putting Vivek in perspective

Thus far, I've generally liked Vivek Ramaswamy a lot as a candidate. But all it takes is a trip through the Instapundit commentariat to see there are a bunch of Ramaswamy haters out there. Some of these people are still clinging to the dying DeSantis campaign, seeing DeSantis as a more polite and articulate version of Trump (maybe a little clearer with his vision, too). Some have what they consider legitimate objections based on their reading of Ramaswamy as a business leader—Ramaswamy's ties to Big Pharma and hedge funds, etc. Vivek, who interviews with anyone and everyone, left or right, has been adept and articulate at swatting aside many of these accusations, but I suppose it's inevitable that, as with all candidates in the spotlight, the more we learn about the man, the more dirt we can expect to find.

One major objection to Ramaswamy is his Hinduism. The objectors in this camp can't imagine anyone other than a Christian leading what has often been called "a nation with Christian values." Forgetting about the whole "the Founding Fathers were Deists" counterargument and the "but we've upheld Christian values since those days" counter-counterargument, I'd have to ask this: how many supposedly Christian presidents do you think have actually been good Christians or even real Christians while in office? Does anyone seriously see Joe Biden as a real Catholic? There are, I think, aspects of being president that actually require one to put aside one's Christianity in order to be able to make terrible decisions that will negatively affect millions of lives. So to me, the whole idea of associating the American presidency with Christianity feels as hollow as the "Christmas/Easter Christian" who only appears in church twice a year. And since the anti-Hinduism often strikes me as deeply rooted in religious bigotry (one of the reasons why I still can't like or respect Christian exclusivism), I'm inclined not to respect religious objections to Ramaswamy. So he places his hand on a slim copy of the Bhagavad Gita (a few chapters in the encyclopedia-length Mahabharata) instead of on a Bible as he's sworn in. So what? It's hard for me to take religious objections seriously, but I have to because I've seen so many of these objections—all from Christian conservatives.

Another objection, since we're focused on bigotry, is with Ramaswamy's ethnic Indianness. Vivek was born in the US (Cincinnati) to immigrant parents, but yes, he is thoroughly marinated in Indian culture thanks to his home life. We don't choose the environments we're born into, and if anything, I'd consider Ramaswamy lucky to have been born into a culture that values family, study, and hard work. One specific ethnic objection I've seen is that Vivek, if elected, would follow a "typically Indian" pattern of getting in the door, then inviting all his Indian compatriots along with him (where do I even begin with this stereotype?). I had no idea this was such a major concern among certain conservatives, but the Instapundit comment threads are rife with remarks from certain parties about "letting in more brown people," not to mention all the "thank you, come again!" jokes. I honestly couldn't give a rat's ass if our entire executive branch went totally brown-skinned as long as the people in those positions upheld the US Constitutional standards and traditional American ideals (a phrase that's obviously shorthand for a complicated concept that might need some unpacking).

More legitimate (i.e., less bigoted) objections to Vivek's candidacy revolve around questions of who "owns" him in the world of Big Pharma, how he's flip-flopped on certain positions in the past (e.g., with regard to COVID and the jab), and his stance on global trade. I haven't done enough research into Ramaswamy to know much about his previous financial connections and commitments, but the "flip-flop" criticism is one Vivek himself has addressed in several interviews: he's simply admitted he was wrong, that his initial judgments about the "vaccine" and other COVID-policy matters were based on the insufficient information we had early in the pandemic, and he adjusted his stance accordingly once new information came to light. 

As for global trade... nerdy alt-media guru Styx says he's lost respect for Vivek since hearing the man claim to want to reenter certain trade agreements—like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). On one level, I can see why people might be antsy about Vivek's position on this (and I admit to being mildly uneasy, too, because it seems to tiptoe toward globalism), but over several interviews with different people, Vivek made clear that he sees the reforging of trans-Pacific alliances as a way to encircle and contain China, which would not be part of Vivek's hoped-for arrangements with various Asian countries. Might this include something I've wished for for a while: a massive pivot to India and away from China for resources, manpower, and tech? I don't know. Vivek's case to the nation is still being built, I think. 

My point is that, seen in a fuller context, Ramaswamy's trade-partnership plans shouldn't be seen as a repudiation of Trump's priorities. Trump rightly left most of these trade deals because he saw how his (mostly Asian) interlocutors were using those deals as an opportunity to wallet-rape the United States, and Trump knew this had to stop. Rather than waste time and effort aggressively renegotiating those deals, Trump simply nixed them by abandoning them. This was, I think, the right move made for the right reasons, but I don't think Vivek is wrong to reconsider those partnerships if we assume he can, in fact, channel US and foreign energies in an anti-China direction while also making sure the partnerships are profitable to the US. Vivek is trying to walk a fine line, here, and I don't know how successful he'll be. He risks being called a globalist (as he's already been called), and he might spark the ire of the American worker, whom Trump went to bat for. A pivot to India—which I'd recommend to any candidate, ethnic-Indian or not—might make Vivek look as if he's giving a handout to his Indian peeps. But while the optics of an India pivot could look bad to some people, I think there's a lot to gain by forming a closer alliance with the world's largest democracy.

Switching gears—and this really puts Vivek in perspective—is this observation. For all of Vivek's skyrocketing popularity in certain corners, the objective measures of his popularity aren't quite there yet. I noticed that just this evening when I finally looked closely at the Vivek Ramaswamy YouTube channel's subscriber numbers: just under 170,000 subscribers. Now from my perspective, that's a lot, but it's a disappointingly low number from the point of view of aspirational YouTubers. Quick comparison with some of the people Vivek has sat down with for interviews: (1) Tim Pool's Timcast IRL has 1.55 million subs; (2) Tim Pool's Timcast (not IRL): 1.19 million subs; (3) Tim Pool's Tim Pool channel: 1.34 million subs; (4) Russell Brand: 6.57 million subs; (5) Lauren Chen: 552,000 subs; (6) Jordan B. Peterson: 7.36 million subs... the list goes on, and I think Vivek, who is campaigning at berserker levels of energy, has a long way to go before he attains true media saturation.

The point of all this is to put Vivek Ramaswamy in perspective. He's a rising star, to be sure, but there are millions upon millions of people out there who are still saying, "Vivek who?"—this despite Ramaswamy's massive efforts thus far. I hope the upcoming debate starts to put the man on the map and insert him more deeply into the US public consciousness. I also don't doubt that he is flawed, and that some sort of dirt may come out about him, but for the moment, I like and respect his energy, his mental focus, his articulateness, and his candor. He's been willing to admit when he's wrong, and he usually answers interviewers' questions directly. He may be a bit too academically pedantic to appeal to the low-education, low-information crowd, who are too intellectually sluggish to follow his more complex utterances, but he strikes me as far more principled than your average politician, who normally dodges and weaves like a snake when faced with difficult or uncomfortable questions. Vivek is a bit too urbane to joust with the press by constantly calling them "fake news" in the manner of Trump, DeSantis, or Lake, but maybe that's an advantage. I still don't think he has any chance of winning this election cycle, but if he gets his name out there and gives the public something interesting to talk about, he might have a much better chance at the big chair in 2028.