DeSantis’ Moral Superiority

The raging fire of Donald Trump did not stop after his loss in 2020. It stormed the Capitol, rallied QAnon, and poured itself into Truth Social for a MAGA hurricane… until it reached Ron DeSantis’ doorstep. After the Florida governor refused to commit to another full four-year term before the midterm election, Trump announced his presidential bid for 2024 after a surprising November 8th. Both men live in the Sunshine State, but in the current confrontation, DeSantis is riding the rising sun from the Atlantic while Trump sees his at dusk down to the Mexican Gulf. As DeSantis pulls off a 20% lead in the gubernatorial election and turns Miami for the GOP, Trump’s support for election denialists hands Democrats the Senate and douses the predicted red wave. Many Republicans now see DeSantis as an iron-clad leader of conservative values, and an alternative to conspiracy theories and antidemocratic propaganda. But one aspect of his campaign is also important yet often neglected—his less controversial morality.
As a businessman who boasts of his wealth and power as the only measure of success, Trump has, for all his life, stood on the opposite side of self-devoting faith. His attempts to set up a spiritual image of himself for the evangelical voter base always fail. He once called the Eucharist “my little wine” and “my little cracker.” When asked by Bloomberg about his favorite Bible verse, Trump awkwardly declined, claiming that the book was too “personal” and too “special.” During the four years of his presidency, he did not attend church regularly. His evangelical advisors said they never saw him open a Bible or pray in public. “Goddamn” is his favorite word, regardless of his advisors’ repeated warnings. While some fervent evangelicals believe that “Trump’s administration were agents of God,” more rational voices like Paula White, Trump’s personal pastor, admitted that the former president “isn’t perfect” as “a growing Christian.”
Ron DeSantis—the son of a working-class Italian family, an alumnus of a Catholic private school, and a regular attendant of political prayer breakfasts—seems to be more devout in this religious clash against his hypocritical rival. In the media, his family life revolves around Christianity. He publicized the baptism ceremony for his son Mason and portrayed his wife’s cancer battle as a test of their faith in Christ’s benevolence. In DeSantis’ political campaign, “God” is not just a superficial symbol to attract the right-wing audience, but a declaration of Christians’ cultural war with biblical references as its swords and shields. In his visit to a Christian college in Michigan, DeSantis referred to the Ephesians and called on students to “(p)ut on the full armor of God… against the left’s schemes.” In one of his political advertisements, images of DeSantis’ family serve as the background of the narrator’s resonant statement that “on the eighth day, God looked down upon his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a protector.’ So God made a fighter.”
Leftists as heretics. DeSantis as the anointed savior. All of those look like the same old tricks of Trump’s campaign. But a greater slice of sincerity is enough for the religious right to change sides. After Trump’s speech announcing his third White House bid, most of his former evangelical supporters declined to comment on the campaign or suggested their support for DeSantis. Pastor Tom Ascol, president of Founders Ministries, tweeted, “God has blessed the state of Florida by placing [DeSantis] in this office as His servant for our good.” The Rev. Tony Suarez, one of Trump’s former evangelical advisers, also regards himself as a “huge Ron DeSantis fan.” Those religious leaders know Trump’s contribution to defending Christian values and revitalizing the evangelical movement. They have thanked him for his fight against abortion, gay rights, and critical race theory. But when DeSantis rises to be just as charismatic and tough-handed, while also more pious and God-fearing, it becomes the right time for them to move away from a hypocritical preacher.
As a candidate supposedly for family values and traditional lifestyle, Trump’s personal experience embodies the conservatives’ definition of moral degeneration. His promiscuity is his source of jokes. He described his early-year fight to avoid STDs as “my personal Vietnam.” He paid Stormy Daniels, an adult film star, to stop talking about his extramarital affair with her in 2006. His personal career depends on his involvement in anti-Christian activities, including the $1.2 billion investment in Atlantic City’s Taj Mahal casino and his close relationship with loan sharks. Most importantly, he has had three marriages, multiple illegitimate children, and a current wife who used to be a nude model. Amorality was Trump’s pride before he entered the political arena. His active sexual life and greedy pursuit for wealth were tantalizing stories circulated among elites and celebrities. But once he has become the frontrunner against the progressives, they become his Achilles’ heel targeted by both liberals and conservatives.
On the other hand, Ron DeSantis has a clean record. There are no noteworthy allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Before becoming a politician, he spent his entire career in the military. He has only been married once with three children, with his family often attending public ceremonies in harmony. DeSantis’ political campaign successfully portrays him as the textbook version of a family man and a Christian patriot. Eager to destroy such an image, Trump recently said that if DeSantis “did run, I will tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering.” Instead of raising an alarming threat, Trump here exposed his weakness and fear of a spotless combatant who can lead the war for morality and claim God’s support without a guilty conscience.
The shifting attitude of Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a case in point on many conservatives’ stance on their candidates’ moral issues. Before the presidential election in 2016, Mohler did not endorse Trump because of his lack of character. He reiterated “the importance of sexual morality and character to leadership” and claimed that “if I were to support Donald Trump for president,…I would have to admit that my commentary on (Bill Clinton’s) scandal was wrong.” However, in 2020, Mohler revised his stance and said he would vote for Trump. This time, Mohler viewed Trump’s political influence as more important than his personal life. Trump’s appointment of evangelicals, from Mike Pence to Justice Gorsuch, made him believe that the administration could accomplish Christian milestones like the overturning of Roe v. Wade. However, as Trump lost his steam in this cycle, Mohler’s moral argument led him to change sides again. He wrote articles praising DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law, joined him at the National Conservatism Conference, and expressed his view of him as “a family man” with a stance on “positive family values.” Hence, for many right-wing Christians, Trump, with his religious ignorance and moral scandals, was a compromise in exchange for practical political gains. DeSantis, with a double check on capability and morality, rescues them from this ethical dilemma.
The ongoing campaign for 2024 will reveal how much influence personal morality and spirituality have on the Republican primary. Trump may still hold on to the majority of evangelical voters as religion gets sidelined in favor of economic matters. Scandals may come out and expose that DeSantis is just as corrupt. But for now, DeSantis is exploiting his moral superiority to convince Republicans that they deserve a genuine believer in their calls and concerns.