Posted originally on the CTH on June 8, 2024 | Sundance

As I shared last year, the operation behind Ron DeSantis is much deeper than most can fathom. Arguably and factually, we can trace the origin of the DeSantis ’24 objective all the way back to the end of 2017 just before the midterm 2018 races began.

Ron DeSantis left Congress to go after the Florida governor position in 2018. The political apparatus that supported his shift included the Bush clan GOP faction and his career long support system within the Club for Growth.

However, they struggled with the base support in the 2018 Florida primary and ironically needed an assist from the man the DeSantis.Gov operation was constructed to destroy, President Trump.

The people operating the plan were using DeSantis as the 2024 candidate to get the GOP back in the hands of the party establishment. It did not matter if Trump won or lost in 2020; DeSantis was removed in ’18 to preposition for ’24. Against that backdrop, the failure to launch in ’24 must have been exceptionally painful for the DeSantis team. So much effort went into it.

If you stand back and just think about it, from a practical and commonsense perspective, DeSantis seeking some other form of income to achieve Casey’s tiara (avoid divorce), while simultaneously feeding his ego, it becomes not difficult to understand the trajectory of this story.

(InTouchWeekly) – […] 45, still has nearly three years left as the Sunshine State’s top dog, but insiders say he’s salivating for more — and whispers in the corridors of power are that even though the petulant pol’s presidential dreams have been dashed, his hunger for the limelight hasn’t dimmed.

“Ron wouldn’t hesitate to jump ship for a big TV deal,” reveals a confidant. “He wanted to ditch the governorship to be the president. Sure, Hannity’s radio show isn’t the White House, and it’s not even part of FOX News — but it’s close enough to TV for Ron! (more)

The most common refrain from frustrated Ron DeSantis supporters has been, ‘why didn’t he just wait until 2028’? 

With the exception of a small group of political followers in the State of Florida, few people really understood what the DeSantis 2024 operation was all about.

Ron DeSantis ’24 began long before people were paying attention.  It started when the top echelon of the GOPe UniParty saw candidate Donald Trump win the November 2016 election.

In January 2017, when the DC stop Trump operation known as Trump-Russia took on a new direction, the Republican apparatus was just as much in opposition to the Trump presidency as the Democrat wing.

The Republican politician exodus from Congress in 2018 wasn’t accidental, nor was the weak effort of the GOPe to win congressional seats in that 2018 midterm election.

Given the elements of the ‘stop Trump’ effort, the House of Representatives was part of the overall ‘stop Trump’ design.   House Speaker Paul Ryan didn’t announce his retirement in ’18 ahead of the midterm accidentally; he made the announcement because he knew the Republican leadership’s plan.

Ron DeSantis left Congress, along with Paul Ryan, because Ron DeSantis was going to run for the Florida Governor seat as part of his career move.  The people around DeSantis who supported his political career (Ryan, Bush, approved Republican types), along with the Club4Growth (David McIntosh), helped guide DeSantis with the proactive planning.  The run for governor in ’18 was always done with the expectation and plan to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

Here’s the key point.  DeSantis was always going to run for the Republican Party nomination in 2024.  There was never a consideration not to do so.  He ran for governor in 2018 specifically to set up the run for the Republican nomination in 2024.  That was always the plan.

If President Trump won the 2020 election, DeSantis was positioned to run in 2024.  If President Trump lost the 2020 election, DeSantis was positioned to run in 2024.  DeSantis was going to run in 2024; not running was not an option.  Start from that baseline and everything that took place during his tenure as Florida governor then starts to make a lot more sense.

The professionally Republican DeSantis operation always contained the need to co-opt the MAGA Trump movement.

Just like the Tea Party was infiltrated and diminished back to the control of the GOPe in 2012, so too was the plan to infiltrate MAGA and take control in 2024.  This is the reason why DeSantis ran in 2018 to mirror the Trump agenda.   Winning Florida via overt and very public support for President Trump was part of the design.

The policy agenda of Ron DeSantis was then structured to mirror the priority of the MAGA base.  This was pure strategic and political maneuvering, not a fundamental or ideological alignment in common belief with the priorities of the Trump voter.

Again, begin with the end in mind.  The end goal was always DeSantis ’24.

What Florida voters saw unfold in 2021/2022 (social policy nods to create bonafides) was precisely the DeSantis goal to create a MAGA image where the Florida governor would be the torchbearer for the MAGA standard.  However, quietly behind DeSantis was the originating establishment old guard.

In December of 2021, a full 17 months prior to the May 2023 official announcement, the invitation to the “conservative influencers” was dispatched.  Christina Pushaw was now part of the DeSantis ’24 operation, and she organized the January 6, 2022, meeting (pictured below) for that exact purpose.

This January 2022 preparation was why the people in the photograph were so sensitive about the “invitation” when questioned.

If ordinary voters, MAGA people, realized in early 2022 that Ron DeSantis was recruiting “influencers” for the campaign that was scheduled to begin a year later, it would be a risk.  The hidden agenda behind the operation would potentially be exposed.  The denials about this organization were extreme, and the ridicule over such a simple question was a “telling” indicator.

By the time the calendar took us to mid 2022, the visible datapoints all went in one direction.  The activity indicated DeSantis was going to run for the presidency in 2024, because, well, quite simply, Ron DeSantis was going to run for the presidency in 2024.  It was going to happen, and everything taking place was being done with this in mind.

The advanced scheduling was done with the 2024 campaign as the baseline.  The legislative effort was constructed with the need for policy accomplishments to support the 2023 announcement.  Everything, from the moment Ron DeSantis stepped into office as the Florida governor, was predicated on his prior agreement with the professional Republican apparatus to run for the GOP nomination in 2024.

This is why the Republican Governors Association gave DeSantis $20,000,000.00 in 2022.  The plan was for DeSantis to transfer the funds to his 2024 campaign, and the RGA was seeding the money in 2022 because they could not do it after he made the announcement in 2023.

It was being done by design, following the originating plan.  No one would question the $20 million, even though he didn’t need it, in a reelection year.  Also, the RGA could not be seen as putting a finger on the scale for the GOP nomination; so it needed to be done early by design.

The professionally Republican elements, including the DC leadership team, knew Ron DeSantis was going to run for the nomination in 2024.  This is the same DC leadership team that supports the removal of MAGA, just like that same leadership team supported the elimination of the Tea Party who were very effective at removing UniParty members through the primary process in 2010 and 2012.  Lessons were learned, now the playbook was being duplicated.

The DC leadership team also knew the DOJ team was going to raid Mar-a-Lago.  After all, the National Archives was working in the background with the DOJ to formulate the justification for the raid.  DC doesn’t keep secrets like this very well and the politically connected knew what was going to happen in advance.

This is the explanation for why the team around Ron DeSantis scheduled his time in the bunker (5 days) to coincide with the ‘shock-and-awe’ FBI raid.

The goal was to hunker down, watch the DOJ/FBI drop bombs on candidate Trump, then have Ron DeSantis emerge from the bunker in Mid-August 2022 with a national endorsement tour, soon to be followed by a soft national campaign kickoff under the guise of a “book tour.”

Hiding this advanced scheduling is why the DeSantis legislative team changed the state rules/laws for tracking the Florida Governor’s travel details.  They left nothing to chance.  The ruse needed to be maintained.  Sunlight, even in hindsight, was/is a real threat.

When you start looking with this specific retrospective in mind, then suddenly there is clarity surrounding the hubris exhibited by everyone in the DeSantis camp, including Casey DeSantis.

Ron left Congress in 2018 to advance his career and position himself for the 2024 GOP nomination.   Waiting and running in 2028 was never an option, because running in 2024 was always the original plan.  It wasn’t only a grossly inflated sense of self-importance that drove the decision, although that has always been a character trait of Ron DeSantis, the 2024 race was the original plan supported by every member of the pro-DeSantis team.

Once you realize the reality of Ron and Casey’s one-way ticket, then you start to recognize how cunning and deceitful they are.   It is not coincidental that cunning and deceptive are also the adjectives used to describe the DC Republican establishment.

Many people were fooled by this establishment Republican plan; but then again, many people were previously fooled by all the professional Republican mask wearers…. So don’t feel bad if you were tricked by the duplicity.

After all, it was not that long ago when Senator Jeff Sessions was the widely espoused “most conservative” member of the upper chamber….

  …How did that work out for us?