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.

    • ThirdWorldOrder@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • HuddaBudda@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        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.

      • ShakyPerception@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        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?)

      • GeekFTW@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Legit just played a 2fort game on TF2 that had might have had more people than this photo.

        • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          I’ve had more customizable bots in one game of Perfect Dark on the Nintendo64 than there are people in this photo.

    • theodewere@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      lol arena, dude that’s an itty bitty livestock market… where they auction off beef! lawl he couldn’t be more of a loser…

      • iquanyin@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        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.

    • Elivey@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      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

  • Puppy@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    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

    • Davel23@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      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!!!”

      • Puppy@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        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

        • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
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          11 months ago

          Have you heard of that experiment where - and I can’t remember if it was by a cat or a monkey or a dart throw - but there was a number of “randomly chosen” stock portfolios, and they regularly outcompeted portolios under tge care of investment managers?

          What I’m trying to say is I would actually vote for a plant.

          • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            There was also a study where some of the stock portfolios with the most consistent returns were from people who had either forgotten about their account or died.

            I’m not saying we should become a necrocracy, but not having a maniac at the helm is a start.

        • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          It’s the inevitable outcome of a two party system. Only way to fix it is ranked choice voting or similar, but that’ll never happen because the two parties who run the government know they’d be out of power if it was ever put into place

          • regedit@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            That and they would actually have to campaign. Right now, once they’re the nominee, they get the full backing of the party and only campaign in “battleground states,” for the most part. If they were up against a dozen parties, they might have to work for a change.

        • ShakyPerception@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That’s the part that upsets me the most about this whole thing.

          It feels like most people are voting against something, so it becomes even more divided because the next person has to go even more extreme. As I look around I see it more and more, in a lot of different countries.

          I’m hoping the political game has reached a point where this either slows down or stops. But I’m not holding my breath.

      • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        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.

    • LegionEris@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Such a cute little venue. It’s a shame it must be owned by a shithead to host DeSantis.

      • sweeny@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Also they auction off living beings to be eaten, so yeah, fitting venue for the republican party

        • PutangInaMo@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Not to be combative but that doesn’t provide any additional context. Could be a mic check, could be an after Q and A, could be during. Don’t know though.

          • Dt_McNutty@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            You think they have the presidential candidate do a mic check? How would a lack of attendance during a q and a be any better? Sounds like you’re “just asking questions” without stating your point.

            • PutangInaMo@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Ok let’s get combative about it? There’s literally zero fucking context, you’re making assumptions based on an obvious bias…

              Like I said, fuck this guy. But I’ve noticed a lot of left leaning conservative bashing shit on here is out of context and that helps literally fucking nobody. It makes you look fucking stupid.

              Be factual, provide irrefutable context, bash away, fuck em.

              Here’s a picture of a shitty person with no additional info! Let’s make shit up to fit our narrative! Oh look, somebody asked a question to clarify the picture?! They must be against me! Childish…

              • reddwarf@feddit.nl
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                11 months ago

                The left/liberals always have to provide evidence and the right knows this and constantly force them to give more and more facts, always asking for more. Liberals feel compelled to comply. This is a trap set by right wingers to stifle meaningful discussion because you will be constantly on the defense.

                Yet the right/conservatives are not bound by this and get away with baseless lies and it is useless to ask for evidence, you will either get nothing or false facts.

                • PutangInaMo@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  Wait wait wait, let’s not increase the scope of this conversation to include all politics. Look at this objectively.

                  If I posted a photo of one person in the middle of NYC and captioned it with “only 1 person alive in all of NYC” would you not propose what I am?

                  You guys seem to immediately fall into this “itS thE rIgHt nOt tHe lEft” bullshit and throw everything into a binary thought. First off, question fucking everything. Think for yourself. View each peice of information objectively. Think critically.

                  Y’all are getting mad at me for thinking with reason and not falling into the blind hate of the enemy…

    • bauhaus@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      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.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    11 months ago

    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!

    • Iamdanno@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      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?

  • AFK BRB Chocolate (CA version)@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • kava@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        Somehow I’m more surprised that he’s getting Republican pushback from including PragerU videos in the Florida public education ciriculum than I am that he included PragerU videos in the Florida public education ciriculum.

        • kava@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          The problem is stuff like “slaves benefited by learning skills under slavery” is simply too radical even for most Republicans

          I think he assumed there was a much larger hard-core right population than there really is. Like sure, neonazis might vote for you but the average Trumper is not a neonazi. They’re like halfway there but still believe slavery was bad, racism is bad, etc.

          • regedit@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            The media keeps giving a megaphone to the extreme who yell the loudest. There are fewer of those idiots than even the “wanna-be tRumpians” realize. They went all in on this train. Now it’s off the rails and they’re only just now realizing there aren’t any conductors to stop it.

    • Mrderisant@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      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

      • AFK BRB Chocolate (CA version)@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        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.

        • Mrderisant@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          She used to be, but it seems that the harder the gop goes for fascism, and the more fox lies… well she’s not who she used to be

  • SkepticalButOpenMinded@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    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. 

  • donuts@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

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

  • chaogomu@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      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.

      • chaogomu@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        I can’t imagine what it must feel like to play second fiddle to Donald Fucking Trump. DeSantis must be constantly seething.

  • Railcar8095@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

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

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Meanwhile in Trumpland: “Ron, you don’t look good. I had the bigliest crowd, Ron. Yuuuge!”

    • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
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      11 months ago

      Shoutout to that time a shit-ton of KPop fans decided to reserve huge swaths of seats for one of his showings, even forcing them to add seating, and not fucking show up lol

      • regedit@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        That was the event planned using TikTok, which prompted them to propose banning the app (the first time).

  • The dogspaw @midwest.social
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    11 months ago

    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