Although DeSantis-aligned PAC doesn’t mean it is led by DeSantis or that they follow his wishes. It is best that the right not cut each other down (unless there is an existential threat coming from one of them), but since that’s what got President Trump elected in 2016 and dirty politics is the way federal elections are run for the past half century, that’s the way it will continue. We bring it on ourselves when we refuse to do our due diligence and research the candidates ourselves but simply vote for the person with the lowest personal standards who focuses on why the other guy is worse.

I guess the days of letting your personal convictions lead your campaign and sticking by your word are over. Gone are the days of voting for a candidate; now we hold our nose and vote against candidates by voting for the lesser evils or the one who reflects our baser self.

These kinds of "purity tests" reflect more than anything else the problem with "democracy". The founders understood that democracy is tyranny of the majority. Their solution was division of power between the Congress, Courts, Administration, States and a bill of rights. They also realized that a diverse population would have different "principles" that they lived by and the division of power would force those principles to be compromised. Having been forged in a frontier society the principles on which the US is founded are pragmatic not ideological. They saw the right to keep and bear arms not so much as a right but a necessity. Unlike modern libertarians they understood that rights will always be in conflict. That rights based on ideology would conflict with necessity. We have a constitution for the kind of hard people who would take on the frontier, not the soft kind of people obsessed with ideological concerns. People that understood that compromise was survival.

The founders understood that a constitution was no guarantee of long lasting freedom. That a constitution could only outline the conditions necessary for a practical degree of freedom. That reality was harsh and freedom costly and that it could from a practical perspective only be preserved at the end of a gun. This understanding is best expressed by the words of Thomas Jefferson "the tree of liberty will have to be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots".

As it relates to this article the Constitution provides for a presidency isolated from the president's own ideological leanings. That it would be an executive position with very limited powers. That the office would be held by a pragmatic executive not an ideological leader. Applying ideological purity tests to the selection of the president is thus inappropriate. To insure that no ideologue ever held the office the Electoral College was created.

Unfortunately most people put their ideological concerns before the pragmatic necessities of life. They want strong leaders that will enforce their own ideology. Whether that ideology is religious, philosophical, or simply self serving. As we have creeped closer and closer to true democracy the power of the president has grown proportionately. It has become an office of enforcement not a job for a pragmatic executive. The entire system as originally conceived has been turned on its head. Instead of democracy being based on local and regional constitutions where power flows up to the federal level power now flows down to the local governments. People turn out to vote for the presidency but not local elections from where power should have been vested. It has destroyed the ability of people to have the freedom to vote with their feet. In part because the character of the people themselves has changed as the frontier society no longer exists. People are no longer concerned with the practical but with ideological conflicts and seek a "strong leader". It is a pattern that is found everywhere throughout history. Success symbolized by luxus leads to the destruction of pragmatism.

He also sided with the democrats when it came to freedom of speech. Mike Pompeo, his CIA director is the one who had Assange arrested in 2019. Trump should have pardoned him, but didn't. He would not have won the election if Julian had not exposed Hillery. Julian was the major contributor to DJT's election, whether Donald realizes it or not