Everyone hates Vivek. That was the biggest takeaway from the Fox News debate on Wednesday night. And who can blame them?
“I’m the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for,” Vivek Ramaswamy boldly declared after calling climate change a “hoax.” This broadside was arguably the moment that Ramaswamy became the most hated person on the debate stage, at least by his Republican adversaries.
Ramaswamy, a slick, young, rich man in a hurry (who has been gaining in the polls), came into this debate with the idea that he should pander to the base with impunity and simultaneously be involved in every skirmish. This is often a smart move, akin to controlling the clock in a football game.
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But he forgot that he was facing some talented (and vastly more experienced) competitors, and that picking a fight with seven adversaries might amount to biting off more than he could chew, especially for a “rookie,” as Mike Pence called him.
Out of the gate, he looked pompous and oleaginous, with what can only be described as a smarmy, shit-eating grin that belied his sharp elbows. Regarding the slickness, Christie observed that he sounded “like ChatGPT.” And regarding the elbows, at one point, even Sen. Tim Scott—you know, the optimistic guy who has a reputation for being too nice—even accused him of “being childish.”
Ramaswamy’s first line—“I want to just address the question that is on everyone’s mind at home tonight. Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name?”—essentially plagiarized Barack Obama. Christie, who was on the ball, called him on it. (Ramaswamy responded by reminding us of the time Christie hugged the former president following Hurricane Sandy’s devastation of large parts of New Jersey.)
During a later exchange, Ramaswamy took issue with Pence’s anti-Putin stance, saying “The USSR doesn’t exist anymore.” It was reminiscent of Obama’s 2012 debate line to Mitt Romney: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” Channeling Obama was, shall we say, an unusual move for a guy ostensibly seeking the Republican nomination.
Anyone who dared disagree with Ramaswamy wasn’t just wrong, they had their motives questioned. Chris Christie, he said, was campaigning to get a paid MSNBC contributor gig. Christie’s trip to Ukraine was to pay homage to his “pope,” Volodymyr Zelensky. Of Nikki Haley’s support of Ukraine, he averred, “I wish you well in your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon.”
“You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” Haley told him. Speaking of Vladimir Putin, she said, “This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a murderer” over a pro-American country [Ukraine].
No doubt the nationalists, populists, conspiracy theorists, isolationists, and “blame America firsters” who now dominate the MAGA right-wing media will side with Ramaswamy on most of the issues. But for this night, at least, the traditional Reagan Republicans like Pence, Christie, and Haley more than held their own against Ramaswamy, who most prominently represented the MAGA wing of the party on stage.
It was a reminder that, despite Donald Trump’s many faults, he carries this banner in a somewhat entertaining manner that is occasionally even charming and disarming, while also being dominant. Ramaswamy seems to have assumed that the MAGA policies that have come into fashion of late have won the day in the GOP. Of course, it could simply be that people like Trump, and retroactively embrace the issues he favors.
Speaking of Trump, the other big surprise was that he did not loom large over this debate, and wasn’t referenced by name during the first hour.
It’s impossible to say whether Trump made the right decision by skipping this debate, but it was conceivable he could have his cake and eat it, too. He skipped the debate, counter-programmed the debate, but he didn’t dominate the debate in absentia, as he might have. Save for a question about his indictment in Georgia, Trump was mostly an afterthought—which is a stunning thing to write in August 2023.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who came into this debate in second place nationally, wasn’t quite an afterthought. He acquitted himself fine. But he was also mostly overshadowed by others, particularly the skirmishes that Pence, Christie, and Haley all had with Ramaswamy. If DeSantis were perceived as important, he would have become the target for others vying to supplant him as the candidate in second place. Instead, that honor went to Ramaswamy, who (admittedly) invited it.
At this point, I should probably say that it’s entirely possible that my interpretation of this night will be wildly out of step with what has become a very surreal and weird Republican Party.
As the political writer Michael A. Cohen tweeted, “Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the more unappealing politicians I’ve seen in quite some time...which means that he will likely rocket up the GOP polls.”
If Ramaswamy surges after this performance, as he very well might, it will be a sign that the GOP is in even worse shape than I had previously imagined. And that would be saying a lot.
