I’ve been asking my conservative friends whom they would rather see as the Republican nominee for president in 2024.  Trump, DeSantis, or someone else?

I had one person tell me DeSantis.  The other few people didn’t give me a direct answer, although one said he might prefer Trump because he would rather see DeSantis stay as governor of Florida.

If Trump wants to run and is not prevented from running by the deep state, then I think it is Trump’s nomination to have.  The polls seem to reflect this.

If Trump runs, then I don’t think DeSantis will run.  He is smart enough in this respect.  In fact, I don’t even know if DeSantis wants to become president.  He has a young family, and his wife just got through a battle with cancer.

DeSantis also knows how brutal the establishment really is.  He faces down the evil people every day, but I do think he knows it will be amplified greatly if he runs for president.

When you run for president and you are a threat to the establishment, you are actually putting your life in danger.  Even your family is not safe.

I have been saying for almost 7 years now that the reason the establishment hates Trump isn’t just because of his mean tweets and his brash personality.  The problem is what he is saying.  Trump exposes (sometimes inadvertently) the corruption and criminality of the ruling elite.

If Trump decided not to run (or couldn’t run) and DeSantis stepped in, then you better believe that the establishment and its media will hit DeSantis hard.  Just as they did to Trump with the Russian collusion hoax, they will make stuff up about DeSantis.

If Marco Rubio or Mike Pompeo get the Republican nomination, they don’t have to worry.  The establishment will dish out some criticism, but they would be happy with these types of candidates.

I don’t think the Republican Party is going back to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  I mean that metaphorically.  I don’t think Mike Pence would go anywhere if he runs.  It is possible that an establishment Republican could get the nomination if there are no other options and the person pretends as if they are a fan of Donald Trump.  This is the kind of game that someone like Pompeo has played.

When you look back at Trump’s presidency, is it any coincidence that the people who found themselves in legal trouble are the same people who were sympathetic to a less interventionist foreign policy?  Think about that.

So if someone like DeSantis ran for president and somehow got elected, you can just imagine the chaos.  You will quickly see that the chaos wasn’t about Donald Trump.  It was about what he represented.

DeSantis has been bolder in Florida with some of his appointments than Trump was as president.  If DeSantis surrounded himself by people who were not in bed with the establishment, you can only imagine how brutal things will get.  If his whole cabinet consists of anti establishment people, you could see the Department of “Justice” trying to convict the entire administration.

And just look at what has happened to Trump just because of his rhetoric.  Imagine if Trump had threatened to disband the intelligence agencies as Kennedy did.  Imagine if Trump’s policies were more reflective of some of his rhetoric.

This is where we are in 2022.  The establishment has been exposed.  And because of that, it has become even more dangerous.

I once read an analogy of the empire being like an animal.  Maybe it was Lew Rockwell who made this analogy.  Imagine an elephant or a rhino or a bull inside of a house.  That represents the empire.  The animal gets wounded and starts thrashing about.  It is injured.  It could even die one day.  But it is going to cause a lot of chaos and destruction as it thrashes about with its injuries.

I don’t want to see DeSantis run for president because I live in Florida.  I have no idea how he would be on foreign policy.  I fully understand he is not a libertarian.  But he does get a lot right, and he does have courage.

I don’t really want Trump to run again unless he is more disciplined this time.  I want to hear him talk about tearing up the intelligence agencies and the deep state.  I want to hear that he will appoint people who don’t hate him.  I want to hear that his son-in-law will have nothing to do with his next administration.  I want to hear that he will pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.  I want to hear that he will fire all of the top people at the CDC and FDA who have caused so much grief and havoc over the last several years.  I want Trump to promise that he will repeal all vaccine mandates imposed by the federal government on day one of him taking office.

Otherwise, it will just be a show about Trump’s personality and all of the supposedly wicked things he has done.

One thing I know for sure is that 2024 will be one for the books.  It may top 2016 and 2020 in terms of entertainment and chaos.  It will be a dangerous time, but I am cautiously optimistic that better times are ahead.