Vivek Ramaswamy was the only interesting candidate in last week’s Republican nomination debate.
There are two reasons for this. One is that Donald Trump ducked the debate in favour of bantering in Tucker Carlson’s cabin on Twitter. The other is that Ramaswamy is not a politician.
Before the debate, Ramaswamy said he favoured phasing out US aid to Israel because it would be a “mark of success” that Israel could stand alone and it would make the US-Israel relationship more equal.
He also promised that if he becomes president, he will carry the US-Israel relationship to “new heights”, add Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Indonesia to “Abraham Accords 2.0”, and ensure that “Iran never becomes nuclear equipped”.
This would make Ramaswamy more pro-Israel than Joe Biden or any leading Democrat, too. But it enraged his rivals at the Republican debate. Then again, most of them never saw a dumb war they didn’t want to fund.
Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, made a fortune in pharma. You’d think that the Republicans, the party of business and border control, would acclaim Ramaswamy, the self-made, boot-strapping child of legal immigrants, as the future of America.
Vivek Ramaswam US Preddentail Debate GettyImages-1634913312
Vivek Ramaswam, right, during the Republican candidates' debate (Photo: Getty Images)
Instead, the other candidates, led by Nikki Haley, accused him of ignorance and naivety. And the base, encouraged by the thicker end of the punditry, fantasise that he is a “plant”.
If Ramaswamy is a plant, it is not for lack of manure. The Republican base is mired in a rich soil of paranoia and resentment, and the runners for the 2024 nomination are sinking into it as they sling it around.
The week before Trump dropped by Tucker Carlson’s cabin, Colonel Douglas Macgregor was Carlson’s guest.
Macgregor is an experienced soldier. Transformation Under Fire, his 2003 book on how to modernise the American military, was required reading in the IDF.
In 2020, Trump nominated him as US ambassador to Germany, but the Senate refused to endorse him.
The problem was Macgregor’s comments about “Muslim invaders” in Europe and the need for martial law at the US-Mexican border.
Macgregor has also complained about “rootless cosmopolitans”, asserted that there were more white slaves than black slaves in colonial America, and said that the “Israel lobby” buys Congressional support for Israel by making officials “very, very rich”.
Last week in Carlson’s cabin, Macgregor warmed up with the customary rant about “neo-cons”, named only Jewish officials and advisers, and claimed that the US is supporting Ukraine because its policymakers are imposing their bias: “These people have ancestors who came from that part of the world and have a permanent axe to grind with the Russians.”
GettyImages-514696770 (1)
US President Donald Trump (Photo: Getty Images)
Carlson did not ask Macgregor to specific who “these people” might be. Given that Macgregor had just named prominent Jews like the neoconservative ideologue Robert Kagan and Anthony Blinken, the Secretary of State, there was no need to.
Nor did Carlson ask whether it might just be possible that, just as generals tend to refight the last war, the civilian administrators in Washington, DC might prefer to refight the Cold War with Russia than contend with the much greater challenge of China.
This kind of stuff is now part of American political debate, and it is eating into the sane centre from both right and left. To blame it on Donald Trump is to underestimate what has happened.
Trump’s rise is symptomatic of social media. Political debates are still stage-managed, but the presumptive nominee didn’t turn up last week and still won.
The real action is online. The filter is off the American id.
It is customary for politicians to feint to the fringe to secure the nomination, then rush to the centre in the general elections. Ramaswamy, a social-media politician, seems to be doing both at the same time.
On Wednesday, he told Israel Hayom that it would be “silly” to cut US aid to Israel as the US gets the better end of the bargain. Is this cynical skill, or thinking aloud?
Ramaswamy is the smartest candidate in either party. He has plenty of new ideas, including how to update the US-Israel relationship in a changed world. It would be everyone’s loss if he succumbs to the intellect inertia of the professional politicians.
