I’m sure you’ve all heard about Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack ad, but to briefly summarize: Ramaswamy is running for Ohio governor against Amy Acton. Acton had a horrible childhood, being sexually assaulted by her creepy stepfather as a pre-teen, and said creep fled the state to avoid prosecution, and Acton’s mother fled with him, abandoning her children. None of that is in dispute, and is a matter of record. Acton persevered, got a medical degree, and is now running for governor, admirable, even heroic, accomplishments.
Ramaswamy, in contrast, was a spoiled rich kid and pharmaceutical drug lord, who peddled a failed Alzheimer’s drug, and who always presents as a cocky arrogant loser. His image is…not good. So he chose to run an attack ad starring Acton’s deadbeat mother, supportive wife of a rapist, accusing Acton of lying. He chose to replace his face, the face of slick, rich, profiteering pharmaceutical grifter, with the image of a bad mother who abandoned his opponent as a child to live with a rapist.
This sounds like a very bad idea, but I don’t know — it does make him look like a peak Republican, an alpha with no morality, which has been a winning recipe for the party of authoritarians. There are people who actually consider obedience to one’s parents, no matter how awful they are, to be a virtue. They’re the ones who like to quote the ten commandments and argue that if you don’t honor your mother and father, you’ll burn in hell. It might lock down a few votes for him. From, you know, the kind of people who favor the parenting methods of Michael and Debi Pearl.
My mother was a sweetie pie, who I know would not stand by if her husband was abusive (my father was not, not by a long shot), so my personal experience biases me to favor mothers. I have heard enough stories of terrible parenting to know that excreting a baby doesn’t necessarily make you a good person, and have seen enough examples in the news of parents torturing or killing their children to know that evil isn’t a contraceptive.
I’ll be watching the Ohio election. If Ramaswamy gets elected, I’ll know that Americans are beyond hope.
Presumably the horrible people who have such views were going to vote for the Republican anyway?
Or is it that, being of Asian heritage, he feels he needs to shore up his monster cred more than a flabby white guy would with this constituency?
cartomancer @1, I suspect it’s a recognition that the “independent” vote is essentially lost. So, at this point, their best bet is to anger the base to drive better turnout from them. To your first question, then, I suspect their concern is that a significant number of those people with horrible views might not show up due to them being demotivated thanks to Trump. So I think it’s more hoping the math works such that he gains more votes than he loses, hoping that the people upset by the ad were already voting against him anyway — and thus not losing any votes — and that it brings out disgruntled MAGA voters.
This stunt seems to be blowing up in his face. Acton leads but not by much, but outside the error margin. There are only 8 days until voting day so this will be fresh in voters’ minds as they head to the voting booth. I hope this loses him the election and serves as a warning for future MAGA punks running for office.
The mother was and is a generic monster who lost custody of both of her children, Amy Acton and her brother.
The brother has already supported Dr. Acton’s account of her childhood.
The mother was also convicted of killing two kittens, by leaving them in a locked hot car. ‘
I was wondering why her two cats and the kittens were in her car anyway.
It turns out she was homeless and living in her car at the time.
Gasp! How DARE you not take the word of this salt of the Earth, Christian mee-maw over that of her evil, vaccinating, woke, blue-haired, Soros-puppet daughter. HONOR THY MOTHER AND THY FATHER!
;)
“They’re the ones who like to quote the ten commandments and argue that if you don’t honor your mother and father, you’ll burn in hell.”
Always funny that those people who quote one specific part of the bible, which fits their narrative, then totally ignore all the other stuff they are supposed to do, like not killing anyone (see the death penalty or the insane U.S. gun laws).
I wonder what the actual motivation for the ancient biblical author was when they wrote “honor thy mother and thy father.” On one hand, it could have been the naive expectation that parents are worthy of it by default. On the other hand, and my cynical side leans this direction: Religious instruction to stay with your abusive parents.
Heard one interpretation of Beauty and the Beast was about alleviating fear of arranged marriages, teaching little girls that they could “fix him” if they got a bad husband.
About elections and horrible people, there are good news abroad. Let’s hope it rubs off on Ohio and USA.
A Different Bias:
Huge victories for Brazil and Serbia
“Is the Far Right Finally Running Out of Road?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=rTRfKVMuZi8
If Ramaswamy gets elected, I’ll know that Americans are beyond hope.
I’m disgusted that the race was ever even close. Ramaslimy was obviously nothing more than a blatant fraud and a hateful little pipsqueak LONG before this ad of his came out. At least as disgraceful and shameful as Ramaslimy himself, is the fact that the Retrumplitarian Party, at the national/institutional level, took that little shit seriously for more than ten seconds. Is he really the best Ohio Republicans could find?
I hate to break it to you …
And no surprise, Preznident Pedophile full on supports this, saying his sainted mother would never say anything like that about him, and agreed that Acton was a liar and a terrible person, and he didn’t know anything about a stepfather, this has nothing to do with a stepfather. All while telling the reporter to shut up after he asked her why she wouldn’t believe the mother’s side. It’s a remarkable display of all the things wrong with his brain.
Just don’t read the comments – most of them support him and the mothers are saints angle and think the reporter should’ve been more “respectful.”