Experts say Donald Trump was right. Oh, not about anything very serious—he’s almost always lying or simply wrong when he talks about the state of the world. But about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wearing substantial lifts in his cowboy boots? Trump was apparently right.
Writer Derek Guy, known widely on social media platforms as “the menswear guy,” consulted three expert shoemakers about the very odd way DeSantis’ boots seem to fit, and each of them said he was wearing lifts inside of a ready-made cowboy boot. Each estimated the height of the lifts at 1.5 inches, an impressive degree of agreement on what’s going on here. Each pointed, in more technical terms, to the anomalies many online observers had highlighted: the weird angle of his instep; the “toe spring,” or the way the toes of his boots curl up; the proportions of his legs; and more. In this case, the wisdom of crowds was in full effect.
“I’ve dealt with these politicians many times,” a Houston-based bespoke bootmaker told Guy, though he wouldn’t name names. “I’ve helped them with their lifts. [DeSantis] is wearing lifts; there’s no doubt.”
DeSantis’ candidacy has been a too-obvious effort to reverse-engineer the strongest possible Republican presidential candidate, and like his boots, it worked better when people weren’t looking too closely. He thought he could pull off Trumpian politics of dominance—and it helps to be physically imposing for that—while winning over suburban women by emphasizing his young, wholesome family. He’d offer up all the hatred of a Trump but wrap it up as somehow less hateful because it was supposed to be in defense of children—his own and others like them. (Emphasis on the “like them.”)
He and his wife, Casey, would tell one cute story after another about their kids while Casey cosplayed as iconic former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or Catherine, Princess of Wales, depending on the day. She would lead “Mamas for DeSantis,” playing up the fear the white suburban moms should be feeling about their cherished darlings being exposed to the idea that not everyone is just like them, then rallying the moms around Ron as “our fighter.” Masculinity was always intended to be central to his appeal, as his 2022 cringer of a “Top Gun”-themed ad showed. It’s in this context that a candidate would turn to things like cowboy boots and an extra couple inches of height.
DeSantis was methodically trying to assemble the components of a successful presidential campaign. But he could never quite hide that it was all about himself, about how Ron DeSantis could appear as the defender of suburban moms and their precious little ones—that he wasn’t seeing voters and what they wanted.
He wasn’t even satisfying his ego by feeding off the energy of a crowd as politicians like Trump so obviously do. Regular people don’t matter to him enough for that. All he was ever focused on was the end game, the image of himself with the trappings of presidential power, the pale imitations of which he has so obviously enjoyed as a governor and a presidential candidate. And this is a major reason his presidential campaign has failed: It’s a fake exterior over a hollow interior.
