Did Anyone on DeSantis's Campaign Actually Watch "American Psycho" (or "Wolf of Wall Street"? I Am Afraid þe Answer Is "Yes"

Cravenly pandering to the psychotic creep vote...

The DeSantis campaign video starts with a clip of Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention saying he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens” after the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, and so on. Then it abruptly changes its tone and shows a photo of DeSantis with lasers shooting out of his eyes and the word “no”. The video plays a thumping bass beat and shows a montage of headlines like “DeSantis Signs ‘Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History’”, and “Pride Event in St. Cloud Canceled After DeSantis Signs ‘Protection of Children Act’ into Law”'; memes; and then movie snippets: Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho”, saying “I have to return some videotapes”, Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street”, saying “I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving. I’m not f***ing leaving!”, Brad Pitt as Achilles in “Troy”, wearing a leather mask and saying “Is there no one else?”. And so on. The video ends with the text “Ron DeSantis: America’s Governor” and a link to his campaign website.

I think Robert Schlesinger in the New Republic gets this right:

Robert Schlesinger: SICKOS: Ron DeSantis’s Ghoulish Embrace of American Psycho Patrick Bateman: ‘The increasingly hopeless presidential candidate is now clinging to a weird right-wing meme in the hopes of winning over the misogynistic-sociopath vote…. What in the name of the party of “law and order” is going on here? Why would any sane—if desperate—campaign indulge in this sort of unhinged visual-associational rhetoric? “We should not lose sight,” MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem wrote on Monday, “of the madness of a major presidential candidate saying he’s OK with being likened to violent sociopaths”… favorably compares DeSantis to someone famous for saying… “I want to stab you to death and play around with your blood”.…

[Bateman is] an earnest hero in certain meme-ified, heavily male corners of the internet…. Juanjo Villalba… “Guys who are outside the system and play ‘by their own rules,’ broken toys on the fringes of society, in an endless battle against a world that is alien and hostile to them.”… Robert Schmad…. “Bateman’s popularity… is rooted in his perceived power. He wields control over himself and his surroundings, something many young men, especially conservatives, feel is unattainable to them...” How is that likely to work out for psycho-panderer DeSantis?…

Read all the thing…

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I cannot resist a few comments about the movie clips…

I will give you Brad Pitt’s Achilles as a positive—albeit highly homoerotic and, at least in the movie, tragic: he does die in the end—exemplar of “masculinity”. In the context of the movie “Troy”, Achilles is a much more subtle and interesting character than in the Iliad. Brad Pitt’s Achilles is driven by revenge for Patroclus against Hector (who is, in the movie, treacherous), yes. Brad Pitt’s Achilles is very touchy about his honor, yes. But Brad Pitt’s Achilles is also a man who, when he finds the right woman, chooses—briefly—love and peace over death and war, and sends his Myrmidons home to save them from dying for Agamemnon’s greed on the killing field.

But in the context of “The Wolf of Wall Street”, Jordan Belfort’s “I’m not f***ing leaving!” speech shows his self-delusion—that he thinks, falsely, that he can get away with his money and his freedom and beat the securities fraud charges he is guilty of: “"We're not leaving. We're not f***ing leaving! The show goes on! This is our home! They're gonna need a f***ing wrecking ball to take us out of here! They're gonna have to send in the National Guard and f***ing SWAT teams, because we ain't going nowhere! F*** them!” The show did not go on. Stratton Oakmont was not their home. No wrecking ball was needed. National Guard units and SWAT teams were not needed either. And Belfort was going somewhere—to jail.

And in the context of “American Psycho”, Patrick Bateman tortures, rapes, kills, dismembers, and eats women for kicks—or perhaps he is massively delusional.

What kind of campaign organization would think that it is a positive thing to associate their candidate, Ron DeSantis, with Jordan Belfort the hopelessly delusional fraudster?

What kind of campaign organization would think that it is a positive thing to associate their candidate, Ron DeSantis, with Patrick Bateman the psycho serial killer (or maybe wannabe serial killer)?

And what kind of a man is Ron DeSantis that this is the campaign apparatus he constructs, and these are the people he hires?

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Bing-AI tells me about what is in the “really weird DeSantis video ad”:

• The video ad was shared by the DeSantis War Room Twitter account on June 30, 2023, the last day of Pride Month:

• The DeSantis War Room Twitter account captioned the video with "To wrap up ‘Pride Month,’ let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…"¹².

• The video starts with a clip of Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention saying he would “do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens” after the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando

• The video then shows Trump saying he would let Caitlyn Jenner use any bathroom at Trump Tower and that he would be OK with transgender women competing in Miss Universe

• The video also features images of Trump holding a rainbow flag, his campaign website’s “LGBTQ for Trump” T-shirts, his 2019 tweet celebrating Pride Month, and a drag queen called “Lady MAGA” saying "make America great again"

• The video then abruptly changes its tone and shows a photo of DeSantis with lasers shooting out of his eyes and the word “no”.

• The video plays a thumping bass beat and shows a montage of headlines, memes and movie snippets:

• A headline from The Guardian that reads “DeSantis Signs ‘Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History’” .

• A headline from The Advocate that reads “Pride Event in St. Cloud Canceled After DeSantis Signs ‘Protection of Children Act’ into Law” .

• A headline from The Hill that reads “DeSantis Signs Bill Banning Transgender Girls from School Sports” .

• A headline from NBC News that reads “DeSantis Signs Bill Restricting Access to Health Care for Transgender Youth” .

• A meme of DeSantis with a rainbow flag and the text “Happy Pride Month” .

• A clip of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho”, saying “I have to return some videotapes”.

• The videotapes that Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho” is returning are never explicitly shown or named in the film, but they are implied to be pornographic or violent films. In the novel, some of the videotapes Bateman mentions are “Body Double”, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Inside Lydia’s Ass”, and “The Incredible Torture Show”.

• The phrase “I have to return some videotapes” is also used by Bateman as an excuse to avoid social interactions or to cover up his murderous activities^1.

• A clip of Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street”, saying “I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving. I’m not f***ing leaving!” .

• A clip of Brad Pitt as Achilles in “Troy”, wearing a leather mask and saying “Is there no one else?”.

• A clip of a bodybuilder flexing his muscles and saying “I’m a beast”.

• A clip of the internet meme “Gigachad”.

• A clip of DeSantis walking in slow motion with sunglasses and a suit .

• A clip of DeSantis signing a bill with a pen and smiling .

• A clip of DeSantis riding in a helicopter with a headset and waving

• The video overlays these images with audio from commentators and newscasters criticizing DeSantis’ actions as “some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence” and “a war on LGBTQ people”.

• The video ends with the text “Ron DeSantis: America’s Governor” and a link to his campaign website.