The Ramaswamy Stratagem

[dann]

Mehdi Hasan asks the same questions so many times that Ramaswamy runs out of "rehearsed standard campaign spiels." I think Ramaswamy is aware of this - and knows that people watching it know.

This is a very short version of Mehdi Hasan asking Ramaswamy what was "downright abhorrent" about what Trump did on Jan 6:
Vivek dodges Mehdi's 'simple question'

ETA:

Vivek Ramaswamy made a mistake by going on Medhi Hasan's show. He didn't know who he was messing with. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
Ramaswamy CRUMBLES After Anti-Trump Tweet Gets Exposed (TYT on YouTube, Sep 8, 2023 - 7:06 min)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Good rundown by TYTs.

 

[CORed]

"They claim that the fact-checking process itself is biased" which is exactly what my GOP BIL did when I quoted Snopes to disprove one of his claims. According to him, Snopes is 'well known to be liberally biased and partisan'.

It's an old trope, but reality has a liberal bias.

 

[d4m10n]

Or no answer at all - again and again.

What a ding-dong.

 

[CORed]

Reading an opinion piece on Vivek Ramaswamy this afternoon; realized he might be the perfect anti-skeptical ******** artist, someone with zero-to-negative commitment to truth-seeking and truth-telling:

Now let’s fast-forward to the present moment. Instead of offering a plausible explanation for their mistakes — much less apologizing — all too many politicians deny that they’ve made any mistakes at all. They double down. They triple down. They claim that the fact-checking process itself is biased, the press is against them and they are the real truth tellers.

I bring this up not just because of the obvious example of Donald Trump and many of his most devoted followers in Congress but also because of the surprising success of his cunning imitator Vivek Ramaswamy. If you watched the first Republican debate last week or if you’ve listened to more than five minutes of Ramaswamy’s commentary, you’ll immediately note that he is exceptionally articulate but also woefully ignorant, or feigning ignorance, about public affairs. Despite his confident delivery, a great deal of what he says makes no sense whatsoever.​

Since there is a separate thread for the FL governor, there may as well be one for anyone who has a better chance of gaining the GOP VP slot. I expect Ramaswamy will play an outsized role in the near future, or else fade away like Andrew Yang.

Your thoughts?

I like "Ramasmarmy" becaise it is based on is character. It's a lot like "DeSacntimonious" for DeSantis. As much as I dislike Trump and generally find his name-calling to be juvenile, damned if he didn't hit the nail on the head with "DeSanctimonious".

 

[dann]

I don't want to divert the discussion about names and the ethics of poking fun of them, but if anybody is interested in what Ramaswamy had to say about global warming, I posted a couple of things in the appropriate thread, posts 895 and 925.
(Still nothing from Randy Rainbow.)

 

[Craig4]

Ramaswamy may not matter much anymore. He's a distant third and he's spending his time humping Trump's leg. He's getting drowned out by all the other dogs trying do the same thing. That's a great way for him to stay in third place.

If you're not trying to unseat the alpha dog, you're just hanging around waiting to lick up its vomit. That doesn't get you much in the way of earned media.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Vivek Ramaswamy appears to the GOP's most enthusiastic global-warming candidate: "This isn't that complicated, guys. Unlock American energy. Drill. Frack. Burn coal. Embrace nuclear."
He wants to go to war "on the federal administrative state that is a source of those toxic regulations acting like a wet blanket on the economy."

So if he becomes the GOP nominee, the election will be a choice between Frackin' Joa and Frackin' Vivek.
Unlike Trump, he doesn't even mention wind and solar. No anecdotes about how they kill birds and cause cancer.

Ramaswamy continued:

It’s worth unpacking Ramaswamy’s debate comments in greater depth. He started by declaring, brashly, that the “the climate agenda is a hoax” and then followed up saying that the “anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy.” He concluded arguing that “the reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.”
Ramaswamy makes clear from the jump that he opposes climate policy, but nowhere does he actually deny that human behavior is contributing to climate change.
(...)
In short, for many voters, fear of a weak economy will outweigh fears over climate change. By branding climate policy as an economic downer, he and others can poison the well for any future climate policy.
There's More Than Meets the Eye to Ramaswamy's Climate Comment (Time, Aug 28, 2023)

He's not answering the question, he's changing the subject, to his pet topic of making money.

And dooming his chances of getting Millennial and Gen Z popularity. No wonder, I seem to recall, that he wants to raise the voting age.

 

[quadraginta]

I hate those interviews when the host can't get a straight answer from the candidate who comes armed with their rehearsed standard campaign spiels.

If Ramalama is vying for a VP slot he doesn't understand much about Trump who would never pick a VP who might upstage him. Trump wants a yes man who idolizes him. Bet he could never find such a perfect VP as Pence in a million years.

Again, you mean?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Again, you mean?

Yes, I stand corrected.

Makes me wonder if the fact not a lot of people knew how dangerous Trump was in the 2016 election allowed him to find Pence. Now he's stuck with loud-mouthed sycophants who he wouldn't find suitable.

 

[dann]

Pence was the tool to convince Christian fundamentalists that adulterous Trump was on their side, the “modern-day Cyrus.” Now that they are entirely on board with Trump, somebody like Pence, before even Evangelicals started to think of Pence as a traitor to the one true deity, wouldn't serve that purpose.

But Ramaswamy's ethnicity probably makes him unsuited as a candidate for vice president. Some young Republicans might not mind, but as Orphia Nay points out, his attitude to fossil fuels doesn't appeal to the majority of young voters.

 

[dann]

I think you should take the discussion to that other thread, which never really amounted to anything. This one's about Ramaswamy.
I assume there's a reason why there aren't any links or quotations in your post to prove your point.

 

[Donal]

I'm really glad this is only a text-based medium and not audio or video.

What do people think Ramaswamy's grift is? He surely doesn't believe he'll get the nomination. Does he think he can get tapped for VP? Secretary of Treasury? Commerce? Or is he just looking to be an influencer and shill for crypto exchanges?

 

[johnny karate]

I'm really glad this is only a text-based medium and not audio or video.

What do people think Ramaswamy's grift is? He surely doesn't believe he'll get the nomination. Does he think he can get tapped for VP? Secretary of Treasury? Commerce? Or is he just looking to be an influencer and shill for crypto exchanges?

I don’t think there’s any shortage of money to be made by conservative grifters throwing red meat to the rubes.

 

[d4m10n]

What do people think Ramaswamy's grift is? He surely doesn't believe he'll get the nomination. Does he think he can get tapped for VP?

I'd say yes to that last question, since he's defended Trump more vigorously than anyone else on the debate stage. As to the nature of the grift, it's probably to raise his public profile now and eventually step in to lead the MAGA hordes once they find themselves bereft of their current leader. Which is also Kamala's long term plan, but from the center left instead of the loony right.

 

[Stacyhs]

I'd say yes to that last question, since he's defended Trump more vigorously than anyone else on the debate stage. As to the nature of the grift, it's probably to raise his public profile now and eventually step in to lead the MAGA hordes once they find themselves bereft of their current leader. Which is also Kamala's long term plan, but from the center left instead of the loony right.

I agree. He knows he has no chance of getting the nomination. This is his stage for getting the national attention he needs.

 

[Craig4]

Why isn't Christie going negative on this guy? He's got sick levels of baggage from his pharmaceutical business that tanked on a drug and dropped 75 percent of its value in a day.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Why isn't Christie going negative on this guy? He's got sick levels of baggage from his pharmaceutical business that tanked on a drug and dropped 75 percent of its value in a day.

If I were a political strategist (I'm not) I would advise against going after him at this point because it would only draw more attention to him, and suggest he might be an actual serious rival for Christie. Which he may actually be, but I wouldn't want to give anybody the impression I thought he might be, if I were Christie.

 

[Orphia Nay]

According to Wikipedia, Ramaswamy's family are Tamil-speaking Brahmins ("high caste") from Kerala, and his net worth is $950 million.

There are some Indian-American politicians in America, so that's not a complete barrier, and privileged politicians seem to do well for some reason, so he has some factors as well as his confidence that make him a contender, at least in future elections.

 

[sarge]

no more discussions about whether or not altering a name might be racist, please

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: sarge