With his Star Trek IV Shatner hair and practiced, preening Andrew Dice Clay assholery, this is not Vivek Ramaswamy's time.
Yet.
But what we are being given is a glimpse into the future of the Republican party.
Obviously the embodiment of where the Republican party is here and now is Donald Trump.
And the If-Trump-keels-over-dead Republican party of today is more-or-less evenly divided between the floundering, robotic authoritarianism of Ron DeSantis and the speaking-in-tongues Evangelical fanaticism of Tim Scott. DeSantis struggles with being able to mimic enough human facial expressions and speech patterns to get people to trust him, and Scott struggles with convincing voters that he is God's own first draft pick.
The party's past can be seen in grumpy Guses like Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, with their arcane talk about "responsibility" and "foreign policy" as if anyone in the Republican madhouse cared about that.
But the party's future may well be Ramaswamy. Arrived too soon to thrive in the present moment, but in four years?
Or eight?
With a little salt in his hair and a big bag of "If only you'd chosen me" for a Republican party in open revolt against itself, and a Republican base jonesing for some of that sweet, sweet, Trump screaming rageaholism?
Remember when Reagan's record of cruelty and extremism as California's governor -- and the pall of the Goldwater debacle and the Nixon catastrophe that still hung over the party -- made it a punchline that the Party of Lincoln would nominate and elect the co-star of Bedtime for Bonzo?
If you never underestimate how deeply the Right hates this country, you'll never be caught by surprise by anything that the MAGA Fascist Party gets up to.
