When Donald Trump descended the escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential bid, he already had a persona—albeit a distorted one—as a successful New York real estate developer with keen business instincts.
But Trump's rapidly emerging mini-me, Vivek Ramaswamy, arrived on America's political stage as a virtual piece of putty that could be molded into anything. And mold is exactly what Ramaswamy has done, shaping his entire identity around what pro-Trump Republicans want to hear.
"[Ramaswamy] is an interesting experiment—he believes none of this," Dan Pfeiffer, former Obama White House communications director, said in a post-debate breakdown on “Pod Save America.” He noted that Ramaswamy didn't even vote in 2012 or 2016. "This is some sort of experiment in reverse-engineering a candidacy where you go see what the voters want and then you build a campaign platform to fit that," Pfeiffer added.
During the debate, Ramaswamy rattled off 10 political and philosophical positions of his campaign. They range from the declaration that "there are two genders" to hits against the media and so-called “reverse racism.” And altogether, they sound like a succinctly articulated version of Trump's vision for the Republican Party.
