Viva Vivek!
Since the latest Ramaswamy incarnation seems to be a fairly popular topic of discussion these days, even over at the CF Muthaship, Kruiser makes an excellent suggestion.
As proof of just how weird this year is going to be, we're heading into the first weekend of 2024 seeing me do something I almost never do: softening my opinion of a Republican politician I never really liked before.
For most of the DonkeyManureClownCar Republican primary debate season, I've found tech bro (h/t VodkaPundit) Vivek Ramaswamy to be a tedious nit who adds nothing to any of the national conversations that we should be having. He has scored a couple of scripted blows against Nikki Haley, but high fiving that is like giving someone a participation trophy for flossing one day in a row.
I have, I will admit, been harshly judgmental of any Republican voter and/or conservative pundit who has experienced a "YAY, VIVEK!" moment.
Until now.
Vivek Ramaswamy has no bona fides as a conservative, or anything else, for that matter. He thought he was a libertarian for a while, then he just did a peace out on voting for a long time, and now he's a Republican. His hot takes aren't rooted in ideology; they tend to seem like something he cobbled together after hours of scrolling social media.
Back to the scripted thing. Whenever he delivers what he thinks is a zinger in a debate it's obvious that he's workshopped it with his staff during prep. The only genuine moments I've seen from him are when he is lambasting the Democrats' flying monkeys in the mainstream media for their egregious bias.
Vivek Ramaswamy's casual ease with curb-stomping idiotic questions from the Dem cheerleading squad is a breath of fresh air relief from the stench of the roll over and play dead Republicans in Washington. I would once more remind you, dear readers, that I haven't had a nice thing to write about this guy until now.
I grew up in Barry Goldwater's Arizona. He had preternatural gifts when it came to telling reporters that they were idiots. So did Ronald Reagan, albeit in a much nicer fashion than Goldwater. Newt Gingrich is brilliant at rejecting a premise. Donald Trump is good at swatting away MSM lunacy.
There have been a few others but, for the most part, the GOP is on an intravenous drip of milquetoast. Most Beltway Republicans are so terrified of having The New York Times say something bad about them that they eagerly slobber all over the kinds of "Gotcha!" questions that Ramaswamy told the WaPo hack to flush down the toilet.
The fact that Ramaswamy said that the question was "stupid" is what caught my attention. That is exactly how Republicans — no matter how new they are to the party — should deal with these things. The Coastal Media Bubble Democratic advocates truly believe that they're intellectually superior to their audience. In reality, most of them need detailed instructions for the removal of sweatpants.
Republican politicians — aspiring or elected — need to learn how to say, "Wow, you're an idiot," to a hostile press. As most of you know, I have been writing about liberal bias in the mainstream media for over 20 years. I have seen waves of Republicans come through Washington who can't grasp that The New York Times and WaPo will still brutalize them no matter how much you-know-what-kissing they do.
For the 14 people out there who are Ramaswamy fans: he's not going to be president. I do see that he has a role to play in a future Republican administration, however. If a Republican does win back the White House, toss the press secretary gig to Vivek right away.
Agreed; hey, why not? Anything to up the entertainment quotient, entertainment being what it’s all about anyhow, and making him press secretary would sure enough do that. But let’s not forget, Kev, that the Vichy GOPers aren’t cowardly, or stupid, or too polite and gentlemanly for their own good, or any other of the usual rot. The very last thing they are, if casual contempt for their erstwhile base of support is any indicator, is “terrified,” of anyone at all. Far from it—they’re in on the scam, period fucking DOT.
NOT “hapless.” NOT “helpless,” nor at times outnumbered, even. After promising to repeal Obamacare if the voters would just put the Repugs into the majority, the voters did precisely that, so they hurriedly revised said promise to “repeal and replace.” They coasted into office on Trump’s coattails and then fiddled and diddled around the Obamacare margins a bit before quietly slinking off and hoping everybody would just forget about the whole thing.
Speaking of, Trump tried to give them pretty much everything they’d been saying for years they wanted but, what with one thing and another, they just hadn’t been able to do before:
Securing the southern border
Taking us out of the Paris accords
Getting FederalGovCo’s big schnozz the hell out of places it had no business being
Undoing meddlesome, unneccessary regulation and bureacratic red-tape
Unchaining the economy so that it could soar free again
Making America energy independent
And plenty more to boot. Yet, despite one of the NeverTrumpTard Vichy GOPers’ principal complaints all along about Orange Man Bad being his total lack of humility, his boundless egomania and pride, Trump begged the new Republicrat Congressional majority to help him do these things. Quite literally, in fact. I distinctly remember him pleading with them at one point, in these exact words: PLEASE send me a bill, I will sign it!
So what did Congressional Republican’ts spend four years doing in response to these pleas, this abject self-abnegation? Fought Trump every last step of the fucking way, that’s what.
They are NOT the “loyal opposition”; what they actually are, quite obviously by now, is complicit.
No, Vivek may well not be “the guy” we’ve all been waiting for; honestly, I rather doubt that he is. But tell it true now: is there a man Jack among us who wouldn’t take him over a thousand and one Mittens Romneycares, ¡JEBs!, Mike Pences, or “Nikki” Haleys six days a week, and twice on Sundays? Just for the value on the entertainment dollar he provides of late, if nothing else?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.