A Match Made in Hell: Ramaswamy & the Trump Cult
A slick fast-talker who lies at least as brazenly as Trump is on the rise
A new CNN/University of New Hampshire poll of Granite State “Republicans “shows The Former Guy, who in a speech last week thought his general election opponent is Obama and that the Democrats will get us into World War II still with a formidable lead. Among the other hopefuls, though, there has been quite a shakeup. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has based his campaign on firm opposition to truth, science, history, books, education, women, LGBTQ+ people, voting, and other aspects of the modern world, all of which sells well among the extremists who now form the party’s base. Yet his campaign appears to be collapsing. In the new poll his support has fallen to 10 percent, and he is now in fifth place.
While the closer-to-sane candidates Nikki Haley and Chris Christie have gained a bit of traction, the big story beyond the fall of DeSantis is the surge of the new Bold-Faced Liar, Vivek Ramaswamy, who came in second, in a statistical dead heat with Haley and Christie.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board is taunting The Former Guy for declining to join the other candidates in debates. “Why is Mr. Trump afraid to confront other Republicans without the aid of a teleprompter?” the Journal editors ask. “Is he worried he’d look his age at 77 next to younger candidates?” They point out that being afraid to respond to questions is “a sign of weakness, not strength, and he’ll have to answer those questions eventually. What is the former President afraid of?"
If those who have sold their minds and souls to a charlatan carnival barker narcissist who, as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson once so aptly put it, “lies the way other people breathe” need to look for a successor, Mr. Ramaswamy is—apart, of course, from his dark complexion—just what the psychiatrist didn’t order:
He talks rapidly, often over others. He shamelessly tells absurd lies. He says climate change is a hoax. “Drill, frack, burn coal!” He calls The Former Guy “the best president of the 21st century” and says he will pardon him. He said that he has never met or seen a white supremacist, “never met one in my life … “Maybe I’ll meet a unicorn sooner.” And so on.
That’s tough stuff for someone who already seceded the real world to join the cult of The Former Guy” to resist.