Whither Vivekmentum?

Ramaswamy’s expected post-debate surge hasn’t happened. Yet.

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Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy at the first debate of the GOP primary season hosted on August 23, 2023, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Most pundits hate having to eat crow for their bad predictions. Not me.

The hardest part of my job is finding a topic each morning. When the opportunity for an “I’m an idiot” mea culpa presents itself—and there are many such opportunities—that’s an easy day at the office.

I’m going to offer one of those mea culpas here, but my ego demands that we begin with two caveats.

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  1. J.R.Shaw

    "Barro defines him [section guy] as 'that guy in your discussion section who adores the sound of his own voice, who thinks he’s the smartest person on the planet with the most interesting and valuable interpretations of the course material, and who will not ever, ever, ever shut up.”'
    "Everyone has run into a section guy at some point, a person who’s 'superbly confident while also completely full of crap' in Barro’s words..."
    Thanks, Mr. C, for sharing. I now have a new name for that handful of obnoxious know-it-alls who routinely infest the comments sections of yours, JG's, and KDW's pieces with their ponderously inane piffle.

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  2. Linilulu

    It's a mistake to think that MAGA is interested in policy and people like Vivek and DeSantis aren't going to steal away people from Trump by mimicking him. They are attracted to his personality not his nonexistent vision for America. They don't care that he never built the wall or never made Mexico pay for it. They don't care that he never killed off Obamacare or ever demonstrated his superhuman negotiating abilities. What they do like is his over the top BS, his vulgarity, his brags. Some of the loudest applause he receives at his rally's is when he uses vulgarity. Yeah team, that's our guy!

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  3. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Ramaswamy boosted his name recognition but also his unfavorable numbers (by a lot).

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  4. Lee Rone

    Trump is still the only GOP candidate who has done months/years of overt racial jokes and attacks on everyone from handicapped people to Muslims/Mexicans to unattractive women (as well as attractive women, literally and figuratively), earning him the intense loyalty of many of his supporters which he maintains to this day.

    The other candidates aren't sitting on billions of dollars and thus apparently are afraid to cross that threshold the way Trump did, even though doing so is probably the only way to peel away votes from Trump.

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  5. Tharan Silvers

    Vivek The Fake is a tech bro genius for positioning himself historically to this moment and what sells. He has accomplished that. We are talking about him now. That being said, he could be the greatest pragmatic leader the world has ever seen, if he ever got power.

    Unfortunately, the issue is that this initial stage of presenting is all hucksterism and bullshit. But that is not particularly unusual, to be honest. Many good leaders start out as salesmen. It is the branding component so many of us loath. The Greeks wanted people to serve who did not want to serve. That was the beauty of the original concept of democracy. Less individual bullshit.

    But that is not the world we live in today.

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  6. Runalong

    If you're Vivek and you want to be President, the simplest path is to become Trump's second term VP and then President in 2028. Long shot, but not as long as any other shot available. He's running for VP and I've got to admit, there's a certain genius to his approach.

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  7. Rblik

    I don't get it. Ramy is a complete proxy for Trump in the debates. Hence, how is he going to gain voters.....that aren't already Trump's with his shtick? Was a DeSantis voter really going to move to Vivek after his debate "win"? Based on your numbers, it looks like he hasn't gained at all. MAGA voters are not going to leave their indicted white alpha for a fast talking brown wannabe. That said, Vivek and these MAGA ChatGPt types are the post Trump future.

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  8. RGS

    I hate attributing any of the failure to surge to ethnicity the way a Leftie immediately would about a GOP candidate. But it's hard to believe you have all this anti-immigrant sentiment on the Far Right and not have some portion of it not overly eager to have a president of his background.

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  9. Jack H Wolf

    The defining term I would use for Vivek is dishonest. It is one thing to have crazy ideas as say a Donald Trump because to some unclear degree he is actually crazy. But similar to Tucker Carlson, Ron DeSantis and JD Vance, Vivek is a smart guy who is just lying to advance himself because populism pays.
    In his book, he absolutely nailed the 2020 Big Lie as clearly as Mitch McConnel, and I quote from Ramaswamy:

    "But while Trump promised to lead the nation to recommit itself to the pursuit of greatness, what he delivered in the end was just another tale of grievance, a persecution complex that swallowed much of the Republican party whole.
    When my candidate lost the election, I was dissatisfied, but I also felt a sense of peace. The election was done, and it was time to move on. No one likes a sore loser; that’s one of the worst victimhood complexes of all. Accepting the outcomes of elections and having a peaceful transition of power is part of what it means to be a constitutional republic: sometimes your team loses, but if you accept the result and prepare for the next election, eventually the scales will tip your way again. We fought, we lost, and I accepted the result."

    JD Vance had said similar, and we know how Tucker had lent credence to big lie advocates on his show while chatting with confidants that they were crazy.

    I think most of the actual voters who believe that Trump won the election are simply mistaken, but the Ramaswamyies and their ilk are just using lies to achieve power.

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  10. Jack H Wolf

    You refer to Matt Yglesias:
    "Unlike Yglesias, I don’t think expectations of a Vivek surge were the result of “Bored Journalist Syndrome,” in which reporters ..... set about wishcasting dramatic developments to liven things up. Ramaswamentum was, and perhaps still is, plausible." No, I think MY nailed it with a great new word BJS and the only plausibility for anybody winning, is Trump exiting the race. And a daily headline of "Trump still 10 miles ahead in this marathon does not get eyeballs.

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