What a difference a phone call makes. This week, the decision to devote personal attention to a couple Sarasota congressman may have determined the next U.S. President. 

Okay, so grant me some hyperbole. A presidential election cycle ebbs and flows. But undoubtedly this was a terrible week for Gov. Ron DeSantis and a good one for former President Donald Trump. And that’s in part because Trump, hardly a man known for humility, made it a personal priority to secure the endorsements of U.S. Reps. Vern Buchanan and Greg Steube, along with most Republicans in the Florida congressional delegation.

Steube’s on Monday endorsed Trump over DeSantis, who hasn’t officially launched a campaign for president yet but will do so within weeks. That made him the fifth U.S. representative from Florida to pick sides in the battle of Florida men seeking the GOP nomination in 2024. But it set off an avalanche. By week's end, 11 of the 20 Florida Republicans in the U.S. House publicly backed Trump. Only one, U.S. Rep. Laurel Lee, has sided with DeSantis.

Steube, unlike most of his peers, stated publicly part of the reason he was willing to snub Florida’s Governor. He hinted early that Trump was always personally supportive. Steube later told Politico that as he recently recovered in the hospital after a recent fall at his home, Trump called the ICU to speak about the accident.

But he tells me DeSantis hasn't called him. Not lately. Not ever.

"President Trump himself and close members of his political team speak frequently with me about a range of personal and political issues, and always have," Steube said. "In the five years I have been an elected member of Congress, Gov. DeSantis has never reached out to me to discuss any matter.”

Only recently, Steube heard for the first time from DeSantis’ campaign, but not the Governor himself. Rather, surrogate Ryan Tyson made the rounds calling Florida representatives asking them not to endorse Trump right now.

We see how well that worked.

Buchanan’s support for Trump came mid-week, two days after Steube and a day before Trump hosted 10 endorsing representatives for a dinner in Mar-a-Lago. Incidentally, state Sen. Joe Gruters also attended, becoming the first sitting state lawmaker in Florida to endorse Trump, but he’s been close to Trump for years and his support was a given.

Buchanan, more a product of early 2000s-era corporate Republicanism, was hardly in the bag for the populist.

But Trump and DeSantis handled Buchanan similar to how they treated Steube. Sources say Buchanan got a call from Tyson while spending time with his family. He had to call a staffer to ask who Tyson even was.

Meanwhile, Trump and Buchanan spoke personally on the phone this week.

Buchanan served with DeSantis in the House during the Governor’s entire six-year stint in Washington but the two were never close, despite Buchanan co-chairing the state delegation part of that time. But Buchanan also served as a House liaison to the Trump administration during negotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He and the former president found enough to talk about for more than 20 minutes in a conversation this week. But as with Steube, Buchanan and DeSantis haven’t spent 20 seconds together on the phone this month.

What does all this mean?

Granted endorsements don’t always translate to election victories. As much as anything, they show structural and establishment support. But it’s shocking DeSantis, who just won re-election in a statewide landslide, could flounder so badly regarding Republican support in his own state. Trump, technically a Florida resident, will always be identified first as a creature of Manhattan. Yet the South Florida transplant just out-good-ole-boyed a native.

And all it took was a couple meaningful phone calls DeSantis could carve out the time to make. 

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor to SRQ MEDIA. 

Photo courtesy U.S. Rep. Cory Mills: 10 members of Florida's congressional delegation at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump.

At Ringling College of Art and Design, we believe art and creativity are at the core of the human experience. Creativity takes courage, empathy, honesty, holistic thinking and imagination. It also requires looking at the world from multiple points of view and having many answers to a single question. It’s something I have been saying for many, many years and will continue to stand by: creativity really matters to the world. 

As a leading institution of artists, designers, and creative thinkers and practitioners, we believe in the critical need for diversity, because creativity cannot exist in a one-dimensional universe. And, we believe artists, designers and creatives in general play a significant role in our society. As such, it is part of our institutional mission to provide educational programming and degrees that ultimately prepare students to be, as our mission statement says: “discerning visual thinkers and ethical practitioners.” 

Ethical practitioners — it’s a lofty term — but for a creative professional, this could cover a myriad of topics including, but certainly not limited to, practicing your craft responsibly with a high standard of moral values. Creating original work free from plagiarism; working honestly within budget and time constraints; and being sensitive to and aware of the individuals your work may eventually reach and impact. In order to teach these skills, students must have access to robust, unbiased exposure to different ideas and schools of thought from very diverse individuals. This is what we, in the academic world, call academic freedom. To help strengthen these attributes requires exposure to a diverse range of course listings, exhibitions and experiential opportunities (with friends, colleagues, community members, professionals), and the freedom to explore and enjoy (or not enjoy, your choice!) these important exposures and experiences; to talk about them, try to understand them, and learn from them. 

Also integral to the College’s mission is to help students develop critical, conceptual and creative abilities, by supporting and providing courses that explore historical, multicultural, global and futuristic perspectives. The Liberal Arts, for example, make up a third of Ringling’s degree curricula and offer a vast array of content coverage. Courses explore different cultures, ideas, or concepts that may be considered taboo, as well as psychology, science fiction, classical mythology, environmental issues and so much more. Students enter discussions and are encouraged to question the standing norms on topics ranging from gender and identity studies to visual anthropology to environmental ethics. The best part is that these courses are open to additional students outside of Ringling College, through the Cross College Alliance. Students from colleges and universities in the surrounding area are welcomed and encouraged to add new voices and differing perspectives to the conversation. 

Ringling College is a place for these academic and artistic freedoms. It is a safe space where our campus and local community can explore and dissect, finding engagement with each other through conceptual thinking and creative expression. And, these freedoms extend beyond our main campus classrooms and gallery spaces, to our Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design. Through the Museum’s contemporary exhibitions and educational programs, we hope to open an often historically gatekept space to anyone and everyone; a place where groundbreaking and boundary-pushing art and ideas are accessible to all. 

None of us can predict the future — this much we know. We do know, however, as we have so widely seen of late, that this future will require incredible innovation to help solve the unprecedented problems of the world. Innovative thinking requires creativity. Creativity demands freedom. 

Dr. Larry Thompson is president of Ringling College of Art & Design.