Vivek Ramaswamy is doubtless feeling cocky about his performance in this week’s GOP debate and the general success of his presidential candidacy — and that could wind up his undoing.
He’s got great energy and a fearless approach to rethinking conventional wisdom, one reason we’ve regularly featured his writing.
But he sometimes veers into the political equivalent of clickbait — and the thing about clickbait is that people eventually get sick of that diet. (Sorry, Buzzfeed.)
At the debate, this included cheap shots like suggesting his opponents are really angling for defense-contractor payoffs and that helping Ukraine is somehow a barrier to the feds solving other problems, even madly saying the war there isn’t “a priority for the United States of America.”
He pretends he can somehow cut a deal with Vladimir Putin that leaves (a rump of?) Ukraine neutral and Russia abandoning its alliance with China.
He’s also vowing to abandon Taiwan after 2028.
That’s all nonsense, however attractive it sounds: Clickbait that dissolves into waste-of-time garbage once you know the facts about Putin, Beijing, Ukraine, geostrategic realities or the needs of US allies in Europe and Asian-Pacific.
Ramaswamy’s also at risk of getting silly on fiscal policy, with clickbait talk of boosting the economy by dismantling the Great Society, cutting three-quarters of the Executive Branch and tying the dollar’s value to a “basket of commodities.”
The Great Society includes Medicare; Democratic attack ads write themselves.
Medicare certainly needs reform; saying “dismantle” guarantees you’ll never get a chance to do it.
We’d love to see the federal bureaucracy trimmed back (and deeply reformed!), but every cheer you win for that “slashing” vow in the primary is two or more swing voters (and working-class ones) lost in the general election.
Only base Republican voters clap for happy talk of government shutdowns.
Heck, you need those bureaucrats to undo all the regulations he and other Republicans want repealed.
“Basket of commodities” has its fans, but as a fast fix for the US economy it’s just a less-crazy-sounding version of demanding a return to the gold standard.
So far, Ramaswamy hasn’t gone too deep on any of this — it’s working for him in the short term.
But winning the White House, and then governing successfully, is another matter.
If Vivek lets the high of clickbait success distract him from a serious, substantial approach, he’ll wind up the next Ben Carson.
