I have made no secret of the fact that I think Ron DeSantis is an extraordinary politician. I prefer him to any of the potential candidates for President, and am willing to explain to anybody why that is. This, though, is not that column.

I also am no Never-Trumper, and would vote for him over any Democrat in a heartbeat. Trump has a lot to be proud of, and without his leadership the Republicans would still be captured by the Establishment™.

Now that I have put my biases on the table, let me give you my analysis of what I believe to be Trump’s huge own goal.

My most objective take possible, given my acknowledged preferences, is that President Trump made a big unforced error attacking DeSantis at his rally the other day.

Not just because he did so just before an election day on which the Republicans simply must destroy the Democrats–after all, Governor DeSantis doesn’t need Trump’s support to win. If Trump went into full attack mode it wouldn’t dent DeSantis’ reputation one little bit.

So Trump’s attack is electorally irrelevant (which in itself is an unforced error, as it shows Trump to be weaker than he wants to look against a political rival).

Trump’s attack was a mistake because he opened up an old wound that could be Trump’s Achilles’ Heel: his huge mistakes dealing with COVID. Mistakes that DeSantis saw early and rejected quickly. Unnoticed by many, he has attacked Kemp in Georgia as well, which is truly bizarre as his attacks would help Stacey Abrams, a particularly disliked figure among Republicans. Trump once quipped that Stacey Abrams would be a better governor than Kemp–something nobody outside the Left believes. Kemp, though, will not be hurt by Trump’s jibes either.

Both Kemp and DeSantis were more right on COVID when it mattered than Trump. Reminding people of that fact is a terrible mistake by him. Usually he is more adept than this.

This person remembers what happened.

Here are 2 stories from '20. Notice the date Trump was attacking Sweden for not locking down and the date DeSantis announced Florida was reopening.

First, Trump attacking Sweden for not locking down on APR 30…https://t.co/nVj270OfAl

— Cogito Ergo Sum (@CogitoInGa) November 7, 2022

When COVID hit, Trump knew it was going to be a huge political problem for him. Not only would the pandemic hurt him where he was strongest–economic growth–but he also quickly understood that dealing with a pandemic did not play to his political strengths.

The Don is superb–perhaps the best since Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan–taking on his political opponents. He dominates with his impenetrable confidence and his ability to mobilize people’s passions. He is a street fighter, and his people root for him.

But COVID wasn’t a human being, but a virus indifferent to his charm. So early on he made the biggest mistake of his political, and probably his entire, life: he let his enemies into the command center and let them take over the response to COVID. He even defended Fauci and Birx when he should have turned his back on them.

He lent his credibility to Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. And because he did, he was disarmed when his survival instincts kicked in and he began to disagree with them. In the PR tug of war between him and his political enemies, as often as not he lost. More often, in fact.

During the height of COVID Anthony Fauci could actually exercise more power than Trump, both to Trump’s detriment and to the country’s.

DeSantis saw early that Fauci, Birx, and the entire COVID-industrial complex was not only his enemy but America’s. He saw the destruction wrought by their policies and rejected their propaganda and their advice. He stood up to them and fought back at precisely the most important time on the most important issue, and in his state he won. Kemp, similarly, did the same.

When Brian Kemp decided to reopen his state for business in April 2020 he didn’t just take flak from the Left–the incoming artillery came directly from Trump himself:

“I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities which are in violation of the phase one guidelines for the incredible people of Georgia. They’re incredible people. I love those people. They are – they’re great. They’ve been strong, resolute.

In the battle over reopening Georgia, Trump actually sided with the Establishment instead of the freedom fighter. It was a mistake, and for some reason Trump is reminding everybody of that fact by criticizing Kemp and DeSantis.

Both Kemp and DeSantis earned the hatred and disdain of the Establishment–taking as much flak as Trump on COVID but with the added benefit of actually fighting on the right side earlier and more effectively than did Trump. No conservative Republican can look at Trump’s record on COVID (as opposed to his foreign or other domestic policies) and say he did an excellent job. He did some good things, but overall COVID was the one issue where he was outmaneuvered and the country suffered for it.

DeSantis created the Free State of Florida and Kemp returned Georgia to sanity. Neither did it with Trump’s help when it mattered.

While Trump did not exactly impose the lockdowns, mandates, and all the evil COVID policies for which the Left is demanding an amnesty, he certainly aided and abetted with his early COVID policy errors. He was right on every important issue until Spring 2020, and then he lost the plot. As 15 days to slow the spread extended onward–with Trump’s support–the COVID narrative was set and Republicans were behind the 8 ball for a very long time.

Only now are the tables turned nationally. Finally.

Early on I took a tremendous amount of heat with my friends for arguing that COVID would be a disaster for Trump because it was an enemy he didn’t know how to deal with, and I believe I was right. If he had fought against the Fauci fascists early and hard he would have won in 2020, despite all the heat he would have endured. No margin of cheating, whether you believe the election was fair or stolen, would have put Biden in power.

COVID policy, in other words, killed Trump’s 2nd term in my opinion. Early on Trump took the wrong side because he was facing a problem that wasn’t easily addressed using his native skills. He knows how to win when facing a human enemy; he was disarmed when the enemy turned out to be a virus. It isn’t his fault, exactly, but it is his greatest weakness.

Ron DeSantis was equipped to manage the crisis., and he is one of the most powerful and popular politicians in the country because of it. He didn’t defeat COVID, because that was beyond the capacity of man. But he did defeat the COVID fascists, who turned out to be the enemy that both needed to be and could be defeated.

DeSantis still takes slings and arrows for his policies from the Left, but they bounce off his freedom-forged armor. Trump should have chosen that path, but he capitulated to the “experts” exactly when we needed him to fight back. I

Trump’s mistakes early on were easily understandable, and he tried to correct once the damage wrought was obvious. But he never could seize back the power he ceded early on in the process to his political enemies. Fauci and Co. always wanted to destroy Trump, and he gave them just enough power to do so.

In January 2021 Fauci was still in power and Trump was not.

Trump did a lot of things right during COVID, but did some very important things very wrong. Not so much in fighting the virus. If there is one thing we could learn from the COVID era, it is that fighting a highly infectious airborne virus is supremely difficult. It’s not clear anybody could have fought the virus any better. More money, less money–it mattered not. More ventilators or less–irrelevant. COVID was going to burn through the population, and it did. Still is, despite the vax, the masks, the 6 feet, and the stupid plexiglass barriers.

It is an airborne virus, folks. Sucks. But that is life.

Fighting the virus was never going to work as we wanted it to. But fighting the fascists? We needed somebody to do that, and Trump stood down at exactly the wrong time while DeSantis stood up, along with Kemp.

By attacking both Kemp and DeSantis at this moment in the campaign, Trump made a huge political error. He puts himself on the wrong side of one of the most important issues at this time: COVID amnesty. Reminding people at this moment that he may need a bit of amnesty himself for his initial COVID mistakes was an unforced error. It opened the door to this:

I would pick Ron DeSanctimonious over Pfizer’s Number 1 Vaccine Salesman for 2020 and 2021, Lockdown Don.

— BowTiedRanger (@BowTiedRanger) November 6, 2022

Trump is attacking two Republicans who were more right than he on the most important issue over the past 3 years. He is asking people to compare him to two governors who did a better job on COVID than he, and reminding people of his biggest error as president.

UPDATE: Perhaps Trump noticed that his attacks went over like a lead balloon?

Trump has backed off on yesterday’s attack on Ron DeSantis, telling the crowd to re-elect him as the governor of Florida. pic.twitter.com/cexfZLCZIu

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 6, 2022

Perhaps because of this?

New nickname just dropped #RonDeSanctimonious 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/78P5GT2Yvi

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) November 6, 2022