one negative story after another being published, including pieces attacking the fact that he trusts his wife, Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, more than GOP consultants as well as tweets and articles declaring DeSantis’ candidacy for president over before he even officially announced he was running.
Last Wednesday, DeSantis did just that, formally announcing his intentions during a Live Spaces chat on Twitter alongside the social media platform’s CEO, Elon Musk.
But it got off to a rocky start thanks to technical glitches brought on by the surge in people who wanted to hear what DeSantis had to say. 20 or so minutes after it was supposed to start, it actually did.
Because of that, we got stories galore from the Usual Suspects about “Why DeSantis’ disastrous launch matters” (Politico), “It Was More Than a #DeSaster” (New Yorker), and “Awkward Silence: Ron DeSantis’s Bold Twitter Gambit That Flopped” (New York Times).
And in a blatant display of dramatic media hyperbole, Politico breathlessly informed us that DeSantis’ launch was “marred by horrendous tech failures,” which was comical considering what happened in the 24 hours after the event took place.
The DeSantis campaign raised $8.2 million in that timeframe, which even the Debbie Downers at the New York Times conceded was pretty impressive.
“The $8.2 million figure is more than the $6.3 million that Joseph R. Biden Jr. raised in his first 24 hours as a candidate in 2019, or the $6.1 million haul raised by former Representative Beto O’Rourke that same year,” the paper reported.
They went on to note that the “$8.2 million DeSantis haul in 24 hours compares to the $9.5 million the Trump campaign — despite having his 2020 presidential contact list — raised in its first six weeks.”
The fact of the matter is that, outside of the Very Online Left and Right, very few care about the technical problems from the Twitter chat. Joe Sixpack working overtime at the hardware store and Susie Everywoman will not give second thought to DeSantis’ launch woes, much in the same way few people outside of partisan actors on the left and in the press gave a rip about then-President Trump holding a glass of water with two hands or walking down a ramp slowly one time ― both incidents of which the media absolutely lost their minds over.
Most Americans are going to be thinking about the kitchen table issues that matter to them, and will be wondering how the candidates plan on addressing those issues.
The moral of the story here is to not get caught up in the sense of inevitability stunts the media tries to pull. Conservatives know not to fall for the media’s tactics, but at the same time it’s easy to believe that something is bound to happen so we should just surrender to it.
“The walls are closing in!” “He’s finished.” Do not listen to these people.
Do your own research on the candidates and ignore the press’ hyperventilating as often as possible. In my opinion, this country would be much better off if that standard was the rule instead of the exception.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
