Thursday, August 24, 2023

Trying to get to the bottom of the Ramaswamy fad

 So, I went on a conservative forum and found an article talking about how the entire field was dunking on Ramaswamy last night, and decided to read the comments in order to get to the bottom of this. because I LITERALLY DON'T see the appeal in the guy. As I said, he's very counter to my former old school conservative beliefs, and even if I can get the appeal of say, christie, or pence, or haley, ramaswamy is just another whole level of WTF to me. I KINDA get trump given he was a bit moderate in 2016 and seemed to have some economic populist ideas at the time (as well as his normal anti PC mindset, which given political correctness is nails on a chalkboard to some people, was appealing at the time). But at this point I wouldnt go for trump again, even if i was a conservative in 2016. I think he's gotten dangerous, was a horribly inept president, and yeah, even on top of disliking conservatives, its time to go. But now we're dealing with ramaswamy and i just dont get it. This guy has NONE of the charisma trump did, and 2024 feels like a different beast than 2016. I can't understand why people would go for someone as extreme and off the wall as him when there are much...quite frankly, better GOP candidates than that. So let's see. 

I thought it was super odd Pence kept attacking him for not having experience. Uh, weren't you the vice president of someone who had no experience? Wasn't that like, a major part of their 2016 campaign? What a schmuck

 I mean, sure. Kinda hypocritical. Still, Trump was a DISASTER. Like, even as an ex conservative, he was an idiot who had no idea what he was doing. Why would you want more of that? After trump, I'd want to bring the party back to its normal sane routes. And honestly, pence seems like a "best of both worlds" guy. he could be a more sane trump successor being his former VP, while also being experienced and not a literal threat to democracy.

If I stayed conservative, and voted trump in 2016, and in 2020, and in 2021 realized trump was dangerous because of his attempts to overturn democracy? pence would be a strong candidate, both because of his link to the positive aspects of trumpism, but also because he actually was principled enough not to go along with trump and the mob.

Like really, whatever happened to conservatives caring about freedom and our constitution? Even if i were a die hard conservative of the same tradition I was, I would've abandoned trump after 2020 probably. I'd probably be like "okay, let's go back to normalcy now", and pence seems like the best "all in one" candidate for that from a conservative viewpoint. 

Again, this isn't what i actually think now, being a liberal. This is me putting my own conservative cap back on and channeling my best alternate history conservative me to make sense of this primary environment.

The fact that he’s the most pro Trump out of the lot, has to be a factor.

 I swear that's the only reason anyone likes him. He's pro trump, he's on board with the cult. 

Funny thing is he's not even that pro Trump, he's just principled and isn't a fan of obvious political persecution even if it would benefit him.

 As an ex reagan conservative, let me just say a principled conservative would wanna throw the fricking book at trump for what he did.

If trump had a D after his name, they would be screaming for blood here. So don't give me that.

I like Vivek, but ain't no way dude. Most everybody on that stage has railed against the blatant lawfare against Trump. Vivek in particular has swapped positions multiple times to cover Trump doing the same. He's there because he wants to make a name for himself riding on Trump's name and get a cabinet/vp position. He knows he's not going to be the first pick for Trump voters and is trying to John Kasich whomever the field consolidates down to. It's a smart move on his part.

 Well at least some conservatives are sane.

Probably because like Trump, he's not a politician. They can't have an outsider breaking into the DC Special Interest Bubble again.

 Ok, but ramaswamy has NONE of trump's charisma. That image worked for trump because he was this businessman who had the public persona of getting things done, and conservatives have this weird fixation of trying to run government like a business.

Of course that's also why trump was a giant manchild who couldnt handle being told no. Because like socialists would say, businesses are dictatorships, and trump is used to getting his way all the time. 

So maybe running government like a business actually ISNT a good thing...

Because the PACS and donors backing all the other candidates would be financially hurt if the status quo is not maintained.

 Question, if you care about PACs and donors, why arent you a leftie? We care about this stuff over here. I dont understand why right wingers would. For all the drain the swamp talk, most of their ideology is built around donors' interests. You cant have conservatism without appeasing donors to some degree. Also, trump didnt drain the swamp, he WAS the swamp. Why would ramaswamy be any different?

All the experienced people have made USA what we see today; an absolute fucking mess...

I'll take Vivek over all of them.

 In what way? I always see conservatives these days complain about the state of the country. What's so bad about it? Gay people? Abortion? Diversity? "Bad spending policies" without telling us what they are? Blaming inflation on biden simply because he's a democrat in office right now? Explain how experienced politicians make america a mess and how to actually solve the problems we have.

Because let's face it, I have issues too, and again, that's why I'm on the left. You're not gonna get solutions out of the right. Even Trump didnt do anything to make america better but republicans act like he was so amazing. All he did was inherit Obama's economy. And all Biden did was inherit the mess that was COVID (which happened on trump's watch, although i dont inherently blame trump for that, but just pointing that out).

It’s literally Vivek’s first debate… wait till the 2nd one, Trump wasn’t the best in the first debate either.
 It's like they're trying to recreate the trump phenomenon with this guy and it just doesnt work. 

Sorry, but this guy has none of the same charisma, the times are different from the 2016 environment, and this guy isn't it. 

You cant save this guy. He's a nutcase. I had more sense for politics at 16 than this guy does at 38.

It's interesting that red state, a deeply conservative news site, is misrepresenting Vivek's foreign policies so much
 Not really, he's that insane. And Nikki Haley was right in saying that he had no idea what he was talking about and his inexperience was showing.

How so?

So far foreign policy seems to be the only spot where I can't get behind Vivek. His plan for the Russia/Ukraine war is basically to concede everything to Russia in exchange for a pinky swear that they will break military ties with the Chinese. It's the same kind of idiocy as the Obama era Iran nuclear deal, where the USA gives up all its leverage to a hostile foreign power in exchange for a promise that will certainly be broken.

Besides this the Ramaswamy campaign has been pretty on point. I love his idea about dissolving the FBI. No other way out of the swamp at this stage.

 This responded to the previous comment, and I both have to commend him for understanding foreign policy and cringe at abolishing the FBI. 

These weirdo "abolish X agency" arguments on the right never made sense to me. it shows these people dont actually understand how the government works at all.

I seem to be in the minority because I'm not sold on him. I don't know what it was, but he irritated me the entire debate.

There were very few moments where he laid out actual policy positions so I don't know anything about what he wants to do. And I mean specific things, not just "Stabilize the US dollar." The majority of his time was spent shouting slogans and having really high energy.

People are being swayed by his theatrics, and his "Gotcha!" moments, without seeing that he has no actual policy positions. And the ones we do know about are either a. over the top (raising the voting age to 25) or b. logistically impossible (ban addictive social media under age 16).

I'm not saying an outsider can't be a good President. I think Trump's term was a good one. But for all of Vivek's energy, he doesn't come across as sincere. He shouts gigantic ideas without thinking of reality.

 This guy seems relatively sane. I disagree with him on trump but this is exactly how I see ramaswamy. he has no policy. he just said batcrap insane things and people cheered.

I found him very immature, like underclassman frat boy on a Friday night immature...

If he seriously thinks his shit doesn't stink, he has a hard lesson in life to learn.

I was seriously hoping for better.

 Or your typical college republicans club member...

Eh, I watched, he came across a bit arrogant and over his head.
 Yes, yes he did.

Personally, I thin it;s cause Vivek is doing WAY better than the public polling is showing.

ALL these campaigns have hyper focused, hype targeted polling that is WAY more detailed and accurate than anything a public newspaper or polling company does. They spend millions and millions of dollars to get this info.

The only justifiable reason everyone dogpiled Vivek would be because their internal polling, which si far more accurate than any public poll, showed him to be a MUCH bigger threat. No one spends time on a NATIONAL debate stage attacking the guy obstensibly in third place.

They left DeSantis alone for the same reason, I'm sure their internal polling has him a non factor so they aren't going to waste time on him

 Eh, he is #2, and trump's de facto surrogate, so by dogpiling on him they're dogpiling on trumpism. 

I was curious to see who'd be targeted in Trump's absence
 Eh, fair. I also think it's because the establishment republicans REALLY dont want trump and they wanna take their party back and crush the populists like the dems often do.

Can't say i blame them in this case. Trumpism is a stain on the GOP and democracy in general.

I found him kinda awkward in that debate. He seems better in smaller settings.
 I cant see myself liking him in general. He's a literal idiot and a nutcase IMO.

It's a lot harder to attack Desantis than it is to take Viveks popularity. The problem with going for someone with a record is that a lot of the guys on there actually have been in politics for a while and the attacks get reversed easily. Teflon Don was able to run on 0 record and any attacks could just result in him pointing out their record.
 To be fair, Ron Desantis actually has a record and despite his extreme and hardline stances, can actually make a case for his stuff in a republican debate environment. I dont think attacking desantis would do anyone any favors, except desantis. Because he can just one up everyone else and call them rinos.

However, ramaswamy has ZERO public record and has no clue what he's talking about.

Also, let's not forget, the establishment pushed desantis early on to topple trump. He's a team player. The GOP establishment REALLY wants trumpism out. So they're going after trump and his vocal supporters. 

Im not sure an old school conservative can survive given how crazy the GOP base seems to be, but i respect them for at least trying here. 

I was a bit hesitant going into the debate on how I felt about him but after seeing him stand up to the neocons and hear his stance on the issues discussed, I gotta say I'm much more confident in him now.

It's too early still to say he's my #2 pick behind Trump but the guy made it clear he will be a contender in the party for years to come. For his first debate he killed it.

 WHY?! He's an idiot, dude.

Did they watch the debate? The other candidates didn't "pile" on Vivek. He openly antagonized them to get them to mention his name.

The rules gave him a chance to speak everytime he was mentioned, and he used that to get extra air time. Him and Pence really knew how to got a shit ton of extra time to speak because of that rule.

 Yeah thats part of it too and why i dislike the guy so much, he was like that annoying kid who F-ed around and found out. He picked fights with people only to get slammed back to reality by an older generation of conservative that actually knew wtf they were talking about.

Probably because he is not actually running to be president but to ensure Trump is the nominee and maybe he gets to be VP.
 I've seen this a few times. Wouldn't doubt it. Trump likes bootlickers and this guy deepthroats the entire shoe.

If I may be completely honest for a second, I'm very disappointed in this squad. None of these clowns stood out for me - specially nothing solid on policy from any of them. And I'm worried none of them is a winning prospect for us in 2024. Only Trump can unite Republicans today and maybe bring in some independents.

Most of their ammo seems to be to avoid the Trump subject altogether. DeSantis hesitating about supporting Trump was like a child in a classroom looking around for what most people believe is the right answer to a math question. At this point I want to see someone with conviction and Vivek showed hints of that, but I do not want to fall victim to showmanship and all he seemed to do was parrot what his polls said were popular among the primary base, which is extremely short sighted (because winning a general is a different ballgame). He said climate change is a hoax. I'm really sorry to anyone who disagrees here, but in this day and age, that's a no go. There are climate events happening literally everywhere in the world, including in our red states.

The flip side of that argument is that Trump has also famously lost 3 elections now and has alienated large groups, specially post Roe, so the truth is if he's nominated we'll very likely lose barring some sort of major disaster between now and then.

 Yeah im going to be honest, if the GOP DOESNT go full on fascist, i cant see the party surviving in its current form into the 2030s. It's out of touch with the younger generation, and if you actually want change, I dont see why anyone would still be interested in the GOP.

Even if I start trotting out my old conservative values here, i admit, i dont believe them any more for a reason. I just wanna encourage people to NOT go full on fascist and vote for literal idiots when they could vote for the people who are just sane people who happen to be religious and conservative ideologues.

He’s a carbon copy of trump. Loud, obnoxious, arrogant, cocky, argumentative, takes extreme stances, doesn’t have a political resume, seem as a wildcard
 Without any of the charisma.

It seems pretty simple, everyone on that stage came off looking like a typical politician and he didn’t. While he won’t be able to pull off what Trump did in 16 he has created a launch pad for himself in 2028.
 After trump, a normal politician is what the conservatives need. Seriously, if you want change, you should become a progressive. Those guys have ideas. Conservatives...don't. They're stuck in small government and associated ideologies. Even trump isnt massively different on policy. And despite the populist rhetoric, he doesn't offer anything new.

Anyway, that's about all of the comments worth sharing, and my general view, they want something different than an establishment politician, but cant define it in terms of policy, and they seem to be trying to replicate the trump 2016 effect with some snarky 38 year old indian guy with no charisma. I don't get it. He doesn't offer anything. He's horrible on policy. He's like the right's RFK Jr. It's like people just want something different, dont know what they want, and vote for populist grifters who dont actually offer any meaningful change.

At least on the left, for all of its faults, we offer ideas to actually improve peoples' lives. But they dont want that for some reason. 

I don't get it. Like....I just dont get it. What do these people think they're gonna get with trump or vivek that they cant get with any other politician on stage? Their views are mostly the same outside of foreign policy, and honestly, vivek has that idiotic anti war streak the far left seems to like. Like im sorry, we need to participate in the world, my views are close to nikki haley's last night, and perfectly aligned with biden's, and yeah. 

Sometimes hating on the establishment for its own sake doesnt actually help anyone or advance any causes. It just doesn't. 

My ultimatum is this. If you want the status quo, vote R, if you want progress, vote D. And yeah, I do recognize that someone like mike pence or chris christie or nikki haley aint that meaningfully different from biden....but....WELCOME TO WHY I DONT LIKE BIDEN! Seriously, if i wanted a status quo guy, I'd vote R. I am on the left because i do want change, and i try to actually think of how to get the change done. These guys just want something that isnt a bog standard establishment politician, but they dont know what they want so they end up voting for demagogues. it's so dumb. Sorry, it is.
 
 
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment