Political ads are usually forgotten once the election is over, but Republican’s Vivek Ramaswamy‘s most recent ad in the Ohio gubernatorial race will live long in the annals of reprehensible campaigning. Ramaswamy dug up the mother of Democratic nominee Amy Acton to have her brand her daughter as a “liar. She lies about her past.”
Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, hasn’t seen her daughter since Acton was 12. That’s because Arthur’s husband at the time was charged with sexually abusing Acton. Acton and her brother were removed from the family because of abuse and neglect (the family was living in a tent). The stepfather fled the state after being charged, and Arthur went with him. All of these facts are indisputable, backed up by court records.
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Most recently, Arthur has been living in her car in a church parking lot. A few years ago, she was convicted of animal neglect for locking up kittens in a car on a hot day, killing them.
Ramaswamy seems to think that featuring an abuse enabler and kitten killer in an ad is the way to win voters. He is discovering that just the opposite is true. The ad has generated such backlash against Ramaswamy that election analysts tracking the Ohio race say that Acton’s chances of winning the election have actually improved. That hasn’t stopped Ramaswamy from doubling down on the ad and digging his own political grave deeper.
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While even some Republicans, including Mike DeWine, the man Ramaswamy hopes to replace as governor, have called for the ad to be pulled, Ramaswamy has some high-profile defenders. JD Vance said Republicans should “stop whining” about the ad. Predictably, President Donald Trump thinks the ad is just great. “A mother is saying, ‘Don’t put my daughter there, because she’s a terrible person and she’s a liar,’” Trump said. “Why shouldn’t somebody use that?”
In one sense, the ad isn’t surprising. Ramaswamy’s political career has always been at the level of the gutter. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called him “the most obnoxious blowhard in America” during the 2024 presidential primaries, which prompted Ramaswamy to make a snide remark about Christie’s weight.
In another sense, the ad is a political catastrophe of galactic proportions. No matter what voters think about Acton, most are repulsed by the ad. In one focus group, even voters who were going to vote for Ramaswamy are thinking of just leaving that line on the ballot blank because the ad is so vile.
The ad is also another opportunity for Democrats to paint the GOP as the defenders of sexual abuse, adding to the stench of the Jeffrey Epstein coverup. Protesters showed up at a GOP event last weekend with a sign reading “Vivek exploits child abuse for votes.”
The ad also shows off Ramaswamy’s hypocrisy. He has built his career as a venomous attacker of trans rights, trying to protect children from the “cult” and “mental health disorder” of “transgenderism.” (Acton isn’t exactly covering herself in glory on trans rights either.) But when it comes to actual documented abuse, he’s fine with using it to revictimize his opponent.
As journalist Adam Serwer described the Trump universe, “the cruelty is the point.” In that sense, Ramaswamy is trying to emulate the party leader, Trump. And that is Ramaswamy’s problem – and the GOP’s. There is only one Trump, and his time as president is running out.
Trump has been able to sustain his political career through an odd combination of events and characteristics. He was first widely known not as a politician but as a businessman, whose success was wildly inflated by reality television while his many failures were buried. His coarseness was viewed as honesty, and followers, especially white evangelicals, saw him as a leader designated by God to fight for their beliefs. Trump excels at telling people what they want to hear (and excels just as much at not delivering on it). He also knows how to play the media from his years dealing with New York tabloids. He’s especially good at saying something outrageous and then denying that it was outrageous or saying he was just kidding, and people just buy it.
No one in the Republican Party comes close to being the same combination of snake oil salesman, would-be dictator, and television star that Trump does. Everyone else is just a regular politician. Some politicians have a bit of each of Trump’s characteristics, but there is only one Donald Trump (thank God).
With his gutter ad, Ramaswamy was trying to act like Trump. But he’s not Trump. Neither is Vance, who oozes insincerity from every pore. They can’t replicate Trump, even if they want to replicate his policies.
If anything, voters are tired of Trump. They are exhausted by the endless me-me-me of Trump as much as they are disgusted with his policies that have set the nation on edge. As Barack Obama put it at a rally in Michigan last Saturday, people are “so sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Ramaswamy’s experience should be a warning sign to the Republican Party of the struggle ahead. What is the GOP without Trump? Can there be Trumpism without him?
It’s not just a matter of attracting the handful of swing voters the party needs to win in core states. Extremism is so much a part of the GOP mainstream that Ramaswamy is hated by the far-right because he is not white and Christian. The same racist line is used against Vance because his wife is Indian American. A segment of the Republican Party, a segment that votes in presidential primaries, wants to make sure that the party is the party of white, Christian (as they define it) people.
Once the midterm dust settles (and Ramaswamy likely goes back to private life), the presidential sweepstakes will start for Trump’s replacement. If anyone thought that this year’s races were especially ugly, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
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