Vivek Ramaswamy Fills Me With Impending Doom

There are numerous wildcards in this upcoming presidential election. We have the potentiality of AI deep-fakes wreaking havoc, the fact that the nominee of one of the two major political parties will be doing courtroom appearances in the midst of campaigning, and the glaring possibility that X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, will glitch and (possibly shut down) on election night just as billions of people around the world eagerly await who will lead this burning dumpster fire of a country. I, for one, didn’t have high expectations for how legacy media would cover this election. But in recent weeks, a new development has made me even more pessimistic — Vivek Ramaswamy’s ascent as the flavor-of-the-month GOP candidate for the chattering class.

As many have pointed out, Ramaswamy is like the Republican inverse of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (while Buttigieg made a whole thing out of bringing back “TRUST”, Ramaswamy presents himself as an unapologetic prophet of “TRUTH”). At the most recent debate, with former president Donald J. Trump conspicuously absent, the pharmaceutical millionaire had space to show off his chops as an obnoxious, albeit effective, communicator who can soak up scorn from opponents and buzz from journalists and prospective primary voters. Trump’s campaign internally viewed him as the “winner” of the evening. By calling climate change a “hoax” and clashing with neoconservative Nikki Haley over Ukraine military funding, the 38-year old political novice was able to dominate headlines. 

But, where did this dude even come from?