I get the feeling that I’m watching someone wrestle a screaming toddler in an airplane when I hear Vivek Ramaswamy speak. The child is hindered by the change in altitude and is screaming for mercy, burdening every other passenger in the process. This is all too similar to how Ramaswamy saw a problem in the pharmaceutical industry … and decided to run for president?
Vivek Ramaswamy is a 38-year-old presidential hopeful and former biotech executive who is currently slinking his way up the polls in an effort to win the Republican nomination, a role that he’s unbelievably unqualified for. As president, he strives to literally shut down the FBI, IRS, Department of Education and the CDC.
Ramaswamy’s candidacy so far has been defined by a slew of inaccuracies about not only Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 riot, but about climate change, foreign policy and my personal favorite, “covidism.” On top of all of this, he’s written a book: “Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.” Suffice it to say, Ramaswamy has adopted a very similar approach to Trump, and that is the very technical method of telling people what they want to hear.
By using buzzwords such as “climatism,” Ramaswamy is hypnotizing voters, similar to the way saying the word “treat” hypnotizes a dog. He and Trump have learned how to weaponize climate change, and it’s working. During the GOP debate, Ramaswamy made the only direct statement disavowing the issue, but more importantly, very few of the other candidates on stage even made a comment. Most Republicans on stage were scared to contend that climate change is real, and thus, Ramaswamy succeeded in making climate change an even more contentious topic than it already is.
Despite the fact that an overwhelming amount of Americans, including conservatives, believe that climate change is an issue, Ramaswamy has still managed to center his campaign around his disagreement with it — and he’s still third in the polls. The GOP loves a good anti-climate change crusade, and proof of this lies in Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement during his presidency.
Trump made America look like even more of a joke than any previous presidential scandal — and I’m not forgetting about Watergate. On the international stage, the only reason America has yet to dissolve into an utter laughingstock is because of the power we’ve curated thus far.
But don’t count the Ramaswamy-Trump team out yet; there’s still plenty of time to disappoint the rest of the world. Considering foreign policy, Ramaswamy pushes the idea that far too much of our military budget goes toward providing humanitarian aid to other countries, when in reality that number hovers around 1%. This is a popular misconception and therefore a smart string to pull at, especially given that 71% of Republicans believe that the U.S. should stop providing funding to Ukraine.
Speaking of which, Ramaswamy believes he has actually solved the Ukraine-Russia war by deciding to broker a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine on the condition that Russia ceases its military alliance with China. In a penultimate “let them eat cake” moment, he simplifies a deadly conflict that has been waging for over a year and taken countless lives. If there’s one thing Ramaswamy has, it’s the sheer audacity to put forth such a ridiculous statement and insult every effort made by the entire international forum.
It’s astonishing how well he’s doing in the polls considering the mind-boggling claims he makes on his campaign trail, but there is a reason for that. Ramaswamy is building on the wisp of hope left by the “American Dream.” As a child of immigrant parents, he is able to appeal to both immigrants who came to this country in pursuit of this illusion and conservatives who believe that it still exists. I can understand the desire to preserve an America without any flaws — even though it has never existed — especially as a second-generation immigrant myself. But, Ramaswamy will incinerate whatever shred of hope this country has left and burn through anyone who fights for it. I anticipate real flames.
Still, I hope he wins. I can picture him being sworn in and immediately not knowing what to do, and everyone who supported him feeling the sting of well-deserved embarrassment. His proposals are so unbelievably ridiculous and senseless that they just might remind Americans that presidents are supposed to lead with the consent of the governed. I always thought Trump’s active criminal indictments would be the wake-up call to finally invigorate Americans to take action, but he’s still leading in the polls for the Republican nomination. Maybe if the U.S. becomes led by yet another maniac, the Republican Party may actually realize that maybe their ideas have gone too far.
Ruth • Sep 28, 2023 at 1:33 pm
This article wildly misses the mark. To me, it seems entirely counterproductive to pretend that right-wing ideologues are fools who don’t know what they’re doing. Vivek and people who support him have a very deliberate agenda: frack, expand reliance on fossil fuels, militarize the southern border, eliminate ideological opposition, push culture war narratives, eliminate queer people from public life, etc., etc.. Vivek Ramaswamy is a fascist. He is taking his cues from a well-established playbook of fascist politics. Saying “I hope he wins” is astoundingly tone-deaf — did we learn nothing from the Trump administration? What prevents political novices from enacting policies that will directly harm trans people, people of color, immigrants, workers — especially in a national landscape that increasingly favors those policies? I sincerely hope that people who view the Republican party as a joke realize that politics is no laughing matter to the most vulnerable, otherwise they will be far too late and unaware in the face of fascist violence. Maybe sit on the next Trinitonian article before running to publish it.