(LibertySons.org) – Republican presidential hopefuls Vivek Ramaswamy and former Vice President Mike Pence have traded barbs since the primary season began. Pundits point to the rivalry between the two as “defining” the ideological and generational differences between the “new Right” and establishment Republicans.
Pence fired the first shots over the bow by talking down to Ramaswamy during the first debate in Wisconsin, commenting, “Let me explain it to you, Vivek, if I can. I’ll go slower this time.” He followed up with a comment about the need for experience in the White House after four years of a rogue Biden administration. Referring to Ramaswamy, he made the pointed remark, “Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don’t need to bring in a rookie. We don’t need to bring in people without experience.”
In return, Ramaswamy criticized Pence for his January 6, 2021, decision to certify the electoral college votes during an interview with “Meet the Press” on August 27. Unlike other candidates, who agreed during the Wisconsin debate that Pence faithfully carried out his duty, the tech entrepreneur said Pence missed a “historic” opportunity to foster national unity by “leading” reform in Congress to pass a single-day vote using paper ballots and enforcing voter ID laws. He indicated he would have withheld certification as a condition of those reforms.
Following up, Pence called Ramaswamy’s proposal for reform “incoherent and unconstitutional” in an August 30 interview with NBC News. Several conservative pundits agreed and pointed out that acting on such an idea at the time would only have served to deepen the crisis for a few reasons. First, his proposal would run afoul of several state election laws, including red states. Second, it’s doubtful the proposal would garner Democratic support to pass in Congress. Third, it would not have accomplished the alleged aims of President Donald Trump of sending votes back to states for recertification as Pence has described them.
Analysts comparing the culture divide within the GOP have described two dissimilar scenarios. While established Republicans like Pence extoll the virtues of limited government, incremental change, quiet reform, and “peace through strength,” new Right leaders like Ramaswamy, following in Trump’s footsteps, advocate revolution, deconstructing the administrative state, including dismantling agencies like the FBI and the EPA. New Right candidates see a dystopian political and economic landscape requiring radical actions for the nation to survive and thrive — someone must take charge, and new Right candidates, a younger, less idealistic generation, think they have what it takes to lead.
~Here’s to Our Liberty!
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