1 year ago
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The arrival of Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race hasn’t exactly shaken things up, but they have solidified what was already a rather remarkable trend. Reason's Matt Welch points out that all six Republican contenders are backing the idea of conducting military strikes inside Mexico targeting Mexican drug cartels.
What was once a Donald Trump idea so dangerous that his own military staff had to jingle a set of keys to distract him from it every time he proposed it is now conventional wisdom within the Republican Party. One can expect DeSantis to have Donald Trump's opinions on everything, given that the man has done his level best to wear Trump's grievances and mannerisms like a second skin, but Scott is an underdog candidate who could stand to distance himself a bit from the frothing far-right.
One of the better ways to do that distancing would be, say, to not reflexively support a U.S. military invasion of Mexico in order to keep Chinese-manufactured drugs from crossing the U.S. border. Nope, Scott chose the path of maximal Trumpism: "When I am president, the drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist. I will freeze their assets, I will build the wall, and I will allow the world's greatest military to fight these terrorists."
