The Demagogue Won

Of course he did.

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364
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy talks to members of the media following the first debate of the GOP primary season hosted on August 23, 2023, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Yesterday I lost my nerve.

I thought of titling Wednesday’s newsletter “The Vivek Debate” but chickened out before publication. After all, this was supposed to be The DeSantis Debate. With the frontrunner absent, the second-place candidate looked to be the logical target for the also-rans. For good or for ill, the governor of Florida was likely to be the main character.

But Republican voters are what they are, and they like what they like. And so it seemed to me (and others) that a glib, shameless, boorish, sloganeering populist “outsider” brimming with shallow charisma was destined to make the biggest splash in a glib, shameless, boorish, sloganeering populist party. This would end up as The Vivek Debate. How could it be otherwise?

Unable to resolve the conflict between the strategic imperatives of the moment and the political reality, I hedged my bets. DeSantis and Ramaswamy would both be main characters, I predicted, the only two candidates onstage who “matter.”

I should have gone with my gut.

About an hour into the debate, one disgusted colleague chimed into the Dispatch Slack channel with this comment: “Another despicable demagogue in a party that loves despicable demagogues.” He didn’t specify who he meant, but he didn’t need to.

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  1. Kelly Windsor

    Clarence Thomas is a “better judge?”

    You think MAGA folk really care about abortion?

    These MAGA people don’t care about anything. They think the end of the world is around the corner and somehow or other, if they’re NOT liberals they’ll end up free and brave and strong in the “New World.”

    They know what they’re against. They don’t know what they are FOR…

    They think Democrats promote brown people coming across the border, and black people having more power than whites, that they steal money from working Americans to finance wars and military exercises across the globe, and that they’re the reason gays and trans are taking over the country and women are acting like sex-hungry whores
    who have no respect for men or the nuclear family….
    They think accepting trans and queer folk is the VERY same thing as grooming children to be victims of pedophilia. You CANNOT explain to these people that pedophiles are almost always family… or close family friends, and they AREN’T queer, they’re pedophiles. They like sex with kids, NOT with grown consenting adults.

    They’ll take abortion restriction if it disempowers women, but only if THEY can still have abortions.

    They think money is morality. The more money you have the more God must love you. But they also know that the only reason they don’t have more money is because demoncrats steal it from them in order to help lazy people who don’t look, think, or act like them (Godless people) to get a free ride..
    They don’t care if Trump ever makes their lives better, they just want to be sure that the queers, feminists and minorities all get put back in their place, finally. That WILL make their lives better… they’re sure of it.

    I know these people. I work beside them. I listen to them state their love for the constitution while expressing their absolute hatred of other Americans and their desire to throw out any rules that would mean they have to share their world with people like….
    Me.

    I can’t even stay in the same room when my father in law starts talking about “racism against whites.”

    Or when my daughter-in-law complains about black little mermaid….
    And my dumb-ass spouse says, “why don’t they make their own movies?”

    And I WOULD stay in the room and talk about it with them, but they don’t possess any actual information or rational understanding of their visceral response to rumors. So there isn’t anything to talk ABOUT.

    I was planning to move, get away from all that. Be near my daughter who believes in science and reason and debate which involves hearing the other side, or many sides, of any issue. Only to find out that her chosen mate doesn’t think they should have kids together because he can’t allow a daughter of his to date a black man… (and my daughter isn’t a racist so she would have no problem with it).

    And that her acceptance of LBGTQ people is a personal weakness, and a moral flaw (even though his sister is gay and he IS close to her - you can’t make the insanity up). It’s the trans thing of course, the latest bogeyman being held up and and reviled because of the inherent threat that “trans” people are to “decent” people. (I can’t roll my eyes hard enough).

    You can’t get away from the chanting, expressed in various snide remarks and heckling memes and jokes, “us vs them, us vs them, us vs them, us vs them, us vs them….”

    They get confused when they realize “them” is standing right in front of “us” in the form of a loved one. What will they do if they ever feel empowered and organized enough to take action on all of that hate?

    Meanwhile, here we are, refusing to let them go. Still loving them and still hoping they find a way to love themselves enough to stop being programmed by rumors and lies that light up their “spidey-senses” and get their conspiracy gears grinding.

    Anti-abortionists aren’t trying to save anyone or anything….
    They are attempting to control other people. And they feed the “us vs them” mantra.

    Stop it.

    Alito is a demagogue. And Thomas is a sycophant. You don’t mean “good judges” you mean judges who align with your beliefs. And those very beliefs promote the “us vs them” mantra.

    Stop it.

    It is entirely possible to believe abortion is wrong without feeling compelled to control others.
    It is entirely possible to believe the country needs a financial reckoning without blaming “one side.”
    It is entirely possible to look at the border and UNDERSTAND the glut of issues we have there without using it as ammunition against a political rival.

    “Good” judges wouldn’t seek to keep us chained to a time in our country when the “tradition” was disenfranchisement of any and all except white men (with money).

    The GOP is dead. Republicans are going to have to recreate the party. Probably they should focus on the financials, and let the culture stuff settle itself.Show less

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    Ben Connelly

    I disagree. Vivek may have boosted his name recognition in the short term, but it won’t do much for him. His unfavorability numbers among Republican primary voters went up 2.5x (nearly tripled) after the debate.

    I will continue to vote for Republicans like Glenn Youngkin who are the folks we will need to take back the GOP. I will not vote for MAGA Republicans and have always voted against them. Occasionally, I have voted for a moderate Democrat. More likely, I will vote LP or write in. None of the parties is my party and I feel no need to follow your advice. I will continue to evaluate candidates on a case by case basis.

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    Charley Warns

    "Are you off your meds, Vivek?"

    In not asking Ramaswamy this question with a smile (i.e., gaslight him), DeSantis blew an opportunity to appear combative while keeping his cool.

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    Charley Warns

    This description by Nick is not only accurately and concisely put but deserves a show of hands as to whether you not only agree with it but believe Trump should've been impeached: "Donald Trump didn’t try to stage a coup to extract procedural concessions from the left in 2024. He tried to stage a coup for the reason strongmen always stage coups, because he couldn’t bear to relinquish power."

    For me, I'll never vote for anyone who wouldn't raise the hand.

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  5. Indisguise

    Mr. Christie has staked out an enviable position on that stage. He is the one with balls. He is the one that told the truth. That is going to matter.

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  6. Cruhden

    Vivek Ramaswami is the manifestation of a populist, indeed Trumpist, phase of the Republican Party and conservative movement that started, of course, with Donald Trump. But it still follows an unmistakable history of the Right as a tenuous relationship between populism and establishment conservatism each competing with the other for dominance throughout the past 100 years. In that history, the populists have dominated at times before and what tends to depose them are either violent convulsions or shame. Pearl Harbor snapped a dominant isolationist streak in 1941 and the reality that Joseph McCarthy was on a deranged witch hunt against "communists" in the military ranks had a similar effect on the John Birch Society wing that had found some common ground with isolationists that had come to power in the wake of World War II. My point is these phases are cyclical and the dominance of the Trumpist wing will be snapped, just hopefully not by another Pearl Harbor. A "have you no shame!?" moment would be better, but alas, this populist iteration is incapable of feeling shame.

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    Rajeev

    Vivek is definitely the next most likely candidate after Trump to be the nominee and he has been for a while now. There's a reason betting markets had him pass DeSantis weeks ago. That being said, it's going to be Trump as nominee but the real lack of surprise will come when Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Tim Scott sell out again and go right back to supporting Trump by next April.

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      Charley Warns

      The crowd was only rooting for him because Trump wasn't there. He's serving as Trump's stalking horse ... his guinea pig.

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        Rajeev

        Vivek is still 1000 times better a candidate than any of the others. He has more charisma than any Republican in my lifetime. And he knows that the bubble media strategy is so stupid. He goes all over and has respectful interviews with hosts across the spectrum. Although he occasionally get schooled like by Kaitlin Collins he holds his own most of the time and comes across as likeable.

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        1. Maria.Francesca

          He's a glib tech bro who blithely spouts nonsensical "solutions" to complex problems. He's a thin, young, brown version of Trump. It's telling that you list "charisma" at the top of your list, since that's all that matters to people who are more interested in voting for Entertainer in Chief than an actual government executive.

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            Rajeev

            I'm only speaking in terms of effectiveness not in terms of substance. Donald Trump crushed a field by being an entertainer. Everytime a Democratic Strategist, Republican Strategist, or politican comes on the air saying the American people care about issues they are lying to you. The presidency was always at least 50% showmanship but now with the Republican party it's 99% showmanship. I consistently think Democrats do themselves a disservice by being relatively measured and talking about issues without the same level of partisanship.

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  8. R. James

    I think you're generally overestimating Vivek's reception on the stage, in the room and within the electorate. On stage he was savaged by Pence, Haley and Christie. The audience applauded loudly to several of those take downs and booed Vivek when he said that everyone else on the stage was bought and paid for. The quick poll after the debate on Vivek's favorable/unfavorable showed that for every one new voter that liked Vivek, two new voters hated him. So, Vivek's name ID went up, his favorables went up, but his unfavorables went up and doubled.

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    MattA

    “You’ll get better judges with a Republican in the White House,”

    If only. MAGA has learned its lesson. No Fed Soc judges need apply. Trump Soc judges only.

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    Denise Cote

    These freaking people are going to make me vote for democrats for the first time in 52 years aren't they...🤦‍♀️

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      Citizen60

      I pray to all the gods you will. This really is the Flight 93 election.

      Anyone who thinks Trump won’t “terminate the Constitution,” aided and abetted by almost the entire Republican Party, is imbibing hallucinogenic substances

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