With Migrant Flights, Ron DeSantis Shows Stoking Outrage Is the Point

The flights to California illustrate the broader bet Gov. Ron DeSantis has made that the animating energy in the G.O.P. has shifted from conservatism to confrontationalism.

Ron DeSantiss decision to send migrants from near the Mexico border to the capital city of California is at first glance the latest in a series of escalating clashes between the Florida governor and his Democratic counterpart, Gavin Newsom.

But the performative gambit in the early days of Mr. DeSantiss 2024 presidential run is better understood as an opening bid to prove to Republican primary voters that he can be just as much a provocateur, and every bit as incendiary, as former President Donald J. Trump.

For Mr. DeSantis, the flights illustrate the broader bet he has made that the animating energy in the Republican Party today has shifted from conservatism to confrontationalism. And that in this new era, nothing is more fundamental than picking fights and making the right enemies, whether its the migrants who have slogged sometimes thousands of miles to slip through the border, the news media or the chief executive of the biggest blue state on the map.