Jason Gilbert pointed out that the principle reason to watch the debates was schadenfreude and my wife agreed. It was pretty terrible. Now I want to say this in a tone of voice thenewgreen can hear: Ramaswamy is a soulless huckster opportunist who is utterly devoid of principle, ethics or empathy. He is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the tech industry, everything that is wrong with hustle culture, and everything that is wrong with venture capital, everything that is wrong with entrepreneurship and everything that is wrong with mutherfucking LinkedIn. Donald Trump is a low-achieving silver-spoon racist blowhard who has farted his way to every successful position he has ever held but Ramaswamy? That specious little dipshit took one look at the past seven years and went "hey I could do that" and DID. He is a LOATHSOME human being who deliberately aped demagoguery and dysfunction because he wants nothing more than to be on the Republican ticket as VP. He is Stephen Miller if Stephen Miller were doing it for clout. He is opportunism personified, an actuarial table in slacks, the negative space left in a human husk once all morality or guidance have been blasted away by pure, naked greed. He's a shoo-in for Trump's VP because he went "hey racists, here's some racism." "Hey bigots, here's some bigotry." "What's that? You want some wonkish made up bullshit numbers to feel better about the prejudices you know you shouldn't have? Here's something straight from my ass, you're welcome!" "The Base" knows that Trump shoots from the hip; because their accelerationist nephew liked this guy's made-up bullshit policy about something he knows fuckall about, they now think Trump's got a "policy guy" to come up with numbers to own the libs. Vivek Ramaswamy is walking leprosy because he fucking knows better and he doesn't fucking care. Hear it in Trump's voice. Give it Trump's cadence. This loathsome little turd has a BA from Harvard and a JD from Yale and he's fuckin' whatabouting the Twin Fucking Towers. Why? To get those sweet, sweet QAnon votes. Kill it with fire. Slowly.“I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right? I have no reason to think it was anything other than zero,” Ramaswamy said. “But if we’re doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 Commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to.”
Imagine being cornered at a party by a coked-up Jos A. Bank mannequin. Imagine watching Tucker Carlson at 2x speed, and his guest is your boss complaining that women shouldn’t get paid during maternity leave. Imagine being forced to sit through a timeshare pitch that was also racist.
I don’t disagree with anything you said, just wanted to take a minute to appreciate the above bit of rhetorical flourish. As he puts it, “The American Dream personified.” He is opportunism personified, an actuarial table in slacks, the negative space left in a human husk once all morality or guidance have been blasted away by pure, naked greed.
My money for Trump's eventual defamatory nickname of Vivek is on "ramma-lamma-dingdong"
Vivek absolutely approaches this entire debacle with a strategy of "look how little Mike Pence did and he rode it out. I will do only slightly more and make a lotttttttt of money". Vivek is slime. Intentionally inflammatory and knowingly false statements for press coverage. It's like 2015 and 2016 all over again. The media is obviously incapable of not seeking profit at the expense of truth and democracy. He won't be on the GOP ballot, though. VP or otherwise. There is nothing he can say to purchase whiteness.
Y'know. 'cuz it's an amusing but topical digression. One of the things that Palo Alto book focuses on is the early history of racism and eugenics in California (thanks, Leland Stanford). And while there was a lot lot of racism against the Chinese, there was also a lot of racism in favor of more-established minorities against less-established minorities. 'member Bobby Jindal? He was enough of a guiding light in the Republican Party that they had him do the response to Obama's first State of the Union. How 'bout Nikki Haley? Desi as hell but she won't rub your nose in it. Dinesh D'Souza? Mumbai, baby. And what do they hate Kamala Harris for? They hate her for being black, not because her mom is from Chennai. Do Indians get killed in hate crimes? Yes. By mistake. Them California Republicans? They totally came down on the side of South Asians against the Chinese. I think for purposes of exclusion from the master race, "India" is considered white-adjacent in ways Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else are not.
I think that's generally correct, but "white-adjacent" just isn't enough these days. And you know that Trump bristles even thinking about the phrase "Trump-Ramaswamy 2024". I also suspect he has enough political instinct to choose a woman for VP. Nikki Haley can pull the race card when needed, but is also granted whiteness because of her appearance and (changed) name. But it's still hella stupid that she claimed in her first campaign ad that racism is no longer a problem in America. Which was a few mass-shooting racist manifestos ago. Meanwhile, meatball Ron is using a hurricane to get off the campaign trail for a respite. The only folks stupider than all of this are the insufferable tankies on twitter trying to get people to vote Cornell West or Marianne Williamson. I think I hate them more than the MAGAts.