The Republican Party is really weird and uncomfortable now.
Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launched his campaign Wednesday night on a Twitter space co-hosted by Elon Musk. Or rather, he tried to throw it. He didn’t work for 20 minutes without almost speaking, coughing and crashing repeatedly.
While the DeSantis-Musk announcement Twitter space reached 680,000 listeners, Musk just ended it. 20 minutes of near silence and repeated crashes. The app crashed for me at least 16 times while trying to listen. What an embarrassing disaster for Musk and DeSantis. pic.twitter.com/zHIhv2QL0F
—Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) May 24, 2023
The space started out with 600,000 “listeners” (could be bots) but after the whole crash, by the time the DeSantis launch actually started, there were about 300,000 and it dropped to 192,000 then that the brothers complained about the media and the elites and then laughed at various media calling them Nazis. What campaign doesn’t laugh at Nazis in its opening?
Jason Easley wrote in our sub-stack“Governor. DeSantis thought he was going to be a disrupter announcing on Twitter, but the tech broke and the event felt like a shoddy Nazi Brother podcast.
DeSantis’ attempt to hide in an audio-only format given the meme-worthy results of his video campaign-like appearances didn’t go down well.
I can’t make it up, but DeSantis’ Twitter ad crashed due to technical issues. Its attempt to hide behind an audio-only platform is now officially a punchline. pic.twitter.com/AwEUEe6gxS
— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) May 24, 2023
Ben Collins reported that it turned into a bunch of people just thanking Elon Musk and complaining about Twitter.
Ron DeSantis’ campaign announcement turned into a group of people simply thanking Elon Musk and complaining about Twitter.
—Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) May 24, 2023
The reactions were funny, though:
Crash launch failed #DeSaster pic.twitter.com/DYDGkM3NNB
—David Wolf (@DavidWolf777) May 24, 2023
OK now @jonstewart is the winner winner chicken dinner on this DeSantis debacle on Elon’s Twitter. Enjoy this one going through the meme stage https://t.co/bHncfbO50I pic.twitter.com/QX7Qldc1bo
— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) May 24, 2023
Musk witnesses another memorable launch: this time DeSantis SpaceX. pic.twitter.com/sUHCdA835z
— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) May 24, 2023
BREAKING: In a stunning move, JEB BUSH announced his candidacy for President of the United States via a Microsoft Teams call. pic.twitter.com/HvrduxEzSN
— US Department of Truth (@USMiniTru) May 24, 2023
I don’t know who made this one, but it’s hilarious. pic.twitter.com/85G0eTh07f
— Stephen Vargha (@VARGHANC) May 25, 2023
Joe Biden’s non-POTUS account had fun tweeting:
This link works: https://t.co/9PzIJkseYI
—Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 24, 2023
The launch went as smoothly as anyone paying attention to Elon Musk’s poor management skills had expected. Ron DeSantis might have thought he’d look more human next to Elon, after all that wouldn’t, but instead he was overshadowed by Elon’s tech bro fan club during the launching his own campaign.
Donald Trump reacted to this failure by mocking Ron DeSantis “Red Button” which is smaller than that of Trump, according to Kim Jong Un (do you really want to know?).
If this is truly the best and brightest the Republican Party has to offer, 2023 is going to surpass 2015 in terms of the surreal depths we’ve plunged into.
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