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Even Donald Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers only stay in his good graces as long as the former president believes they benefit him. The latest example is Trump’s “Mini Me,” Vivek Ramaswamy, who found himself on the receiving end of a verbal lashing.
In a post on Truth Social, the former president accused his “rival” for the GOP nomination of using “deceitful campaign tricks.”
If you have been paying attention, then you know that one of Ramaswamy’s main priorities has been to stay on Trump’s good side, so that accusation rings a bit hollow. What is much more likely is that Trump’s campaign’s internal polling shows Ramaswamy draining some support from the former president.
The entrepreneur and avid conspiracy theorist has campaigned relentlessly in Iowa and by all accounts been very effective in connecting with conservative voters. That likely won’t amount to much more than a third or fourth place finish in tomorrow’s caucuses, but Trump is hoping for a blowout win, so any bit of support that Ramaswamy draws from him matters.
Which brings us to the former president’s diatribe from Saturday night. In his usual heavy-handed manner, he got straight to the point.
“Vivek started his campaign as a great supporter, ‘the best President in generations,’ etc.,” Trump wrote. “Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the ‘other side’ — don’t get duped by this.”
Ramaswamy didn’t take the bait, which also makes sense because he is a much smarter and skilled version of Trump. His problem is that Republican voters prefer the boorish, braggadocious, and belligerent original. That being said, it never really seemed like Ramaswamy was running for the 2024 nomination. His long game always seemed to be to become the MAGA heir apparent, which is why he went out of his way to stay in Trump’s good graces.
Just as he did last night.
“Yes, I saw President Trump’s Truth Social post. It’s an unfortunate move by his campaign advisors, I don’t think friendly fire is helpful,” he responded on Twitter. “Donald Trump was the greatest President of the 21st century, and I’m not going to criticize him in response to this late attack.”
The contrast between the two men is stunning because Ramaswamy is clearly so much better at this than Trump. He places the blame on the former president’s advisers, perhaps an underhanded reminder that Trump has surrounded himself with some truly incompetent people in the past.
Also, “greatest president of the 21st century” sounds like quite a feat, until you realize there have only been four of them.
Ramaswamy then made the case that only he can “save” Trump because “they will stop at *nothing* to keep him away from power.”
This has been a theme recently for the entrepreneur who, seemingly, has never encountered a conspiracy theory he won’t embrace.
“They want to narrow this to a two-horse race between Trump & Haley, eliminate Trump (one way or other), & trot their puppet into the White House,” Ramaswamy wrote. If you are wondering, “they” is referring to a cabal consisting of unspecified billionaires and the mainstream media.
In the same post, he suggested that Trump’s 2020 loss to President Joe Biden was the result of a “man-made pandemic & Big Tech election interference.”
While this may sound insane to regular people, it will probably make sense to the GOP’s base, which has been conditioned to believe any whacko theory that explains why Trump is failing at anything.
It’s too bad that the caucuses will be held tomorrow, because it would be interesting to see how this (one-sided) feud plays out and whether Trump, with his cult-like following, would come out ahead, which seems likely, or whether the much younger, smarter, and more skilled version of the former president would be able to endear himself to the MAGAverse with his undying loyalty in the face of criticism.
