He has also been quick to respond to media efforts to drum up scandals, as when fraudulent “whistleblower” Rebekah Jones falsely claimed that the DeSantis administration was cooking the numbers on COVID. Unlike the Cuomo administration, the DeSantis administration was doing no such thing, and DeSantis stood up and denounced the smear, setting another example.

Of course, being governor of Florida isn’t the same as being president of the United States. But DeSantis has been able to show the spirit, and sometimes the substance, of actions that a Republican president might take. (And while governors don’t have much in the way of military or foreign affairs functions, does anyone really think a DeSantis administration would create the kind of ally-alienating debacle President Joe Biden did in Afghanistan?)

As the 2024 election grows nearer, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) will no doubt try harder to take DeSantis down. But the more attention they focus on him, the more he will stand as a shadow president, showing Americans what someone else might do in Biden’s place.