I concluded my previous post about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the Republican trying to out-Trump Trump as a strongman, with this sentence:
He is serving up retribution, not freedom.
This morning NPR reported on Trump's hour and forty-five minute speech (in the same ballpark, apparently, as Xi Jinping's speech at the Communist Party Congress and, according to CNN's fact checker, "wildly dishonest"). Said Trump:
In 2016 I declared: I am your voice.
Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.
Retribution.
And in today's New York Times, David French writes about Marjorie Taylor Greene's proposal for a national divorce. He doesn't mention DeSantis (and I have no idea whether or not French is a fan, though based on this column he shouldn't be, because DeSantis is full to the brim of animosity), but the first sentences of his final paragraph, which references liberty, would be a fitting conclusion to my previous post:
Animosity is the enemy of American liberty. It is hard to muster the will to defend the rights of people you despise.