Conscience can’t be a word you pull out just when you want to attack Democrats for infringing on religious liberty.
“Politics is a tough business. And my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.”
That’s the vice president of the United States today, in response to reporters asking him about Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad featuring his opponent’s estranged mother.
I wouldn’t be writing this post if JD Vance simply decided to abide by Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. I’d be leaving this topic alone if yesterday Ramaswamy thought better of the vicious attack against Democrat Amy Acton and disavowed it or apologized or something remotely decent. I’d also leave it alone if Vance simply chose not to comment.
Instead, Ramaswamy stood by the ad and argued that the campaign should be about substantive issues. Well, Mr. Ramaswamy, you just made your willingness to attack a 12-year-old and use her being abused as a child and horrific family dynamics against her. You clearly don’t choose to lead by example. Where’s the character in that?
It was, of course, dumb of me to assume yesterday Ramaswamy might consider distancing himself at best from the ad. This has been consistent with his campaign against her, previously arguing that his opponent has nothing to offer “other than to complain what someone else did to her.” And, as has been noted, both Nikki Haley and Chris Christie might testify that this is characteristic of Ramaswamy.
One does not have to play armchair therapist to acknowledge that (a) often, the sexual abuse you suffered as a child is the last thing a person wants to talk about; (b) once you’ve talked about it, enough people thank you for giving them the courage to or helping them feel less alone, that you feel it is something of an obligation to publicly recognize as part of your official biography. Regardless of whether or not that falls into Acton’s motivations, Ramaswamy has chosen a despicable line of attack here.
And the vice president not only says he doesn’t care about the attack, but that it is Republicans questioning Ramaswamy on this whom he finds disgust in his heart for.
He also said today:
I have to admit that I’m a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.
Look, the Democrats have embraced an expansive position involving the serial killing of the unborn over the past decades — up to and including birth — with no signs of reconsidering or regretting. Republicans have signaled they checked the Roe box and ending abortion in America is no longer a priority.
Many of us are still going to be stuck with voting for the least worst option in elections (especially when one candidate acknowledges the most important human-rights issue of our lifetimes) — or writing someone in, as I couldn’t believe I found myself doing for the first time in the 2016 presidential election (I vote in New York, folks).
In politics, it needs to be possible to say “my-guy”-did-something-terrible and still vote against his opponent.
I word it that way because, again, how many times do some of us find ourselves mostly voting against rather than for someone? Sometimes that is the best motivator to bother voting. We need to do something about that. Public service should be service, and a noble one.
But we lose something when we can’t say don’t-use-the-sexual-abuse-your-opponent-suffered-as-a-child-against-her because the person doing so is a member of our preferred political party.
This whole chapter of the Ohio gubernatorial election is disgusting — and not because Ramaswamy was called out by some conservatives for doing something despicable with his campaign.
Conscience can’t be a word you pull out just when you want to attack Democrats for infringing on religious liberty. Conscience rights matter because we’re defending real, God-given freedom we have in how we can choose to seek to live our lives.
Unless, of course, it really is just power you seek.
We won’t get better candidates for office unless we insist on them. And, yes, even insisting so 13 days before Election Day when a candidate himself makes it necessary. Not only an unforced error, but a shameful one.