Back 20 years ago when I was doing stand-up comedy, there was this move we always used to laugh at because it was such a transparent suck-up to the audience. The guy would step to the mic, look at the room, and go, “Does anybody like weed?” And, of course, since it was a stand-up comedy audience, everybody liked weed and he would get a bunch of hooting and clapping and Lenny CK Chappelle would strut back into the green room thinking he killed.
OK, that’s Vivek Ramaswamy, political hack.
Now, I don’t like weed, but I do like a lot of the things that Vivek says in the abstract. I agree when he points out that Ronna McDaniel is terrible and should be fired. Yeah, I’ve kind of been saying that for a while. And when he says that NBC News is terrible, I’ve also been saying that for a decade and a half, back when he was probably still reminding his high school calculus teacher that she forgot to assign homework. So, it’s not that I disagree with Vivek as much as I find him to be transparently sucking up to whatever audience he is in front of.
At the debate the other night, the first question asked how the candidates distinguish themselves from Trump and why do they think they would be a better president than him. This is a really, really good question, and probably the main one that everybody up there should answer. But Vivek didn’t. Maybe that was strategic, because he’s basically a Trump Mini-Me who is also vegan. Yeah, he’s vegan and I can’t even.
Instead, he asks the audience if they like weed. He ignores the actual question that serious people want an answer to and starts busting out crowd-pleasing clichés like “Ronna sucks!” and “NBC sucks!” Yeah, they suck. They super suck. We all know that. But you’re not an edgy rebel for ignoring a real question by basically saying something everybody agrees with like it’s some tough stand he’s going to take flak for. “Hey America, I like puppies! Cheeseburgers are great! I love the Flag! And I’ll never apologize for saying so!”
A couple days ago, he had this tweet about firing 50% of the bureaucracy. Oh wow, I hate bureaucracy, too! Yay! Where did this come from? Does he think he’s actually going to walk in and say, “Everybody whose last digit in his Social Security number is odd is fired!!” I like the idea of a much smaller federal bureaucracy, but I’m also not a freaking idiot. He thinks everyone else is. That’s the problem with him. He’s a really, really, smart guy who, unfortunately, thinks he’s a really, really smart guy. But is he wise? Oh no.
Now, I’ve said it before, and I’m going to say it again because it’s a good analogy (here’s another stand-up comedy fact – you reuse jokes, and you don’t make up a whole new set every night). Vivek reminds me of the college sophomore who reads “Atlas Shrugged” and then comes home at Thanksgiving to tell all the adults how they’re wrong about everything and also to ask for more money.
Vivek has this vibe where he believes that each of his new discoveries about politics is this radical paradigm shift that will blow boomer minds. Since he’s 37, I was doing politics three years before Mommy and Daddy Ramaswamy put on the Al Green records. None of his insights are great new discoveries. Hey, bureaucracy is bad! Wow! The federal government is incompetent! You think? And he delivers it all with the smarmy self-confidence of a guy touting Bitcoin seminars or a secret blackjack system. As I have pointed out before, this is one guy who could’ve used a hitch in the Marines to get himself a little humility.
Why is he still in the race? Is he in some sort of weird S&M dynamic with Nikki Haley? If so, I think I know who’s wielding the whip there. Or is it to raise his profile. It’s certainly not serious. He’s driving down the Donald Trump lane and not even trying to pass Donald Trump. Nor could he. Who is the guy who says, “You know, I like Donald Trump, but why stick with the original when I can go with this kid?”
He does differ with Trump on foreign policy. He tosses around words like “Neocon,” but by his standards, Trump is pretty much Bill Kristol. That’s what happens when you get your foreign policy ideas off of some Reddit board. Contrary to what the incel edgelords imagine, we need to maintain American power because we have real enemies out there who really, really, really want to kill us. You look at October 7th and you better understand that those bastards would do the same thing here given half a chance – and with Biden throwing our border open and sucking up to the Iranians, they’re getting more than half a chance. As for Ukraine and Taiwan, his positions keep morphing, and the only thing that stays the same is he has no idea what he’s talking about. Yeah, the issues require a bit more nuance that a lot of the people in the establishment want to acknowledge, but that doesn’t mean he’s some sort of foreign policy savant. He’s not. He is one of those smart kids who never got in a fistfight.
I don’t think Vivek is a bad guy. I just think he’s an annoying guy who is very young and very inexperienced and absolutely willing to give us all the full benefit of both qualities. One thing he shouldn’t be doing is being a hack candidate whose platform consists of asking us Republicans if we like weed.
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