There’s good reason why Gov. Ron DeSantis could never hope to compete with Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential GOP primary, even in his home state. It’s not just that he eats his pudding with three fingers when two fingers is clearly de rigueur. Or that he’s failed to connect with voters, despite numerous attempts to wrap his preternaturally viscous eye stalks around their pitiful human brain stems. But his fatal flaw? He didn’t have the foresight to become the infallible leader of a death cult whose members would take a bullet for Trump’s GrubHub driver.  

Now DeSantis is finding out exactly where his own state party’s loyalties really lie. And the answer is: with that other Florida Man. On Friday, Florida Republicans voted to nix a loyalty oath that had bound all GOP presidential primary candidates to support the eventual nominee or be dropped from the March 19 ballot. The vote marked “a major victory for former President Donald Trump and a stinging defeat for Gov. Ron DeSantis in his home state,” according to the Orlando Sentinel’s story on the decision. 

The move is significant because Trump has so far refused to endorse anyone whose skin is darker than Burnt Sienna or whiter than Terra Cotta, and were he to somehow lose the primary, he’d almost certainly take his magnificently tanned balls and go home.

And, worryingly for DeSantis, the vote wasn’t remotely close, with the DeSantis campaign’s preferred outcome all but getting bashed in the face with a flagpole.

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