Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The rehabilitation of Vivek Ramaswamy has already begun. After a nanosecond of unified denouncements from the right, the MAGA faithful are feeling their way toward a message that will keep voters from fleeing the Republican ticket in Ohio.
Obviously, Ramaswamy thinks this message will move votes his way; in that respect, he’s gambling his candidacy on the decency of the people of Ohio. But he’s only able to make that bet due to some friendly faces giving cover to his appalling ploy. The MAGA cavalry is riding in to reframe the message and, even more importantly, signal that Ramaswamy has not been entirely abandoned–so maybe voters shouldn’t abandon him, either.
On Wednesday morning, emo-authoritarian Glenn Beck posed as though to take apart the ad from a neutral position. He gave Acton a “point” due to the fact that her mother did lose custody–so something bad must have happened, he conceded. Then he gave her mother a “point” due to her claim that she worked at a “Children and Family Services Association.” This has nothing to do with what Acton went through. But an equal number of points! Who can say!
Besides, he said, this ad isn’t really dredging up those accusations of child rape; Ramaswamy isn’t really asking voters to consider the honesty of a pre-teen. The ad’s just asking, “Can we make the case that Amy Acton is not an honest person?” And, said Beck, “Yes! Because that’s what her mom is arguing.”
You look at it this way, an ad that directly minimizes a horrific familial experience has no more charge than a commercial about a candidate having misrepresented his stance on property taxes. Just another point to consider!
JD Vance was craftier; he didn’t deign to truck with the details of the toxic ad. Rather, he went meta:
Q: Ramaswamy put out a controversial ad featuring his opponent’s mother. Do you think the ad was appropriate?
Vance: Whether the ad was appropriate or not is not really my concern. I am a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that ad… My message to my fellow elected Republicans: stop whining about an ad
The explicit message here is policing Republican-on-Republican violence, already a problem for them this year. But note the form of the scolding, not just the scolding itself: “Stop whining” is a shockingly gendered insult considering what the ad is about. Don’t like a campaign spot that scrutinizes the rape of a little girl to score points? *Man up,* assholes. Real men cast doubt on survivors’ stories every damn day.
Trump intuited a similar strategy to Beck’s. Asked about the ad, he said he hadn’t seen it, but then jumped straight to the argument Republicans have to pretend is the ad’s only message: She sure doesn’t seem honest, does she?
“I hear the mother went very rogue on the daughter, doesn’t have a lot of respect for the daughter, and I think the mother is a witness to things, also. So, who knows? … It’s a very unusual situation to have a mother hate a daughter that much, but I don’t think that has anything to do with Vivek,” Trump insisted, laying down his version of cover.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
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