The state of affairs in American current events has been unprecedented for a period of roughly eight years now, which has understandably left many numb and desensitized to the routine nonsense going on. Whether it be the continued legal troubles faced by the previous President or many other prominent politicians staying in office in spite of diminishing capabilities, the capacity for American news to be filled with unfortunate happenings has yet to diminish. Making matters terrifying, however, is that all of this is happening under a backdrop of a rapidly warming world, one which we are clearly sorely unprepared for. A lot of the future of America and civilization itself is taking shape, and it’s not looking great. Nothing works like a few memes to mask the pain, though.

To begin, former President Trump is facing a cavalcade of legal controversies and criminal charges in recent months. We’ve already seen 37 federal charges relating to a scandalous storage of classified federal documents in Trump’s exclusive club known as Mar-a-Lago. This club also doubles as Trump’s primary residence after his electoral defeat in 2020. In other words, he had classified documents at his own home after he lost the Presidency. If any average citizen did anything close to this, they’d be spending the rest of their lives in Guantanamo, but Trump is still a free man at the moment despite the mountains of evidence emerging against him. These aforementioned mountains of evidence are also continuing to grow, with a superseding indictment that was released on July 27th alleging a concerted effort by Trump and his associates to erase the evidence.

I cannot stress enough that this behavior is (sigh) unprecedented in American history. Sure, there was Nixon and Watergate, but even that fiasco of corruption is nowhere close in scope to the crimes alleged to have been committed by Trump. This is an intentional heist of classified documents by a then-sitting (and now former) US President. And that’s not even mentioning the alleged attempts to reverse the election outcome in his favor, which may have manifested in both attempted racketeering in Georgia and a certain insurrection at the Capitol building. 

To all who still support him, I have one question. Why specifically would you want him back in the Oval Office? And no, I will not take any “own the libs” arguments as acceptable answers, because a functioning democracy cannot be built on personal vendettas. And yet, he’s the near-certain Republican nominee for 2024 at the moment, and I doubt even a potential imprisonment will change that. Especially considering that his once much-hyped rival has fallen flat on his face.

That rival is Ron DeSantis, the current Governor of Florida, and he was expected to be a prominent threat to Trump’s 2024 electoral bid. He did start his own bid, but man, it hasn’t gone well at all. His poll numbers are plummeting, and the red flags are aplenty with the DeSantis campaign and the policies he is attempting to promote. In fact, he’s already fired a third of his campaign staff. All of a sudden, Disney’s recent struggles aren’t looking as bad in comparison. 

All lame jokes aside, what exactly has led to the DeSantis campaign becoming such a meme? To be honest, there are several reasons, like with most political messes. First is that Ron DeSantis has only the mildest hint of charisma, especially compared to Donald Trump. To be clear, that is not always a bad thing, but there needs to be something else to back a more subdued candidate. Frankly, Ron only has his COVID response as a unifier, if anything, and the rest of what he advocates for is one big pile of s***, in the words of Jurassic Park. 

You see, everything with Ron DeSantis is about stopping a “woke mind virus” that most other democracies would embrace to even a slight extent. But he can’t be like that, so he passes reactionary laws that have left him being labelled an outright fascist by many on the left. As a left-leaning man myself, I kinda have to agree. After all, who else strongarms their state legislature into passing the now-infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law that now bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity even through high school? On top of that, abortion is legally banned in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, a time when many women may still barely suspect they are pregnant at all. Thank DeSantis for that one, too. 

And other than that, I ask anyone reading this to name one policy that has actually helped the average Floridian that he passed. If you can’t answer that simple question, don’t vote for DeSantis in 2024. He’s just as pathetic as Trump, but instead of sociopathic narcissism, DeSantis brandishes a sword of apathy towards marginalized groups, all in the name of protecting his values. I even made my own DeSantis campaign poster. Maybe that will tell him and his remaining supporters what he really is. He’s not just “anti-woke.” He’s something far more insidious, much like Trump himself.