Easy Sunday: That Ramaswamy ad

 Readers respond.

-- Some thought it impossible that the ad helped Ramaswamy.

-- Others complained that I was unfairly insulting Republicans to suggest that many of them liked the ad.

-- Others thought it insightful to have recognized the MAGA populist resentment of bureaucratic expertise.

Yesterday's post made a brief reference to Dr. Amy Acton's earlier job as director of the Ohio Department of Health. It is relevant. She was the Covid czar. 

Dr. Acton was the face of Covid-era school closures in Ohio. In those early weeks, when little was known about a new disease, she made public projections of how many Ohioans could be infected. Those fears and warnings were revised downward, in Ohio and nationally, and the impression that left became partisan. Republicans said Democrats lied and exaggerated the danger. Acton, like Dr. Anthony Fauci nationally, became associated with overreaching, controlling bureaucrats. The MAGA conclusion: Covid experts lied to us. The ad treated her Covid warnings as a character flaw, not as a mistake made while understanding of the disease was still evolving.

Again, I am disgusted by Ramaswamy’s ad. I think it probably hurts him more than it helps him in this year’s governor’s race. But Trump’s strong endorsement of the ad is a “tell.” The ad helps Ramaswamy with a decisive segment of the Republican base. A majority of Ohio voters chose Trump in 2024, knowing exactly who he is. They resent the smarty-pants experts who sent their jobs to China and shut down their schools unnecessarily over Covid.

Here is an example of the comments I received, edited for brevity. Joe Yetter is a retired physician and a former candidate for Congress.

Joe Yetter:

Peter, you really have the ability to see through others' eyes. It's not what I see, at all.

I see Ramaswamy and Trump as stone-cold liars willing to hurt anyone, any place, any time in service of their own aggrandizement. And who believe enough voters will side with them, seeing the world through those eyes.

It is stomach-churning for me to think there are any voters--let alone many voters--who will find this ad appealing. I hope you are wrong.

My response:

Joe, this speaks well of your character, but it is a political liability for you.Their stone-cold lying is the asset in this contest you if you start with a premise that the world is rigged in favor of everyone else. Trump is the anti-hero. He is Dirty Harry.  I am disgusted, not admiring, of the ad but I think I recognize Ramanswamy's strategy.

As with evolution, if something unintuitive exists it is a huge opportunity to consider what is really going on. The peacock's tail is such a thing. Ramaswamy's ad is the same thing.

Joe Yetter's response: 

What science teaches us is the triumph of cooperation. The way to win is to work for all to win.

We--and all multicellular life--exist because our single-celled ancestor ingested a bacterium and, instead of digesting it, provided it shelter, and so mitochondria were born. 

It's a story that can be retold in detail and in broad sweeps, like the co-evolution of insects and flowering plants. Wolves and grizzlies and beavers have the power to change geology and hydrology to the benefit of whole ecosystems.

The current rapacity of humans is putting us on track to destroy much of the beauty and diversity of the natural world, and its ability to sustain us.

It will profit us not at all to hire "Dirty Harry." But (as in War Games), the only winning move is not to play that game. I say this not merely because it's the kind thing to do, but because I think it really is the way to win. For everybody.

I often recommend books. Narrowing down, I'd recommend Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass; Richard Powers' The Overstory; Terry Tempest Williams' The Glorians; Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer; Zoë Schlanger's The Light Eaters.  And hat tip to the late Lynn Margulis, the evolutionary biologist who taught us the significance of symbiosis in evolution.

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]