When Did DeSantis Become Trumpish?

 I saw this post

DeSantis seems more like Trump each day in his disregard for rules, laws, norms, constitutions, and even the Bible-based Golden Rule. So much for moving past Trump and the threats he poses. My latest at @BulwarkOnline. https://t.co/U27Bh9TGfz

— Jill Lawrence (@JillDLawrence) May 31, 2023

and I had a case of deja vu.  I flashed back to when I pondered about when did Trump cross the line of no return.  When did he do something that he couldn't take back, something so awful that he would alienate so many people and couldn't get them back?  I was, of course, wrong about how many people would be alienated, but the point was really that he had revealed enough about himself before that the latest revelation should not have made much of a dent.  People were discussing Trump joking about NRA and death threats against Hillary Clinton way back in August 2016--was that too much?  And I pointed out that he started his campaign with racist stances that should already been too much.

Well, the cycle is starting anew and folks are saying that the latest thing DeSantis is doing means that he might not be really an alternative to Trump but another version of him, and my response is: ya think?  Jill responded back to my tweet, asking if I had read it, so, yeah, I hadn't and then I did, and my point remains that her focus was on the very recent stuff--not DeSantis's original "Don't Say Gay" position but his punishing of Disney for opposing that stance (weakly, belatedly but enough to set off this thin-skinned bad faith hater).  

At what point did DeSantis cross the line of no return?  Once again, I draw a handy graph:

To be fair, there are lots of bad things DeSantis did and anyone of them would be disqualifying if, you know, Republicans had values.  But shipping off immigrants to another state without providing resources or warning is just appalling. So, everything else he has done since then does not really change things much, maybe making him asymptotically closer to Trump in awful, but not very significantly.  Does this mean he is not electable?  Alas, I learned my lesson in 2016--that just because a politician is thoroughly deplorable does not make them unelectable when party id is a hell of a drug.  Trump still polls well among Republicans because they care more about power and domination (what they call freedom) than anything else.  

Bill Simmons used to write about the Tyson Zone--that once a person reaches a certain level, nothing they can do should be all that surprising--even biting an ear off an opponent.  Well, in politics, there is the Trump space--that once you get inside of it, no matter what evil thing you do or so should not be that surprising since you have already done enough to be considered thoroughly and completely irredeemable.  Trump is there, Cruz is there, DeSantis is there, as are heaps of other Republicans.  Indeed, Alito, Thomas have lifetime appointments to the Trump space.

There is no coming back.  Not even if they showed a hint of remorse, and, no, don't hold your breath for even that.

Oh, and for the Canadian equivalent, once you hug extremists occupying Ottawa, you can't go back either, sorrynotsorry, Pierre.