By: Benjamin He
We’ve had 46 presidents so far, soon to be 47. But our most recent presidents seem to be suffering more than even our most ineffective ones, due to one thing: the rise of technology.
Presidents like Trump or Biden have become the subject of various memes, jokes, controversies, rap battles, videos, whatever you can think of, their face is probably plastered over it.
Why? Well, according to the internet, they’re funny, and they’re old.
There’s quite a possibility though, that presidential candidate Ron DeSantis won’t have that problem.
For one thing, the guy is young. Unlike some of our other recent presidents, he was born after the Vietnam war, he grew up as computers were now common in American homes, and he still has children instead of grandchildren.
DeSantis would be 46 years old on Inauguration Day, younger than almost every president since John F. Kennedy.
The Florida Governor, his wife, Casey DeSantis, have three children (ages 6,5, and 3), making Ron DeSantis of the few candidates with young children still at home. They have a reportedly busy morning and evening agenda, filled with various upcoming events.
Although he never directly mentions this, his campaign generally hints at it. Numerous ads and speeches present DeSantis as a welcome, younger alternative to his opponents: Donald Trump, 77, and Joe Biden, 80. There have already been concerns about whether or not either of them are capable of serving another four years. Roughly two-thirds of registered voters believe Mr. Biden is too old to effectively serve another four-year term as president, according to a national poll conducted by Quinnipiac University last month.
It seems as if he would be the perfect and the most popular candidate, right? Not quite.
Mr. DeSantis has staunchly conservative views on topics like abortion, climate change, and race education, opinions that differ from those of his own generation.
In fact, according to the Quinnipiac University poll, only roughly one fourth of voters his age share his beliefs; the rest believing that abortion should be legal, climate change is a very serious issue, and so on.
Unlike presidents like Obama, he also doesn’t seem to be able to garner youthful enthusiasm as well, meaning that he can’t count on more support from younger influential artists.
His children, Madison, Mason, and Mamie, are another story. In stark contrast to their father, they are highly visible, and stacks of toys have been reported to be seen in the DeSantis’s front porch.
This has helped to soften certain views of voters in Florida, who state that they don’t like him as a political figure, but think “he’s a good father and husband.” says Janie Jackson, 52, a Democratic voter from Miami who runs a housekeeping business.
This helps humanize the man, making other candidates like Trump, twice divorced and has five children with three different women more vulnerable to such comparisons.
“He’s a dad. People can relate to that. It gives him credibility to talk about family issues.” Dave Carney, a New Hampshire-based Republican strategist, said of Mr. DeSantis.
Younger Republicans do seem to have taken a liking to DeSantis. A recent poll showed that Republicans aged 18-29 are leaning in his favor, although he is still second to Trump in that group.