DeSantis is a truer believer, if a lesser politician, than Trump

As given voice by Donald Trump, American right-wing populism has sounded more like a howl of rage or a whine of self-pity than a rational plan for the country’s future. When he ran for re-election, the Republican Party could not even bring itself to write a platform. “Trumpism” blurred boundaries between his policies and his needs and interests, distinctions that vanished as his obsession with his loss in 2020 consumed his message. Reactive and emotional, Mr Trump has reigned as the id of populism, and that has made him dangerous to democracy. Ron DeSantis, the chilly, cerebral governor of Florida, has an outside chance of becoming its superego, and thus dangerous to the Democrats.