Then-President Donald Trump greets then-Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis during a campaign rally at the Hertz Arena on Oct. 31, 2018 in Estero, Fla. In 2024, the two candidates may run against one another for president.Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Opinion: Arizona fully embraced Trump’s MAGA, while Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis took another path. Which will Republican voters choose in 2024?
By Phil Boas || TheArizona Republic
Sasha Stone, a freelance writer on film and politics, has written a haunting essay about our modern political culture.
As a California Democrat who ferociously opposed Trump’s 2016 election, she today sees an American left that is bankrupt and “much more dangerous … than Trump could ever be.”
If the Republicans elect someone from their strong bench of presidential contenders they will smash the Democrats in 2024, she wrote. But persuading Trump voters to nominate someone else may be asking the impossible.
Those Trump voters felt like exiles for years, she explained. Thanks to Trump, they “have a voice maybe for the first time. That isn’t something they’re likely to give up any time soon.”
That’s a knowing observation.
But perhaps there is a solution in the bookends of the American Sunbelt that can help demonstrate to Trump voters where their continued loyalty to him leads.
Arizona is the personification of Trump
Florida and Arizona are two states in which the Republican Party took on the personalities of their two leading presidential candidates for 2024 – Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.
In 2023, those states are already yielding results that contrast the two men, their styles of leadership and the potential consequences that face Republicans should they elect one or the other.
