« Is the old America gone forever? | We will miss Tim McCarver »
February 18, 2023

No, George Soros did not endorse Ron DeSantis

By Andrea Widburg

This morning, several American Thinker readers sent us emails informing us that George Soros has endorsed Ron DeSantis's candidacy.  All stated some variation of the same thing: that's the kiss of death as far as DeSantis is concerned.  It's also untrue.  What George Soros envisioned was a three-way presidential election that saw Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis destroying each other, allowing the Democrat to win — just as happened in 1992, when George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot divided the conservative votes, allowing Bill Clinton to win.

It's true that Soros called DeSantis "shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious."  Coming from someone who's exhibited those same qualities (although without the moral center that grounds DeSantis), that does sound like an endorsement.  And if it is a Soros endorsement, DeSantis really is a Trojan Horse candidate, pretending to be an arch-conservative, even as he intends to govern to the left of Joe Biden.

However, when you listen to what Soros actually said, it becomes apparent that Soros isn't endorsing DeSantis.  Instead, he fears him.

Here's what Soros — whose physical presence is very like Biden's insofar as both seem to be minutes from the grave —  actually said:

The video cuts off before Soros delivers his vision for 2024: "This could induce Trump, whose narcissism has turned into a disease, to run as a third-party candidate.  This would lead to a Democratic landslide and force the Republican Party to reform itself."

As I said in the intro, Soros wants a repeat of 1992 because he knows that if America actually has an honest election in 2024, there's no way a Democrat presidential candidate can win on his, her, or its merits.  The only scenario in which a Democrat wins is if a Republican candidate (DeSantis) and a third-party candidate (Trump) tear each other apart and split the Republican vote.

Soros is a horrible human being, but, unlike Biden, he's not stupid.  In fact, he's correct — and what he views with longing, I view with fear.

I spend my days reading what other people have to say about politics.  One thing that's very clear is that there are people who support either Trump or DeSantis so strongly that they cannot envision possibly voting for the other man.  (And yes, everyone assumes that Nikki Haley notwithstanding, the real fight for the Republican nomination will be between Trump and DeSantis.)

This reflects a larger problem among conservatives: their demand for purity is so overwhelming that they will not coalesce when doing so is the only way to defeat a Democrat worse than either of the two Republican candidates.  Leftists have succeeded because they keep their eye on the ball — which is winning — and will work together at the end of the day to make victory possible.  That's probably made easier by the fact that they are statists — that is, they are inherently amenable to groupthink.

Conservatives, however, say "muh principles" and refuse to acknowledge that the perfect can be the enemy of the good.  For example, just a few years ago, a friend told me about a local political body that had a conservative majority but ended up with a leftist president.  The conservatives were so hostile to each other that they preferred that a leftist win rather than allowing one of their own number to be chair.  This was stupid and a betrayal of the voters who put them in office in order to end leftist control over the body.

The time for purity is during the primaries.  However, too many people sit out the primaries (or forget to vote).  Then, when the ultimate candidate is someone they didn't originally support, they refuse to vote in the presidential election, which is the equivalent of voting for a Democrat.  That's how you end up with President Biden Part II, or President Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams.

Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have walked away from the signing of the Declaration of Independence saying, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."  Whether he said that or not really doesn't matter.  What matters is that it's correct.  By November 5, 2024, conservatives must coalesce behind one candidate, or our grand constitutional experiment is over.  It's barely surviving Biden's depredations, and it cannot take another four years of intentional leftist mismanagement.

UPDATE: After I finished writing this and put it to bed for publication, I read that the RNC finally did something smart, which may preempt George Soros's wishes:

Image: George Soros.  Twitter screen grab.

If you experience technical problems, please write to helpdesk@americanthinker.com