Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt today wonders about Ron DeSantis’s current strategy. Jim writes:

In the last few days, Ron DeSantis has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who will “do better” than Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett and pledged to change the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg. He has not, however, offered even a syllable of criticism of the way Donald Trump kept classified information at Mar-a-Lago.

I’ve heard Jim’s framework and argument from many in conservative media, and I’m just not seeing what he and others are seeing.

Concerning Supreme Court picks, DeSantis told Hugh Hewitt, “I respect the three appointees he did, but none of those three are at the same level of Justices Thomas and Alito. I think they are the gold standard.” This is speaking reason.

Jim disagrees: “I doubt that Republican primary voters will warmly and enthusiastically embrace the argument that” Trump’s appointees “represent some sort of disappointment” and that the next Republican president needs to make better picks.

But Trump’s picks have disappointed conservatives on major cases (which Jim both acknowledges and dismisses), most notably departing from the Alito and Thomas positions that we hoped they’d reinforce — Gorsuch caved on Bostock (transgenderism), Kavanaugh squished on Allen (redistricting), and Barrett upheld Obamacare. While these three are certainly more conservative than Chief Justice John Roberts, it is understandable that Republican voters would like to hear reassurances from a GOP candidate that he’ll find candidates who more closely hew to the views and decisions of the most excellent conservative-justice duo in the Court’s history. We even sometimes joke that the strongest argument for cloning is that a Republican president could theoretically appoint a court of five Thomases and four Alitos.

Call me crazy, but the average Republican does not care about the Federalist Society, Harvard Law credentials, or judicial philosophy if the nominee is going to be swept along by three and a half liberal justices into validating liberal legal fiction. Voters want judicial victories; they want to feel like there’s a robust safeguard against sophists legalizing federal overreach and abuse. The base would prefer to have Al, the bagger at Food Lion, on the Court instead of some Ivy Leaguer, if Al would simply ditto Thomas’s opinions. The base feels it can’t trust Trump’s nominees, with significant cases to point to as proof of their fickleness. We cannot wave inconstancy away, especially not when we have two examples of stalwart conservative jurisprudence seated beside the inconstant.

Jim writes:

There’s also something odd about the decision by DeSantis — and Mike Pence, for that matter — to pledge to re-rename the former Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty, back to Fort Bragg. Speaking at the North Carolina Republican convention recently, DeSantis said, “It’s an iconic name and an iconic base, and we’re not going to let political correctness run amok in North Carolina.” . . .

Is a President DeSantis really going to expend some of his limited political capital in 2025 or 2026 in a fight with Congress to take down signs that say “Fort Liberty” and put back the signs that say “Fort Bragg”? Does DeSantis really want to go to the mattresses for Braxton Bragg, “the most hated man of the Confederacy,” who, it turns out, was a pretty lousy general?

A couple notes: I’m a Yankee with Union ancestors who died in the Civil War, and Wisconsin’s Iron Brigade could have taken Stonewall’s entire force, no sweat. Further, the South has quite a history of erroneously presuming ownership of federal military installations.

All of that said, Yankee feds wandering into the South to call them racist while messing around with historical names and signage is provocative — and it’s especially unwise when the South is the most fertile ground by far for military recruiting for the past 50 years. Remember: America’s wars and interventions shed southern blood based in southern states. If the cost of consistent recruitment is keeping the name of a Confederate shmuck on a base, then that’s a price I’ll pay. But who knows? Maybe military recruitment and American confidence in its military haven’t plummeted since 2021 . . . oh right, they did (with a plurality of respondents coming from the South).

In his “Ten Conservative Principles,” Russell Kirk said that “the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity.” Futzing with century-old installations that mean a lot to the people we need is foolish. To revert a base in North Carolina back to “Fort Bragg” after a few years as Fort Liberty sounds silly to me here in the Midwest. But it matters a lot to people we need for national defense and who have history on that base. A presidential candidate who knows that the primary season starts in the Carolinas probably knows that too. I’d trust DeSantis’s instincts on this one.

Jim writes:

At the North Carolina GOP convention, DeSantis struck a similar tone:

Our founding fathers would have absolutely predicted the weaponization that we’ve seen with these agents, particularly Justice and FBI, because when you don’t have constitutional accountability, human nature is such that they will abuse power. And that’s what happened.

If DeSantis saw anything to criticize in Trump’s actions regarding the classified information stored at Mar-a-Lago, he’s keeping it to himself.

I’d just note that Trump’s legal woes and the FBI finally finding something to pin on Trump do not absolve the federal police force of its stew of incompetence and discriminatory investigations. Trump and the FBI deserve each other, and the American people deserve to see both disappear from view. DeSantis will almost certainly make this case in the weeks and months to come.

DeSantis is fighting for the nomination, not the general election. This explains the battles he’s picking. He’s opting for the lane that attracts voters he’ll need early to make it a two-man race.