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Donald Trump clearly sees the 2024 Republican presidential primary as a two-man race between him and Ron DeSantis. What other reason would there be for Trump to continuously lob personal attacks against DeSantis? Remember that “DeSanctimonious” nonsense?

And take today, for example. Trump took to his Truth Social platform to comment on posts made by user “Dong-Chan Lee” that seemingly showed photos of a young Ron DeSantis having a drink with some students at the school at which he was teaching at the time. There is no evidence that it is actually DeSantis in the photos and no evidence that any wrongdoing was occurring, but that didn’t stop Trump from agreeing with the poster’s sentiment that “grooming” was taking place. An utterly stupid and unnecessary move by Trump.

BREAKING: Trump not-so-subtly accuses DeSantis of being a child predator.

Absolutely beyond the pale.

This is gutter trash behavior—Republican voters need to send Donald Trump to the ash heap of history once and for all. pic.twitter.com/QhJguD2tWJ

— Reaganite 🇺🇸🇬🇧❄️🍾 (@emperoreaganite) February 7, 2023

The photos in question first surfaced back in 2021 when a leftist blog posted them without verifying their supposition that it was indeed DeSantis and that he was cavorting with underage girls. The feckless blogger even went so far as to try and tie DeSantis to Matt Gaetz’s alleged involvement with an underage girl (and that narrative turned out to be leftist fan fiction and no charges were filed against Gaetz). We expect efforts like this by the left to undermine conservatives who threaten them … and Ron DeSantis threatens them because he’s a rock-solid conservative who rarely makes a misstep.

Scoring cheap political points is the bread and butter of Democrats since their radical agendas are void of substance and fail to resonate with most Americans. Donald Trump should know better since he’s often been their number one target, but he is stooping to the level of the worst bottom feeders with his posts today. There’s nothing funny or amusing about it. Remember the days when our former presidents would morph into elder statesmen who’d mostly keep their mouths shout and occasionally dispense their wise advice? It was too much to expect Trump to go that route, but it’s not too much to expect a 76-year-old man with a presidential term under his belt to act with a little bit of self-control and decorum, particularly when it comes to a member of his own party.

At this point, Trump seems to behave no better than what Rush Limbaugh used to call his “seminar callers” — libs who relentlessly trolled his call-in number and spouted off leftist talking points without partaking in any critical thinking. The knee-jerk reactions from Trump are tired and tiresome and may be red meat for his followers, but it leaves many of us disheartened that he’s choosing to be so destructive. Yes, politics ain’t pretty, but this intra-party warfare he’s trying to wage makes him look scared and unserious.

Perhaps we should consider the timing of his attacks on DeSantis. The conservative organization Club for Growth recently released poll results that showed DeSantis with a 9-point lead over Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup. Trump reacted to these results by calling the group “Club for NO Growth” and said they were “an assemblage of political misfits, globalists, and losers” that “fought me incessantly.” They’re also a fairly proficient fundraising machine that could help the next Republican presidential candidate win the White House.

Despite Ron DeSantis’ popularity, Trump is still the one to beat when it comes to 2024. It would be refreshing to see him spend less time trolling on social media and more time articulating why he should remain the frontrunner. He’s in danger of forever tarnishing his presidential legacy, and he had considerable victories, if he can’t get the personal attacks under control. Ron DeSantis won’t engage in this nonsense, so Trump needs to wise up immediately.