Now Ron DeSantis to enter the race

The Republican Florida governor is all set it seems to put his papers in for joining the 2024 presidential election campaign sometime next week. So then the Donald Trump/Ron DeSantis bashing will really begin. The prospect of a mighty battle between the two men, one considerably older than the other, does not exactly bode well for sensible, grown-up politics. Trump has already starting the bashing by calling the governor DeSanctimonious. It's a theme I'm sure we will hear a lot about in the next few months. Hopefully in between all the vitriol and insults, there will be intelligent debates about what these two men stand for. But I fear the vitriol will win the day. I doubt DeSantis will be able to stand up to the volume of criticism and personal attacks he will get from Trump. I always thought DeSantis, if he ever had a chance of becoming president, should have waited until 2028 but the pressure to stand this time round has been so overwhelming that if he were to announce that he is not going to be Trump's main rival for the Republican nomination, he would have lost face. So American voters are stuck with the Trump/DeSantis show whether they like it or not. It's probably good news for Joe Biden because while these two hammer away at each other, he can carry on quietly campaigning and reminding the electorate that he is the boss in the White House with all the experience of dealing with foreign and domestic crises. As I have written before, Ukraine is going to be a huge issue between now and November 2024, not because the voters themselves have the war in Ukraine at the top of their priorities - of course they don't - but because America's indirect involvement in the conflict and its leadership of the alliance supporting Kyiv with billions of dollars of weapons are testing Washington's status as the standard bearer of democracy against an increasingly authoritarian world. I don't see either Trump or DeSantis willing to take on that mantle. So it's down to Biden to prove to the American voter that this isssue is vital for the future of world security and that he is the man to shoulder the awesome burden. .