The first Republican I remember on the national stage was Mitt Romney when he ran against President Barack Obama for president in 2012. During his campaign, he seemed like a “normal” politician to me — he didn’t make outrageous inflammatory comments about marginalized groups, nor make any more baseless claims than average — unlike his successor Donald Trump.
The Republican debate stage on Aug. 23, nearly 12 years later, was anything but clear, except for one issue: even in his absence, Donald Trump has made his mark on the Republican Party. It is troubling for the voters, even some traditionally Republican voters, who choose not to participate in the chaos that Trump creates. Even without him, the party may continue to produce Trump-like inflammatory figures.
The eight presidential hopefuls — including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and diplomat and former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley — who attended the debate — are polling pretty severely behind Trump. Yet they all gathered in the wake of Trump’s election loss in 2020 and his recent indictments to salvage some support for their own campaigns in a chaotic manner of which Trump probably approved.
Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy proved to be the most Trumpian candidate with his aggressive and obnoxious actions and similar backstory. He is a young, successful entrepreneur who has previously been politically inactive, yet has decided to run for president using much of his fortune. His self-proclaimed non-politician and I-am-the-American-dream appeal is very similar to the approach Trump took in his 2016 campaign for president. Ramaswamy seems to be trying to make a good thing last in attracting anti-politician Republican voters who wish to attain the wealth that comes with the elusive “American dream.”
Ramaswamy himself is an open supporter of Trump — in last week’s debate, he said that “President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century.” This is in direct contradiction given the very nature of Ramaswamy’s candidacy; Ramaswamy is technically running against Trump for the Republican nomination.
While Ramaswamy’s manner of speaking was much more polished and seemingly practiced than Trump (former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie even said Ramaswamy sounded like Chat-GPT), his attack on other candidates was on-brand, frustrating the seasoned politicians on stage much like Trump did in 2016. This made Ramaswamy a target of Haley, Christie and Pence, who sought to present him as inexperienced, ignorant and “a rookie,” as Pence put it.
Even though the candidates tried to present Ramaswamy’s lack of government and leadership experience as flaws, such qualities seem to help him in public opinion. This is a testament to the loud voices of the Republican Party which value the lack of association with Washington and the American political realm in general — in other words, the very same voices who elected Trump in 2016. Ramaswamy is now polling third in the Republican primary, behind DeSantis and Trump, who is polling at about 51%.
Meanwhile, DeSantis, the candidate who had the best chance to compete with Trump, didn’t do much to stand out. In fact, he seemed to use a similar, if less loud, playbook as Trump because as the former president has shown, his methods tend to work with voters. At one point in the night, DeSantis stated “You don’t take somebody like Fauci and coddle him. … You say, ‘Anthony, you are fired,’” alluding to a quote often used by Trump in his former reality television show. The candidates’ open idolization of Trump shows their recognition of his popularity with voters and their attempts to utilize it for their own campaigns. Even with the shroud of controversy, people still seem to love him. Candidates have taken notice and followed suit.
While no candidate was able to make themselves stand out to surpass or even challenge Trump in the polls, the candidates, especially Ramaswamy, proved the party’s reliance on using Trump-like tactics to garner support and attention. As the candidates’ performances in the first Republican debate demonstrated, the Republican Party and Trump are nearly synonymous — a far cry from 11 years ago, when Mitt Romney had the Republican nomination. Regardless of ideology, I think the country needs a figure more experienced and willing to work with the other side — and with Trump lingering in the Republican Party, it doesn’t seem like that day will come soon.
