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After a monthslong shadow campaign,\u00a0Ron DeSantis<\/strong> finally made it official Wednesday: He\u2019s running. The Florida governor, whose bigoted culture wars have made him a hero to the far-right, formally entered the race for the 2024 Republican nomination in a Twitter Spaces announcement, casting himself as a more electable version of\u00a0Donald Trump<\/strong> \u2014\u00a0whose movement DeSantis hopes to inherit.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe must end the culture of losing that has infected the Republican Party in recent years,” DeSantis said on Twitter Wednesday, in a chat with Elon Musk<\/strong> and their mutual ally, David Sacks<\/strong>, a venture capitalist. “The tired dogmas of the past are inadequate for a vibrant future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Twitter Space with Musk and Sacks, which was initially mired in nearly 30 minutes of technical difficulties, was accompanied earlier in the day by a one minute video in which DeSantis touted his Florida policies. The announcement \u2014 which adds to a field that already includes\u00a0Nikki Haley,\u00a0Vivek Ramaswamy, Asa Hutchinson,\u00a0Larry Elder,\u00a0Tim Scott<\/strong>, and of course, Trump \u2014 seemed a harbinger of the campaign to come: a bid fueled by the very-online right, launched on the platform Musk has helped make a home for that very extremism. During the live stream, DeSantis repeatedly called for fighting against a \u201cwoke mind virus,\u201d and entertained questions from sympathetic figures like Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie<\/strong>, who has endorsed DeSantis for president, and Jay Bhattacharya<\/strong>, a Stanford University economist and health policy expert who criticized the COVID-19 lockdowns and who has became part of DeSantis’s Covid-19 response brain trust<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This content can also be viewed on the site it originates<\/a> from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n DeSantis, who had long been\u00a0expected<\/a> to launch a White House run, has enjoyed a meteoric rise in GOP politics in recent years, thanks to his battle against this so-called \u201cwokeness\u201d in his home state \u2014 which is to say, a cruel crusade against\u00a0Black Floridians<\/a>, the\u00a0LGBTQ+ community<\/a>,\u00a0immigrants<\/a>, and\u00a0abortion rights<\/a>. \u201cFlorida is where woke goes to die,\u201d he said after winning his second term as governor last year, in a\u00a0victory speech<\/a> that was also something of a soft launch of his presidential campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n But his rising star has dimmed somewhat more recently as he\u2019s weighed his bid; He\u2019s faced\u00a0incessant attacks<\/a> from Trump, who regards his run as a\u00a0personal betrayal<\/a>; the former president, meanwhile, has\u00a0reasserted his place<\/a> at the top of the Republican Party; and DeSantis\u2019s ambitions have shone a spotlight on his\u00a0personal idiosyncrasies<\/a>,\u00a0lack of personality<\/a>, and\u00a0overall unlikability<\/a>. A few months ago, he seemed like the GOP’s next big demagogue. As he formally opens his campaign, though, he’s already drawn some unflattering \u201cJeb!\u201d comparisons<\/a>: His feud with Disney has irked even some in his own party<\/a>; he’s lost Republican endorsements to Trump<\/a>, including from nearly half of Florida’s congressional delegation; and some donors<\/a> have gotten cold feet, as he takes his culture wars to new extremes on abortion and book bans. \u201cI think he’s in trouble,\u201d as former Republican Senatorial Committee finance chair Ron Gidwitz<\/strong> told<\/a> NBC News last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\nTwitter content<\/h4>\n