I think this guy is a rock-star. Successful, charismatic, well-spoken. The whole nine yards.
Regardless of whether you agree with his politics, do you think he can realistically snatch the republican nom from the Donald who seems to be the favorite by a long shot?
He's a much more inspiring figure than a robot like De Santis or than Donald who, while entertaining, seems significantly less sharp and is a bit of a geriatric.
No lol
Elaborate.
Like it or not, Trump is getting the nomination - the issue here is that Trump has 40-50% of the Republican base locked in - if there were only 1-2 other candidate(s) running against him, those other candidates would have a chance, but as with many of the most recent primaries, for both Democrats and Republicans, there are just far too many names on the ballot and name recognition is going to carry hard. I believe most everyone except Trump, DeSantis and Vivek will drop out almost immediately and then Trump will eventually break away. I think Vivek has a decent shot of being Trump’s running mate - it’ll likely be him, Nikki Haley, or Tim Scott.
This makes sense to be honest. Vivek however has stated he will not take the VP position so taking it would be a big blow to his credibility and approach as an all-or nothing outsider with no political angle but pure patriotism.
This could be true - but I’ve never recalled a presidential candidate saying they are “gunning” for VP, so we’ll have to see how it plays out
Just heard FJT asked Vivek to be his running mate
Inevitable he will kill pakis and deport Mexicans
Still supporting Ramiswamay he's the step in better direction for Merica
He has said he wouldn't take it publicly. Taking it would be a big blow to his credibility.
Then he’ll become just like them: a politician
Seeing a real push with him and a lot of people are saying he can capture some of the democratic polling but too soon for him. He also puts out some crazy takes like completely abandoning the DOE and “putting education into the parent’s hands”.
That being said, I watched his commencement speech from 2021 yesterday and was really inspired. Guy knows how to talk and really worked his way up.
This isn't a crazy take, though, this is basically mainstream Republican orthodoxy at this point. The baseline opinion for the GOP as a whole is that any solution is better than government involvement, and when you mix that in with the far more meaningful (for their base) messaging around culture wars, the idea that public education and uniform standards are a bad thing is pretty much the GOP platform.
Why is putting education into the parents hands a crazy take?
Nothing remotely extreme about abolishing DOE. Just another high cost, negative benefit bureaucracy.
Some think it’s important because it has the word education in it. They’re the same ones who thought Biden’s Ministry of Truth was a brilliant idea.
I don't get all the downvoting seriously. It seems people would prefer to throw monkey shit than have a discussion. I wish someone knowledgeable would give their take on Vivek's plan to abolish DOE. It's one of his policy points I'm not super familiar with.
Really cannot see the hype around him. Sure he's smart and had a very successful entrepreneurial, academic and financial career. But he's nothing more than a MAGA-grifting, slogan-shouting shill. Does he have any policy or vision for being President (I know it's too early)? The only ones I can think of are allowing Russia to take Ukrainian territory, reducing funding to Israel, denying climate change and saying let's only defend Taiwan till it's no longer mutually beneficial for the US. Haley schooled him on his inexperience, sure he's not part of the political class but he's definitely got the background that MAGA supporters will dislike. His policies aren't even isolationist, they're just plain red meat to the MAGA strata vote base. Lastly, I recommend a book called, 'The Sovereign Individual' - it explains this Hedge Fund, isolationist vision which in my mind explains a Wall-Street, entrepreneurial turned supposedly anti-establishment figure like Vivek.
You seriously can’t understand the hype around a competent independent person surrounded in n stage by foolish paid shills? OK.
He strikes me as very incompetent tbh. His foreign policy and climate change stances especially.
Thanks for your opinion. I have a few questions to ask in good faith.
First, for Taiwan he has said he wants to clearly state that the US will defend Taiwan until semiconductor independence and then pivot back to strategic ambiguity, which is the current status quo. Do you find this to be silly? Basically make it extra clear to China it will not take Taiwan without the US intervening at least until the US has chip independence and then going back to strategic ambiguity, which is favored by all the other politicians currently. That would actually make Vivek one of the rare politicians to actually announce the US will defend Taiwan.
For Ukraine, do you think a negotiation is not the right solution? Realistically Ukraine is having a really bad time time trying to take back territory. Do you think it is better to keep sacrificing young Ukrainians and Russians, cause global inflation and famines in Africa, and spend billions of US taxpayer money for little progress towards a potentially unachievable goal? Not to mention prolonging this conflict increases the probability of escalation and more countries being dragged into the conflict. Do you not see the utility in having Putin save a bit of face so we can maybe disentangle him from China so that they don't have a combined 6k+ nukes between them and to also put an end to the conflict? A hard condition of a peace agreement would be for Russia to cease its joint military activities with China.
Also vis a vis Taiwan getting Russia out of China's arms would maybe make China less bold in their ambition to invade Taiwan. I do think Russia has gotten royally fucked by this conflict in so many ways and that they are unlikely to start a new one if a compromise with strong conditions can be found.
For climate change he has said he believes climate change is a real phenomenon but that:
1. The US is one of the cleaner energy producers (and will continue to become cleaner) and it's really the African countries, China, and India that will be the big polluters of the next decade.
2. Not tapping into fossil fuels will put the US at an economic disadvantage compared to other countries that will use fossil fuels, harming US competitiveness while doing nothing to reduce the bulk of emissions coming from other countries
For Israel, he has said he wants to create a new accord between Israel and Arab countries (including Saudi, Qatar etc) in order to then reduce funding (which won't be necessary any more- but obviously only after the Arab nations and Israel find peace)
Any thoughts? These are his talking points.I do think his views are misrepresented a bit on here. But if you have any opinions I'd be happy to hear.
Not a chance. This total dweeb will be completely gone once all his funding is revealed and the Republicans understand who he really is.
Where is his funding from? I thought he was mostly self-funded with some small donor support.
Vivek is basically the Republican Andrew Yang, which means he has no chance. Even he knows he has no chance. His best shot is just going out there and making a name for himself, which he's actually doing quite a good job of.so far
WEF shill. Even tried to cover it up by suing them.
I thought he had a shot. Then he did that stupid Eminem clip. Surprised it hasnt totally sank him, it’s exactly the sort of gaffe that ends a campaign.
He is obviously a lot smarter than the other candidates, despite that moment of foolishness. Would be nice to see him get more traction
(1) No.
(2) Pretty yikes you think he is a rock star
Harvard, Hedge Fund, Start-up billionaire commercializing life saving drugs. Why is he not a rock-star?
I see. You are one of those. I guess we can take these one at a time then. I’ll start with basic questions and we can go from here.
(1) Going to Harvard doesn’t mean anything. It has nothing to do with the quality of a person or one’s competence. I will give you a very easy to understand example: do you believe that creating a legal basis for segregation is a good thing?
(2)What was Vivek’s rate of return on his investments at the first hedge fund he worked at? What is his rate of return out of his new fund?
(3) What are Vivek’s specific contributions to his healthcare company?
(4) “start-up billionaire”
So Elizabeth Holmes is a rock star by your standards.
Lol you are so condescending. But perhaps you know more than me so go ahead and tell me why none of his achievements are valid whatsoever.
Bear in mind it's easy to nit-pick and rationalize why someone's achievements are in fact unimpressive. I've met people like you at every step of my life when things went right for me "He got lucky and x,y,z"
Vivek has gotten FDA approvals for life-saving drugs he commercialized how is that comparable to Holmes who was a total hack?
Seriously. Like why are we cherry picking examples to prove that a plainly impressive person isn’t impressive. What kind of logic is this. Make it make sense.
(1) When you say stupid things, and double down on it, you will get made fun of. If that makes you uncomfortable you should probably stop doing it in the first place.
(2) Interesting. You can’t answer a single one of those questions. You say he is a rock star. These are really basic questions you should be able to answer if you are basing your claim, that he’s a rock star, in reality. But you don’t because you can’t because you are simping over an idea of a person instead of who the person actually is.
(3) “Vivek has FDA approvals for live-saving drugs he commercialized.”
(i) What are the names of these drugs and what were his specific contributions to getting them approved by the FDA? (ii) What did Vivek himself do to commercialize these drugs?
I know you won’t be able to answer these questions because you don’t actually know what Vivek has done as all you do is like the idea of him, not who he actually is. But, I might as well ask these questions to continue beating on this point.
(4) “how is that comparable to Holmes who is a total hack?”
Interesting. I quoted exactly what I was referring to and you are lying about what I was responding to. Pay attention and respond to what I am actually saying. I very specifically articulated the comparison by providing the exact language you used that I was responding to.
Pay. Attention. To. Your. Own. Words.
(5) “I’ve met people like you at every step of my life when things went right for me he got lucky and x,y,z lol.” (internal quotations omitted).
(i) Thank you for unironically proving that you are actually one of those people that I referred to previously. You actually are the meme. Congrats.
(ii) Literally at no point was I ever talking about you. I get you need to run away from the conversation because you are wrong, you know you are wrong, and you are too immature to acknowledge this. That’s fine. But don’t expect me to not accurately identify that this is what you are doing.
(6) So are you going to answer my original 4 questions or are you going to continue proving my point?
You are clearly someone who is unable to have a civil conversation if you quickly become so vituperative towards someone you have minor disagreements with over the internet. In that regard you are the meme, "that guy" or whatever condescending bullshit reference you want to use to stroke your ill-founded sense of superiority.
(1) Don't see what's stupid about thinking someone has an impressive background and is a very eloquent and charismatic public speaker with some good political ideas. Also consider the fact that people on this website are busy and might not want to invest a lot of time writing lengthy paragraphs online arguing with people.
Going to Harvard is an impressive achievement to me. Maybe you don't think so but I do. I don't think creating a legal basis for segregation is a good thing. Vivek was a highly ranked tennis player, valedictorian, and graduated Summa Cum Laude. That's impressive to me and shows he deserved his place at Harvard.
(2) Vivek became a partner at QVT relatively quickly so I can assume that's because he was competent. He made several successful investments in companies like Tesaro, Agios, and Vertex. I might not have all the information regarding his exact returns but I can infer from his career progression, good investments, and personal success that he was a competent investor. I'm sure he had setbacks also like everyone else.
(3) Ropeginteferon, Sifalimumab. Vivek literally founded and was CEO of the company that commercialized these drugs. I assume he played an important role in getting these drugs to market. The exacts are not publicly available but I can assume that as CEO he played a role in setting strategy, picking promising opportunities / drugs to explore, raising capital etc. What kind of question is this anyways? The CEO (assuming he is not just a puppet) deserves credit for his company's success no? Unless you think he just smokes cigars all day while his oppressed employees do all the work?
(4) You are too hasty to assume things about people based on limited information. That's your mistake. I said I admired him because he went to Harvard, worked at a Hedge Fund and was a start-up billionaire to be concise. That was an abridged version of my full impression of him since we are talking on A CASUAL FORUM. We're not at court and I'm not under oath and I don't feel compelled to give you all the details vis a vis my values and criteria for judging people.
(5) This is WSO dude I'm not proof-reading anything. Get a life. This isn't the UN we're here to have casual conversations not discuss famines in Africa. Dipshit.
I'll give you my advice (although I am sure it will fall on deaf ears). Try not to assume you know everything about someone based on limited context, information or interaction. Humans are more complex than that and trying to dumb them down is a defensive mechanism you have that protects you from seeing the humanity and nuance in people who disagree with you.
Angriest man on WSO right here. And that’s saying something
Trump is dominating in every poll. His only slight chance is if Trump gets imprisoned by the regime
Personally I don't see him winning, but I like how he's moving the conversation in a productive discussion. I supported Trump in 2016 and 2020 but I'd like new leadership for a number of reasons, plus I just see a Trump vs. Biden rematch as a big turn-off for independent voters. Either way, I'd like to see more Viveks and less Nikki Haleys or Asa Hutchinsons
I would challenge any Vivek supporter to actually look at his track record. He is a classic grifter. He is a classic example of a person who has a unique talent with words to get people on his side. No doubt this has helped him become rich, but you should look beyond him saying a bunch of stuff that sounds good. He clearly has adopted a Trump approach and is really just a repackaging of the same product as Trump.
If you thought Trump was an effective president, then it’s because you think the republican agenda is effective. Make no mistake that despite all the “drain the swamp” grifting bullshit Trump did, real Republican politicians were behind the scenes actually getting the work done that was effective.
Trump & Vivek are talkers, and good ones, but literal dogshit for our country. I’d take anyone on the stage outside him, and challenge republicans not to fall for another a Trump all talk bullshitter.
You're not the first to say this. Can you please explain why he is a grifter per his track record?
Can you please also elaborate on why you think he has poor policy ideas?
I will not vote for anyone other than Trump, under any circumstance. I won't watch the Republican debates at all if Trump doesn't participate.
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