Ron DeSantis paved the way for Donald Trump’s NFT Money-Grab

If he wasn’t Donald Trump, you could almost feel sorry for him.

His “big announcement” on Thursday that he’s selling virtual trading cards of himself as a fantasy superhero was laughable enough — but it pales in comparison to Gov. Ron DeSanits’ sale seven months ago of actual trading cards of himself as a bona fide . college baseball star.

The half-dozen Trump photos now on sale are so bizarre they could be taken as a parody of the delusions of a narcissistic loser. The price is $99, for which the buyer only receives a digital assurance that this “perfect Christmas present” is a “non-fungible” NFT.

The lone image on the cards sold by the DeSantis for Governor campaign in May features an iconic image of a baseball hero taking a powerful swing that earned him Rookie of the Year as a freshman at Yale and finished with a .336 batting average as a senior . The 500 “limited edition Gov. DeSantis Classic Baseball Cards” were priced at $49. The buyer received an actual card just like kids have been collecting and trading for decades.

There were also 10 numbered “relic” cards signed by DeSanits. These were sold at auction, with six of them each going for a maximum of $3,000 – set by a limit on individual campaign contributions. The other four went for at least $1,650.

But if eBay is any indicator, the cards were a good investment. The seventh of the 10 auctioned was offered for $9,999.95 on Friday. Imagine what will happen if DeSantis becomes the next president.

His campaign announced the sale of the DeSantis baseball cards with a tweet titled AMERICA’S GOVERNOR x AMERICA’S PASTIME.

“The corporate media can throw all the curveballs they want, but they won’t get anything past this mess,” the tweet proclaims. “@RonDeSantisFL going to fight for freedom in Florida.”

The tweet then shows a video clip of DeSantis berating the press.

“That’s why people don’t trust people like you, because you’re running false narratives,” he says. “These are grease dealers. That is why nobody trusts corporate media.”

He addresses the wake.

“I’ll tell you this, if you go after parental rights in Florida, I’m standing in your way. I’m not going to let you get away with it.”

The footage of a tough culture warrior fades to the single still image of mighty DeSantis at the plate in his Yale days.

“Get your limited edition Ron DeSantis baseball gear today!” says the narrator.

But buying it, for any amount of money, would also carry a moral cost. That would mean accepting the false narratives that DeSantis himself has peddled — especially about masks and vaccines, even as thousands of his constituents died of COVID needlessly. Those who died in August 2021 included six unvaccinated members of Impact Church in Jacksonville.

“Four of them were under the age of 35. All of them were healthy, and the only thing they had in common was that they had not been vaccinated,” Reverend George Davis told the press, adding that the congregation would launch a push to get others vaccinated.

That same month, a 28-year-old Rockledge man died and said his only major regret was not getting vaccinated. His family honored his memory by turning his funeral into a COVID testing and vaccination event.

But despite initially acknowledging that the COIVD vaccine saves lives, DeSantis has since sought political advantage by questioning its effectiveness.

On the same day this week that a major study estimated that the vaccine had saved 3.2 million American lives, DeSantis took his bogus narrative to a new low. He brought McCarthyism to public health, calling for a grand jury investigation into supposed “crimes and misdemeanors” related to the COVID vaccine.

He also announced the formation of what he calls a public health integrity committee. It will be led by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who has questioned the value of the vaccine — even advising young people not to get the shot. He also supported the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID, which the CDC and a number of prominent scientists considered to be without value. Ladapo has also claimed that masks do nothing to reduce transmission, despite definitive evidence to the contrary.

DeSantis has taken the same view on masks and has opposed mask mandates in schools as an infringement on freedom as well as an abridgement of parental rights. But his actual priorities became clear when he arrived at a press conference where seven teenagers had been posed as a photo backdrop for him. He was angered when he saw that several of them were wearing masks, probably with parental approval, certainly of their own free choice.

“You don’t need to wear these masks,” he told them. “I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it doesn’t do anything and we need to stop this COVID theater. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”

DeSantis was and is not fighting for freedom, but for DeSantis. The one star of America’s pastime who was described as America’s governor looks set to be America’s next president.

He does so after going from Yale to Harvard Law School to serve as a judge advocate in the Navy, as a member of the US Congress and as a two-term governor of Florida. You could almost admire him if he wasn’t Ron DeSantis.

Meanwhile, the DeSantis card on eBay is going for $9,900.95 more than a Trump superhero card will ever fetch.