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Why Are Liberals Constantly Fixated on “Competence” Instead of Politics?

By
Ben Burgis

Democrats for DeSantis? Seems hard to justify. William Cooper’s recent contrarian case for Ron DeSantis in the Orlando Sentinel is an unwittingly perfect satire of contemporary American liberalism’s technocratic obsessions.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

Governor Ron DeSantis speaking at an event in Lexington, South Carolina, on June 2, 2023. (Peter Zay / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Appearing in the Orlando Sentinel, William Cooper’s “A Democrat’s Case for DeSantis” is, on one level, an example of the kind of vapid contrarianism beloved by editors at many op-ed pages. Florida’s Ron DeSantis bans books, demonizes trans people, wages war against teachers’ unions, and sends SWAT teams to the homes of ex-felons who register to vote. So you’d think that a Democrat would dislike him. But Cooper is a Democrat and he’s making the case that DeSantis should be the next president. How interesting. Much more clickable than some boring anti-DeSantis op-ed!

On another level, though, Cooper’s op-ed is a fascinating window into how liberal technocrats see the world. Partisan polarization being what it is in America in 2023, I’m sure very few of Cooper’s fellow liberals are ready to follow him to this particular conclusion. But he’s arguing from premises a great many of them share. The result is an unintentional but devastating parody of contemporary American liberalism.

William Cooper and the Job of the President

Cooper’s book Stress Test: How Donald Trump Threatens American Democracy came out to generally positive reviews last year. I’m not sure how much notice anyone really took of what was surely at least the ten thousandth anti-Trump book to be published since 2015, but Publisher’s Weekly called it a “compelling rallying cry for democratic institutions under threat in America.” Kirkus said it was not only “compelling” but “sensible.”

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