1y ago

Ron DeSantis met with swathes of empty seats at Iowa event, photo shows

www.newsweek.com Ron DeSantis met with swathes of empty seats at Iowa event, photo shows

"Tiny crowd for Ron DeSantis in a livestock auction venue. Nobody is buying what that heifer is selling," said Steven Cheung, Donald Trump's campaign spokesman.

GOP nominee Ron DeSantis was met with a large number of empty seats at a meet and greet event in Iowa, photos shared online have revealed.

82 comments

LOL
- Half those people are news media
  
  Or his staff.
- I was going to say, this looks like an event when people first enter and doesn’t mean much. Then I saw DeSantis down at the bottom actually speaking and laughed.
  Probably more farm animals there than people.
  
  Probably more farm animals there than people.
  That's Iowa for you.
  
  I had to do a triple check on that, my first thought was that this was probably taken before the event, but there he is, right below the American flag, with the white shirt.
  
  There was a braying jackass on stage. So you may be right
- Lmao that’s not just “swathes of empty seats”. That’s “only a dozen or so people showed up”.
  
  Don’t worry, it’s not him. It’s those damn woke liberals from Iowa that are stopping people from getting to the event with all their… wokeness. (…wokness? ….wokenness? ….wokenism?)
  
  And the few there look like the media lol
- [sad nazi trombone]
- There's more people at my families Thanksgiving dinner than this
  
  Legit just played a 2fort game on TF2 that had might have had more people than this photo.
- Haha! Holy shit!
- Please clap.
- lol arena, dude that's an itty bitty livestock market.. where they auction off beef! lawl he couldn't be more of a loser..
- I've seen family reunions with more people.
- Thank you - that's the money shot I wanted to see.
  
  i wish the media would stop pretending he’s a contender. he’s not and he never has been. someone noted he was unpopular everywhere, even in florida, and they noted it almost two years ago. anyone with knowledge on it knows this. and trump isn’t a contender either. the gop basically has no viable person to put up as potential president because the party is too degraded at this point. it’s not an actual party that wants to govern. it’s a bunch of oligarchs funding dipshits in order to rule.
- Fucking lol. I like this.
- This picture has made my day. Thanks
- What's great about this is it isn't a carefully taken image of one section of an auditorium that happened to be more empty, you can see almost the entire seating area.
  And it wasn't taken before or after because there he is, up front with a microphone in the white shirt saying his spiel. Lol

I mean... his plan for the USA is basically "WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE WOKE" so I'm not surprised at all...
On the other side, Trump's plan is "ELECTION INTERFERENCE WAAAAA WAAAAA 😭😭 LAPTOP BIDEN HUNTER EMAILS WOKE RADICAL"
Like, Republicans? Are you okay? Dont you have anything better to offer? Yeah I see Trump supporters supporting Trump even harder but the moderates are rushing away from your party. You might have a problem... and don't come cry to us "voter fraud" after you inevitably lose 2024... look how fucking shitty your ticket is
- The problem is a large percentage of Repugnantcans don't vote for anything. They vote against, with no regard to who or what their votes are going to. They would vote for a microwaved dogshit on toasted Wonder Bread if it meant "oWnInG tHa LiBz!!!!!!!"
  
  I get what you say and I understand it but the American people in general didn't vote for Biden either... they voted against Trump
  You could place a green plant with a [D] next to its name on the 2024 ticket and it would still beat Trump because everybody is fucking tired of the constant whining and dramas coming from the GOP
  So in a way, we (and moderates) do the same as Republicans... but for better reasons
  
  No, no, they support him for his policies!
  Oh, you want to know which policies?
  Nothing in particular, they trust him to do the right thing.
  Sigh.

For the lazy
- Such a cute little venue. It's a shame it must be owned by a shithead to host DeSantis.
  
  Also they auction off living beings to be eaten, so yeah, fitting venue for the republican party
- I hate the guy, but do we know if this was taken before, during, or after?
  
  Well, he is right there, up front, with a microphone.
- What's so special about a bunch of bullshit in a stockyard?

Makes you wonder how many people attended who weren't paid to be there.
- his biggest donor just cut him off for being “a bit much” with the nazi shit, so don’t be so sure he’s paying audience members.
  
  Oh, I was referring to the media and security as the ones being paid.
  I don't think he has the cash on hand to pay for attendance.
  
  ?

This is the best summary I could come up with:
GOP nominee Ron DeSantis was met with a large number of empty seats at a meet and greet event in Iowa, photos shared online have revealed.
DeSantis visited Cedar Falls before he ate breakfast at the Vinton Family Restaurant before heading to a meet and greet at a livestock auction in Tama.
Tim Miller, writer at media outlet The Bulwark, shared an image on X, formerly known as Twitter, of what appeared to be a sparse crowd at Spanky's Livestock Auction on Saturday.
Trump political advisor Steven Cheung mocked the Florida Governor over the apparent small turnout at the event, saying in an X post: "Tiny crowd for Ron DeSantis in a livestock auction venue.
DeSantis hoped to reboot his campaign following numerous controversies, including Florida's new Black history curriculum, which proposes that middle schoolers be taught that slaves learned some skills that could be used for "personal benefit."
DeSantis' team also fired communications staffer Nate Hochman after he allegedly retweeted a meme video that featured the white supremacist black sun symbol.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- Good bot
- So he campaigns at "Spanky's Livestock Auction", and trump has press conference at "Four Seasons Landscaping"; WTF is wrong with these people? Do they not understand the concept of perception?

To the extent DeSantis popular, it's only because he says and does things to "own the libs." He isn't a good speaker, he isn't charismatic, and he doesn't have actual ideas for accomplishing anything.
The people who end up voting for him in the primaries will be the ones who simply want to piss off liberals, but figure Trump will be in jail.
- I think his critical mistake was trying to out-Trump Trump. He will never be a better Trump than Trump. He had a chance to be a more moderate and "acceptable" version of Trump. But he went way too far to the right where even other Republicans are criticizing some of the Florida laws. Like for example banning AP Psychology or putting PragerU videos in the official curriculum.
- Unfortunately my mom is a big supporter of his. I don't understand how such a kind woman can see him as anything other than an utter disgrace
  
  It's hard to align "kind" with supporting DeSantis policies. Is she a one-issue voter who looks at something like abortion and dismisses everything else? Because the guy is responsible for a lot of suffering.

On one hand, I don’t usually like this criticism because so much of this has to do with the size of the venue. Empty seats in a stadium vs a packed bar are not a good comparison.
On the other hand, after seeing a picture of how tiny the venue is: lol.

Newsweek. The pinnacle of journalism and shitty websites.

I mean, it's Ron DeSantis... Even the seats wouldn't have attended had they not been literally bolted to the floor.

As a point, he's not the nominee. He'd have to win the in the primaries to become the nominee. Those haven't happened yet.
Thus, the proper title is GOP Jackass Ron DeSantis. This title will always be valid.
- Yet he is in second place in polling for the Republican party nomination right now. It just shows how dominant Trump is currently. The Republicans seem dead set on nominating a proven loser that might end up in prison anyway.
  
  I can't imagine what it must feel like to play second fiddle to Donald Fucking Trump. DeSantis must be constantly seething.

One thing is to see a massive stadium half-empty, but an almost empty barn is just sad, and DeSantis should feel sad.

If there were 2 fewer people they would just be hanging out.

I wonder how many of those attendees are wearing press credentials meaning the turnout is even lower than it appears.

Meanwhile in Trumpland: "Ron, you don't look good. I had the bigliest crowd, Ron. Yuuuge!"

As a wrestling fan this reminds me of ring of honor before Tony khan bought them out kind of like how ron hopes trump will put him in his cabinet if he becomes president

I can't believe he met with so many Barak Obamas.

Remember when Clintons rallies looked like this while Trump filled stadiums? Who fucking cares about this stupid popularity dick measuring contest shit
- 🧂🧂🧂
- I think it's a valid thing to pay attention to, and your example supports that, doesn't contradict it. In the early part of the 2016 election, Clinton was considered a shoe in against Trump. But Trump excited his base h he filled stadiums - while the support for Clinton was much less enthusiastic. And, as we know all too well, Clinton lost.
  So yes, seeing the kinds of crowds a candidate draws is one measure that's worth looking at. It's not the whole thing, for sure, especially when some candidates aren't above paying people to attend.

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