Tangle - The rise of Vivek Ramaswamy.

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Vivek Ramaswamy. The Republican nominee for president has surprised pundits and the political class by climbing up the ranks of the GOP primary, and is now tied for second place with Ron DeSantis, according to a new Emerson poll.You can read today's podcast here, today’s Under the Radar story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. You can also check out our latest YouTube video here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (0:52), Today’s story (2:54), Left’s take (5:39), Right’s take (10:04), Isaac’s take (14:24), Listener question (21:44), Under the Radar (23:40), Numbers (24:30), Have a nice day (25:14)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Can trees help us grow more resilient to climate change? At the University of British Columbia, we believe that they can. Dr. Suzanne Simard and her team are connecting our future to nature. Their Mother Tree project could transform how we manage forests, capturing more carbon and safeguarding biodiversity for generations to come. At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions.

To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca forward happens here. From executive producer Isaac Saul, This is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Vivek Ramaswamy. He is quickly rising up the ranks of Republican nominees for president, enough so we thought it'd be important to give him some attention today. Before we jump in, though, as always, we'll start off with some quick hits. start off with some quick hits. First up, former President Trump's federal trial on election interference charges has been scheduled to begin on March 4th, 2024, just one day before Super

Tuesday. Number two, President Biden had a rare phone conversation with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to approve an emergency declaration as Tropical Storm Adalia approaches Florida. Number three, a University of North Carolina faculty member was killed in a campus shooting. The suspect is in custody and classes at the university were canceled on Tuesday. Number four, the Biden administration unveiled the first 10 prescription medications that will be subject to Medicare price negotiations in an effort to decrease drug costs for older Americans. Number five, Hawaiian Electric released a statement confirming the first fire in Maui started after a power line was downed in high wind, but faulted firefighters for a second fire that reignited and sparked the deadly wildfires across the island.

If you watched the first Republican presidential debate this week, there's no doubt you took note of the young, brash candidate with a big smile at the center of the stage, 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy. He attended Harvard, then Yale Law School, where he made millions before he graduated by getting involved in biotech investing. Vivek Ramaswamy, a millionaire, is running for the Republican presidential ticket. Like every GOP candidate in the race, he is pulling far below Donald Trump. But he's slowly rising and recently took third place behind DeSantis. Meaning, Ramaswamy is pulling higher than name brand politicians like Mike Pence and Chris Christie. So does he really stand a chance fighting the Trump machine? Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?

And there's mixed opinions on who had the best night. According to this poll from The Drudge Report, Vivek Ramaswamy won last night's debate, followed by Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, with Asa Hutchinson at the bottom. The Republican nominee for president has surprised pundits and the political class by climbing rapidly up the ranks of the GOP primary and is now tied for second place with Ron DeSantis, according to a new Emerson poll. While Ramaswami is still trailing DeSantis by four percentage points in FiveThirtyEight's polling average, his performance at the first GOP primary debate drew more attention and donations to his campaign. Ramaswami raised over a million dollars in the days after the debate, according to his campaign. Ramaswami, who is 38, was born in Ohio

to parents who immigrated from southern India. He attended Harvard University and then Yale Law School, and after a career as a hedge fund investor, started his own biotech company, the success of which has made him one of the youngest 20 billionaires in the country. Before starting his company, Ramaswamy was best known for his 2021 book, Woke Inc., in which he criticized the way big companies are making business decisions based on social issues like race identity, gender ideology, climate change, or female representation. He has frequently criticized the woke culture as having a negative impact on capitalism, meritocracy, and hard work. On the campaign trail, he has strongly aligned himself with the policies of former President Trump, describing him as the best president of the 21st century. During last week's debate, Ramaswamy stood out by pledging to pardon Trump if he gets convicted, calling the climate change agenda a hoax, and insisting he would not extend

funding for Ukraine, while also suggesting Ukraine should agree to a peace plan that gave up some conquered territory to help end the war. He is staunchly opposed to affirmative action, supports a ban on abortions after six weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest, and to protect the life of the mother, and says he wants to expand the powers of the presidency while dismantling agencies like the Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service. After the debate, his favorability among Republicans rose from 50% to 60%, according to polling from FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post, and Ipsos, while his unfavorability rose from 13% to 32%. A CNN focus group of Iowa Republicans declared him the winner of the debate, as did a poll from JL Partners that was released on Thursday. The New York Times referred to him as Trump's heir, and he was the most Google search candidate during and after the debate. Given Ramaswamy's rapid ascension as a contender in the race and his performance at

the debate, there's been a tremendous amount of commentary about his candidacy. We decided to dedicate today's issue to that commentary with with what the left is saying. Many on the left criticize Ramaswamy, saying he's trying and failing to be the next Trump. Some argue that Ramaswamy is very annoying, which is driving both opposition and support. Others suggest he is an inexperienced amateur and has no business being near the White House. In The New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang said Ramaswamy is not the next Trump. Ramaswamy's insult comedy show had its desired effect on the press. According to a report in the Free Press, reporters from media outlets like CNN ignored other candidates in the post-debate scrums and beeline for Ramaswamy, Kang said. So begins a now-familiar sequence of events.

Ramaswamy's gleeful trolling got the most attention, which will, in turn, drive more press coverage, which will then lead to better name recognition and a boost in the polls. As long as he's willing to entertain, and it must be said that Ramaswamy's provocations were the only lively part of an otherwise boring show, he will be following the Trump playbook for staying in the headlines. But does any of that really make him Trump's heir? Trump could inspire fear in his political enemies with his message. Let the real people of this country rise up against the cabal of elite swamp dwellers who let violent criminals stream over the border. Menace like that can't be faked.

Ramaswamy might have trolled Pence and Nikki Haley and titillated the pundits, but I did not see one person say that they were afraid of him, Kang wrote. He never misses an opportunity to trot out his list of truths, which include there are two genders, reverse racism is racism, and there are three branches of the U.S. government, not four. But these slogans sound like cursory rebuttals to liberal talking points rather than deeply felt indictments of the status quo. In the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg said Vivek Ramaswamy is very annoying, which is why he's surging in the polls. I suspect that Ramaswamy's fans are drawn to him for all the reasons his critics find

him insufferable. Conservatives love being championed by representatives of groups that they think disdain them, Goldberg said. Despite the right's deep resentment of the entertainment industry, Republicans tend to adore celebrity candidates from Ronald Reagan to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump. Ramaswamy, too, is a performer, but what he's performing is a parody of meritocratic excellence. If you've spent time around entitled Ivy League grads, you likely recognize him as an exaggerated version of a familiar type, the callow and condescending nerd who assumes that skill in one field translates to aptitude in all others. But to his fans, the very fact that he's such a pure product of elite institutions,

in addition to Harvard, he went to Yale Law and made his fortune with a biotech startup he ran from Manhattan, likely gives him extra oomph as a class traitor. Many older white conservatives, after all, feel threatened by multi-ethnic younger generations that largely reject their most fundamental values about faith, gender, and patriotism. Ramaswamy is a part of this menacing cohort, and he's telling Republicans that their suspicions about it are correct. In the Los Angeles Times, Jackie Colm said Ramaswamy was the star of the Republican amateur hour and has no business running for president. Every four years, it seems, we're treated to a candidate, or six, who embodies a self-loving certainty that being

president is a job for amateurs. Spoiler alert, it's not. Of course, amateur is not how such candidates describe themselves. No, he or she is an outsider, the label that is catnip to voters disdainful of the two major political parties, Calm said. Trump's rivals include seasoned politicians, but also amateur hour lineup, which includes Larry Elder, Ryan Binkley, Perry Johnson, and Ramaswamy. It's certainly true that political experience does not guarantee a successful presidency, yet political inexperience virtually guarantees failure. Governing a nation of 330 million people and leading the free world is not for beginners, Collins added. Of the five presidents who held no previous public office, three governed in the last century, Herbert Hoover,

Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Donald Trump. Hoover and Trump were defeated for re-election and rank among the worst presidents ever. Eisenhower was the exception to the rule, and no wonder. He'd been the supreme commander of allied forces in World War II, a job that required navigating politics in Washington and European capitals, not to mention mobilizing militaries on two continents. the supreme commander of allied forces in World War II, a job that required navigating politics in Washington and European capitals, not to mention mobilizing militaries on two continents. All right, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right is divided on Ramaswamy, with some hoping he wins the nomination and others suggesting his candidacy is lie-filled and cynical. Some argue Ramaswamy is Trump without the Trump baggage.

Others suggest he's not the truth-teller he claims to be. In Newsweek, John Pudner said Ramaswamy should be the next president of the United States. Ramaswamy is the best way to get Trump's agenda without the baggage of Trump. The overwhelming majority, roughly 97.1% of Republicans, want to vote for Trump's agenda based on the real clear average of 2.9% voting for one of the three anti-Trump candidates, Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson, or Will Hurd. And they want a nominee who will fight effectively to advance the goals of the expanded Republican coalition he put together, which includes anyone who works for a living or believes parents should have the right to make decisions regarding their children, Budner said. That is the agenda that will win policy

and poll battles with Democratic Coalition of University Elites, public unions, and big city political machines. The challenger most effectively articulating this agenda has been Vivek, Budner said. Watching Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II stand up to communism is what made me a conservative for life. But that legacy doesn't resonate as loudly now. Who better positioned to see today's glory and hear the stories of younger non-white voters than a 30-something son of Indian immigrants? Trump, Biden, and the other Republican candidates are disliked by majorities of voters, and the only candidate in the Republican primary

who is popular today beyond the margin of error despite having a considerable media presence is Ramaswamy. Imagine, in this climate of polarization, even within the same party, a candidate whose name could be mentioned without causing family gatherings to implode. National Review's editors criticize Ramaswamy's cynical crusade. He's put on his no-hope presidential campaign on the radar screen with his media ubiquity, his willingness to go anywhere and answer any question, the sense he's having fun out on the trail, and his pungent expression of certain timeless truths. That's all to the good. We need more happy warriors, they said. Smart enough to know about where the MAGA energy is, though, he hardly ever criticizes his supposed opponent, Donald Trump, who has openly welcomed Ramaswamy's

rise in the polls, and he's offered tawdry justifications of January 6th and flirted with conspiracy theories. His ongoing 9-11 fiasco is the latest example. Of course, despite his self-styled commitment to truth-telling, Ramaswamy can't bring himself to admit that the Capitol Hill rioters were hepped up on a frothy stew of lies fed to them by Donald Trump and his minions, some of whom have now admitted they were lying. Instead, he's played footsie with the idea that the riot might have been caused by federal provocateurs, the editor said. For anyone truly paying attention, he's been making it obvious how much the truth his calling card and slogan means to him. And the Washington examiner,

Tiana Lowe-Dosher, said she believes Ramaswamy is serious, but asked if he can convince the country. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Despite the countervailing narrative that Ramaswamy is a Manchurian candidate clandestinely operating on behalf of Donald Trump, this young son of

immigrants has caught fire not just in national polling, where he is running third after the former president and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but also in the lily-white excerpts of Iowa, Dosher said. I reported in Live Time when Ramaswamy went viral for inviting a distraught pro-choice heckler to speak, but perhaps more shocking is watching these disproportionately old, white, twice-Trump-supporting crowds become transfixed by Hindu promising to bring about a cultural revival of Judeo-Christian ethics. While he can defend Trump on the merits, Ramaswamy has to prove to both the donors and the electorate

that he genuinely believes that he, not Trump, is the man for the moment, and that Conservative Inc. is wrong in its assumption that he's auditioning for a Trump cabinet position, Dosher added. Lower information voters tuning in for the first time won't care much over the media fracas about Ramaswamy's 9-11 remarks, but a voter can smell poppycock from a mile away. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. A quick reminder that unlike other news outlets, Tangle does not make endorsements of any candidate or political party in any race. You can read more about our editorial policies with a link in today's episode description. So the first time I heard Vivek Ramaswamy talk, I was struck by two things. Just how good he is at what he does, and just how half

baked so many of his ideas are. For all the talk of his outsider nature, Ramaswamy has all the classic markings of a modern politician. He is rich, in this case, unfathomably so. Ivy educated, smooth talking, and seemingly willing to change his positions in a way that garners him the most attention politically. The appeal is obvious. Here is a young, successful immigrant championing meritocracy, honesty, and anti-establishment fervor. He hammers the idea of present-day discrimination as a remedy for past discrimination, calls for rediscovering a unifying American identity, calls out the need to prioritize education, and champions hard work and American ingenuity. Sign me up. Yet, I also want to be clear that some of Ramaswamy's ideas are just

plain bad. He has proposed, for instance, instituting a civics test for anyone under the age of 25 to qualify them to vote. Let me be clear, nobody should ever have to take a test to vote in America. Certainly not a test that is designed by a Ramaswamy administration and Congress. This is doubly true when the test you are proposing is meant to cull the herd of young voters when what we should really be doing is expanding the number of young voters who cast ballots. really be doing is expanding the number of young voters who cast ballots. Ramaswamy, of course, has proudly boasted that the only two times he's ever voted was a throwaway vote for a libertarian in 2004 and a ballot for Trump in 2020, so maybe he simply doesn't value this civic duty the way others do. His foreign policy positions, as Nikki Haley

aptly showed during the debate, are amateurish, if not totally nonsensical. For instance, he has suggested resolving Russia's invasion of Ukraine by proposing to give Russia portions of Ukraine's territory it has annexed in exchange for Vladimir Putin agreeing to exit his military partnership with China. It sounds good until you think about it for two seconds. As Josh Barrow pointed out in a scathing and profanity-filled piece on his former Harvard classmate, what would that even mean, he asked. Is Putin going to make a pinky swear? This is a ridiculous and unworkable one-weird-trick strategy, even from a perspective of a normal

isolationist who might still think Ukraine is not worth spending money on, that's barely worthy of a bong-fueled 3 a.m. dorm room commentary. He seems to hold other ideas insincerely. During the debate, the moderators played a video of a young Republican asking, how will you, as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party, calm generational fears that the Republican Party doesn't care about climate change? Then the moderators asked the candidates directly if they believed human behavior was causing climate change. Ramaswamy responded by saying that the climate change agenda is a hoax, which was not exactly an answer to the moderators or the young Republicans' question, but seemed intended to give the effect that he didn't believe human activity was causing climate change. As if wanting to make

his point more clear, he also promised to burn all the coal and fossil fuels necessary for energy independence. This seemed like an odd response for a guy who, five months earlier, said human activity was causing climate change. Did the truth-sayer change his mind or just change his answer? It's anyone's guess. More than anything, though, the biggest problem with Ramaswamy's candidacy is that, as Jackie Combs put it, he's an amateur. Former Vice President Mike Pence got booed during the debate for saying we don't need a rookie in the White House right now, but it was actually one of the most honest things anyone said all night. This is something I've harped on before and will harp on again. Being president is the hardest job in the world, and we should not elect someone to do it who doesn't have any experience governing. If you want an anti-establishment

candidate, there are plenty to choose from who have experience in Congress or in state governance. Yet, every four years, a bunch of amateur hour candidates throw their hats in the ring without any experience in public office, military, foreign policy, balancing a budget, passing legislation, weighing the pros and cons of policy, or operating giant organizations. This year, Democrats have Professor Cornel West, self-help author Marianne Williamson, and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Republicans have talked radio host Larry Elder, entrepreneur Perry Johnson, Texas pastor Ryan Binkley, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Kennedy Jr., at least, has experience fighting against and pushing for policy and a lifetime of being a Kennedy.

Ramaswamy, like Trump, can say he's super rich and has managed large companies before. Yet it is worth noting, as Calm's did, that even the eye alone can fix it Donald Trump tacitly admits now that his amateur status hurt him in his first four years as president. If you listen closely to his campaign for Trump 2.0, it's right there. He has repeatedly said that he learned how Washington works and who his enemies were, and is assuring voters he won't make the same mistakes again. This time, Trump promises, I'll waste no time tearing down the deep state and getting my agenda passed. So what happened the first time? The answer is that he was a rookie. To his credit, Ramaswamy has been forthright about

his inexperience, even sharing that his foreign policy experience was drawn from six months of thinking about these issues, something he claimed was also true of his opponents, and adding that what makes him different is that he was willing to admit it. Again, sounds good until you think about it, because it's totally untrue. Pence is a former vice president and congressman who has a lot more than six months of learning as experience. Nikki Haley was UN ambassador. Tim Scott is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Trump was actually president for four years. The list goes on. Funnily enough, this anti-amateur position was one seemingly once held by Vivek Ramaswamy. You can go watch a video currently going viral of a young Ramaswamy asking Reverend Al Sharpton why he should vote for a

Democrat with the least experience in politics. Perhaps Sharpton's answer changed Ramaswamy's mind, but it was wholly unconvincing to me. Trust me, I get the appeal of Ramaswamy. Aside from just having a Trump agenda candidate without the legal troubles, I enjoy watching him the same way I loved watching Trump. Watching Ramaswamy call out Chris Christie for running a presidential campaign based on personal grievance or mock the candidates around him when they recite obviously rehearsed monologues that don't answer the question they were asked, reminds me of Trump pointing to the donors in the audience clapping for pre-can talking points in 2016. It's satisfying to hear the uber-rich Ivy Leaguer

talk about how the sausage is made from his real-world experience atop American institutions. But feeling good to watch isn't a good reason to support a candidate for the presidency. I'm unsure what Ramaswamy believes, certain he has the wrong ideas on foreign policy, and totally unconvinced he's qualified for the toughest, most complicated job in the world. Maybe he'll change my mind, but right now I have my doubts. Right now, I have my doubts. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to today's reader question. This one's from Scott in Boonville, Indiana.

Scott said, I've seen so much information on electric vehicles, but nothing about infrastructure for them. What's your take? My opinion is that we are far from it. We have six gas stations in a small town of 6,000, no EV rechargeable stations in a neighboring city of 120,000. So first, I'd be careful not to extrapolate too much from your local infrastructure to draw larger conclusions. As a counterexample, the city of Bend, Oregon has a population of about 100,000 and at least 20 charging stations. That being said, I do think that

you're right that in the broader discussion on electric vehicles, there hasn't been a huge focus on infrastructure. There's a lot of discussion in the press about the production of electric vehicles. There's a lot of discussion about China's dominance in the EV battery market. I also see the environmental concerns of electric vehicles due to lithium mines and stressing power grids come up time and again as counterpoints to the narrative of electric cars solving climate change. But there isn't the same kind of coverage about charging stations. I think the reason for that is simple. Charging stations aren't that controversial. They're mostly logistical, and the logistics are pretty dull. People will click on articles about electric cars being very

good or very bad for the environment, or on articles about big names like Ford or Chevrolet getting into the EV game. But charging stations are a secondary concern, and for a lot of people, they aren't particularly interesting. Still, they are getting talked about. Earlier this summer, both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal wrote pieces on the charging wars, and both declared that Tesla had already won. My take? It's hard not to buy into the consensus that Tesla's advantage is going to be hard to beat, but whether it is or isn't, I'd expect to see more and more charging stations coming to a city and interstate near you. All right, that is it for today's reader question, which brings us to our under the radar section.

Airline close calls are happening far more often than previously known, according to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report. The near misses were recently highlighted in a New York Times piece, which described 46 close calls between commercial airlines during just last month. In one instance, an American Airlines jet and German airliner came so close to hitting a Frontier Airlines plane as they took off that internal records describe the encounters as skin to skin. Many insiders say these potentially dangerous incidents are the product of an air traffic control system stressed by a nationwide staffing shortage. The New York Times has the full story,

and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, that is it for our Under the Radar section, which brings us to our numbers section. The percentage of registered Republicans who say Ramaswamy won the GOP debate is 28%, according to a JL Partners survey. The percentage of registered Republicans who said Ron DeSantis won the GOP debate is 27%. The percentage of GOP voters who say they are considering voting for Ron DeSantis is 67%. That's according to an Ipsos Washington Post and FiveThirtyEight poll. The percentage of GOP voters considering Donald Trump is 61%. poll. The percentage of GOP voters considering Donald Trump is 61%. The percentage of GOP voters who say they are considering voting for Vivek Ramaswamy is 46%, which is equal to the percentage

who say they're considering voting for Nikki Haley. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day section. Connor Holsa, a freshman at Moorhead High School in Minnesota, hooked a summer vacation story that few can top. Holsa was out fishing with his family in the Lake of the Woods on the Minnesota-Canada border. But instead of a walleye, he pulled in a wallet containing over $2,000 in cash. He agreed with his father that keeping the money wasn't the right thing to do, and tracked down the wallet's owner, Iowa farmer Jim Denny. We didn't work hard for

the money. He did. It was his money, Hausa said. Denny was beyond grateful, and after the Hausas refused his offer to keep the money, he gave Connor a nice cooler and an even nicer compliment. I would take Connor as a grandson any day, and I would fight for him any day, Denny said. KSTP has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to respond to something I wrote, you can reach me Isaac ISAAC at readtangle.com. And if you want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com slash membership. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow.

Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Law. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bukova, who's also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more on Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll see you next time. trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.