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      Vivek Ramaswamy says he wants Elon Musk to be his presidential adviser

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      The Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has said that he wants Elon Musk as an adviser if he becomes president.The billionaire biotech entrepreneur was in Newton, Iowa, campaigning at a town hall on Friday when he was asked about whom he would want as advisers for his potential presidency.Ramaswamy said in response that he wanted people with a “blank fresh impression” who do not “come from within” the government.“I’ve enjoyed getting to know better, Elon Musk recently, I expect him to be an interesting adviser of mine because he laid off 75% of the employees at Twitter,” NBC reports. “And then the effectiveness actually went up.”In an earlier interview this month with Fox News, Ramaswamy said of the layoffs: “What [Musk] did at Twitter is a good example of what I want to do with the administrative state … Take out the 75% of the dead weight cost, improve the actual experience of what it’s supposed to do.”Ramaswamy’s response on Friday also doubles down on comments he made in February: “Just as @elonmusk did at Twitter, as president I will release the ‘state action files’ from the federal government – exposing every instance where the feds pressured companies to take constitutionally prohibited actions. Roll that log over & see what crawls out. Won’t be pretty.”Since Ramaswamy joined the campaign trail, he has attracted the attention and praise from Musk, who earlier this month said: “He is a very promising candidate.”In response to another tweet in which Ramaswamy repeated his campaign values including “God is real,” “There are two genders,” “Human flourishing requires fossil fuels,” and “Reverse racism is racism,” Musk wrote: “He states his beliefs clearly.”Despite Ramaswamy positioning himself as an “outsider” and accusing his opponents of being “bought and paid for” by various GOP donors, a recent Guardian investigation found that Ramaswamy has deep ties to influential figures on both ends of the political spectrum including Peter Thiel, a rightwing donor and co-founder of PayPal.Ramaswamy’s other ties include Leonard Leo, a prominent rightwing activist currently under investigation in Washington DC over his efforts to install judges on federal courts including the supreme court.Other investigations by ProPublica and Documented have reported that Ramaswamy has delivered speeches at events staged by Teneo, a group chaired by Leo that seeks to “crush liberal dominance” in American life.Earlier this week, Ramaswamy’s campaign told the Associated Press that he had raised $450,000 in the first hours following the GOP primary debate on Wednesday night. More

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      Rich Men North of Richmond singer condemns Republicans after song used in debate

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      Oliver Anthony, the writer and singer of the mega-hit Rich Men North of Richmond, hit out at Republican candidates for president who discussed his song in the debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday.“It was funny seeing my song at that presidential debate. Because I wrote that song about those people, you know, so for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up. It was funny kind of seeing the response to it,” the Virginian said in a statement on Friday.A stark lament over the plight of the working class, Rich Men North of Richmond is top of the Billboard Hot 100, the first song by an artist with no chart history to make No 1.The song has been championed by many on the political right as a populist anti-big-government hymn and criticized by some on the left for its attacks on welfare recipients.In Wisconsin on Wednesday, an excerpt was played at the start of the Republican debate. One Fox News host, Martha MacCallum, said Anthony’s “lyrics speak of alienation, of deep frustration with the state of government and of this country. Washington DC is about 100 miles north of Richmond.”On stage stood seven Republican current or former governors and congressmen and one venture capitalist.McCallum said: “Governor DeSantis, why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now?”Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor running a distant second to Donald Trump, said: “Our country is in decline. This decline is not inevitable. It’s a choice. We need to send Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse American decline.”However, on Friday, Anthony released a 10-minute video, shot in the cab of a truck as heavy rain fell, in which he rejected that answer and denied that he was a conservative figure.“The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up in this. I’m disappointed to see it. Like, it’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me, like I’m one of them.”He added: “That song has nothing to do with Joe Biden. You know, it’s a lot bigger than Joe Biden. That song’s written about the people on that stage and a lot more, not just them.”It was hard, Anthony said, to “get a message out about your political ideology or your belief about the world in three minutes and some change. But I do hate to see that song being weaponized, like I see. I see the right trying to characterize me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me, I guess in retaliation. That’s got to stop.”He said the response to his song had crossed party lines and that he welcomed a diverse audience.“If you watch the response videos on YouTube, it’s not conservative people responding to the song. It’s not even necessarily Americans responding to the song. I don’t know that I’ve seen anything get such positive response from such a diverse group of people. And I think that terrifies the people that I sing about in that song. And they’ve done everything they can in the last two weeks to make me look like a fool. To spin my words. To try to stick me in a political bucket.”Anthony also answered criticism from leftwing sources about lyrics which refer to welfare recipients and depicts some as obese with poor diets.“I do need to address the left as well,” he said, “because they’re sending a message out that … Rich Men North of Richmond is an attack against the poor.”“I do understand there may be some people who misunderstood my words in Rich Men North of Richmond. But I’ve got to be clear that my message … references the inefficiencies of the government because of the politicians within it that are engulfed in bribes and extortion.“The words say that there’s, ‘People on the street with nothing to eat and the obese milking welfare.’ That references a news article I read earlier this summer, that adolescent kids in Richmond [Virginia] are missing meals … because their parents can’t afford to feed them and they’re not in school.“And meanwhile, I think like 30% or 40% of the food bought with welfare EBT money is … like, snack food and soda. I think 10% spent on soda. And I want to say like 20% or 30% spent on junk food.“And that’s not the fault of those people. Welfare only makes up a small percentage of our budget. You know, we can fuel a proxy war in a foreign land” – seemingly a reference to aid to Ukraine – “but we can’t take care of our own. That’s all the song’s trying to say. It’s just saying that the government takes people who are needy and dependent and makes them needy and dependent.” More

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      ‘He’s an insider’: Ramaswamy’s deep ties to rightwing kingpins revealed

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      Vivek Ramaswamy has described himself as an “outsider”, accusing rivals for the Republican presidential nomination of being “bought and paid for” by donors and special interests.But the 38-year-old Ohio-based venture capitalist, whose sharp-elbowed and angry display stood out in the first Republican debate this week, has his own close ties to influential figures from both sides of the political aisle.Prominent among such connections are Peter Thiel, the co-founder of tech giants PayPal and Palantir and a rightwing mega-donor, and Leonard Leo, the activist who has marshaled unprecedented sums in his push to stock federal courts with conservative judges.Ramaswamy is a Yale Law School friend of JD Vance, the author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy who enjoyed success in finance before entering politics. At Yale, Vance and Ramaswamy attended what the New Yorker called an “intimate lunch seminar for select students” that was hosted by Thiel. Last year, backed by Thiel and espousing hard-right Trumpist views, Vance won a US Senate seat in Ohio.Thiel has since said he has stepped back from political donations. But he has backed Ramaswamy’s business career, supporting what the New Yorker called “a venture helping senior citizens access Medicare” and, last year, backing Strive Asset Management, a fund launched by Ramaswamy to attack environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies among corporate investors. Vance was also a backer.Ramaswamy’s primary vehicle to success has been Roivant, an investment company focused on the pharmaceuticals industry founded in 2014.The Roivant advisory board includes figures from both the Republican and Democratic establishments: Kathleen Sebelius, US health secretary under Barack Obama; Tom Daschle of South Dakota, formerly Democratic leader in the US Senate; and Olympia Snowe, formerly a Republican senator from Maine.Ramaswamy’s links to Leo – recently the recipient of a $1.6bn donation from the industrialist Barre Seid, believed to be the biggest ever such gift, but now reportedly the subject an investigation by the attorney general of Washington DC – are many.As reported by ProPublica and Documented, Ramaswamy has spoken at retreats staged by Teneo, a group Leo chairs and which aims to connect high-powered conservatives, to “crush liberal dominance” in American life.Other Teneo speakers have reportedly included Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor polling ahead of Ramaswamy in the Republican primary, and the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who trails Ramaswamy and clashed with him on stage in Milwaukee.ProPublica also linked Thiel to the genesis of the Teneo group. According to a document seen by the Guardian, Ramaswamy became a Teneo member in 2021.Elsewhere, Ramaswamy is a board member of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a group with ties to Leo, and a member of the Federalist Society, the Leo-driven group which works to stock the courts with conservatives.Ramaswamy has also spoken to and received an award from the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), a group of Republican state treasurers.In June, in South Carolina, the Post and Courier newspaper reported that last year, before launching his presidential bid, Ramaswamy attempted “to leverage his [Republican] connections to gain access [for Strive] to lucrative contracts to manage pension funds … [with] total assets of $39.6bn”.Similar pushes were mounted in Missouri and Indiana, the paper said. Curtis Loftis, the South Carolina state treasurer, told the Post and Courier there was “nothing improper” about such approaches.Asked about Ramaswamy’s claims to be an outsider in light of his links to rightwing donors, activists and establishment figures, a campaign spokesperson told the Guardian: “Vivek has lived the American dream and has had tremendous success in business.“There’s a colossal difference between someone who has friendships and business relationships with wealthy individuals and politicians who change their policies and positions to please their Super Pac donors,” they added.In the Wisconsin debate, Ramaswamy flourished in the absence of Donald Trump, the former US president who faces 91 criminal charges but nonetheless leads Republican polling by huge margins.Amid speculation that Ramaswamy might end up Trump’s running mate, Reed Galen, a Republican operative turned co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, called Ramaswamy “a classic 2020s America tech bro bullshit artist … Trump for the 21st century”.Ramaswamy’s claim to be an outsider, Galen said, was part of his “fundamental understanding … that Maga [the pro-Trump Republican base] wants him to show that the rest of these people [in the primary] are politicians. He’s willing to be the showman … the outsider. Anti-establishment. ‘If anything is there, I dislike it because it’s there.’ You know, ‘I’m going to have fun with this. I’m not going to take it seriously because you’re a bunch of hacks and goons.’”But in another sense, regarding Ramaswamy’s ties to the likes of Leo and Thiel, Galen said: “I think that he’s an insider.“He walks into a room with Leonard Leo and says, ‘What do you need me to do?’ … And they’re like, ‘Here’s what we want you to do. Here’s what we need you to do.’ Right?“Do I think [Ramaswamy] cares about [issues like restricting] abortion? No, not particularly. I don’t think he has a firmly held belief on it. But if he thinks that it will help him, and in exchange for that Leonard Leo will throw a little chicken feed of the $1.6bn that old man gave him, to help him? Sure, what the hell?“He didn’t ever think he’d get this far. So now he’s just gonna push it as far as he can.”Ramaswamy, Galen said, was closely tied to a world of donors and non-profits in which Leo is “certainly at the center. And this movement only moves in one direction, and it’s toward the darkness. It’s towards authoritarianism. And it’s because it finds people like Ramaswamy. And the more that all these other candidates will now attack him, they will drive him further and further into the arms of those people.” More

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      The winners and losers of the first GOP debate – podcast

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      Republican presidential candidates took to the stage this week to try to convince voters they should be the one to take on Joe Biden in 2024. There was one notable exception – but Donald Trump was still inescapable for his opponents.
      Joan E Greve speaks to the former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer about everyone’s performance on the night, and whether these debates even matter when the missing frontrunner is so far ahead in the polls

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Trump’s jail spectacle is historic, but it won’t harm him politically

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      One by one this week, they’ve made their way to 901 Rice Street, the address of the notorious Fulton county jail. Lawyers, government officials, a former state party chair and others have all surrendered to authorities after being charged as part of an alleged criminal effort to overturn the 2020 election.On Thursday, the head of that enterprise, Donald Trump, himself surrendered, marking another historic moment for a president who has reshaped the rules of American politics. This is the closest that Trump has been to a jail cell to date and serves as a blunt reminder that no American or former president is above the law.Like nearly everything Trump does, his surrender was orchestrated to be a spectacle. He deliberately timed his surrender, 7.30pm, to maximize cable news coverage. Reporters camped outside the jail all day on Thursday as temperatures reached mid-90s F and Trump supporters gathered for a demonstration. There was wall-to-wall news coverage of Trump’s motorcade and arrival at the jail. While politicians typically try and shift attention away from their criminal legal troubles, Trump has embraced it, feeding into the circuit by advertising his surrender time.Despite Trump’s brashness, the gravity of the moment is underscored by the venue where Trump surrendered. In his other three cases, Trump has surrendered in courthouses and then quickly appeared in a courtroom for an arraignment. On Thursday, he’ll turn himself in at a jailhouse that has been so beset by horrific conditions that it’s under investigation from the Department of Justice. For the first time, he’ll have to post a cash bond – $200,000 – to guarantee his release.In the other three instances, Trump has avoided the indignity of a mugshot. On Thursday, he got one that will be released to the public. For a man who cares deeply about perception, the image released on Thursday by the Fulton county sheriff will be inescapable, forever establishing him as the only president to ever be criminally prosecuted with a mugshot. It is also likely to be one that is forever part of America’s story – a snapshot of the president and a movement who tried to bend American institutions and tested the contours of American governance and the rule of law at every opportunity.In a sense it marks the end of a two-year chapter of investigating Trump’s efforts to lead a coup to overturn the 2020 election results. It also marks the beginning of the next chapter – the trials to convict him.Still, it would be a mistake to assume that the mugshot and the spectacle of Trump’s surrender at jail on Thursday will harm Trump politically. Instead, it is only likely to more deeply entrench support from those who back Trump and believe he is being persecuted.As both a candidate and president, Trump has made the politics of grievance, the feeling of being persecuted and wronged, central to his political identity. Trump is already using his indictments to rally his supporters. When he surrendered in New York earlier this year, officials waived a mugshot. Trump’s campaign quickly released a fake one and began fundraising with it instead.The booking, and the indictment that came before it, is also the latest step in what is likely to be a sustained and nasty battle, both in the public domain and in court, between Trump and Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney. Trump has already attacked Willis, a Democrat and the first Black woman to hold her office, saying – of all things – that she is racist. Willis has not responded to those attacks, and urged those in her office to ignore them, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.“You may not comment in any way on the ad or any of the negativity that may be expressed against me, your colleagues, this office in the coming days, weeks or months,” she wrote in an email earlier this month. “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.”Trump allies, both in Georgia and in Washington DC, have already begun separate efforts to make Willis’s work as difficult as possible. But Willis, who has a reputation for being an aggressive prosecutor, hasn’t blinked. So far, she’s headed off last-ditch efforts by Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, two of Trump’s co-defendants, to avoid surrendering.For all the fanfare of Trump’s surrender, the most significant developments may be what happens far away from Rice Street and the Fulton county courthouse. Trump wields a commanding lead in the polls for the Republican nomination for president.Asked during the first Republican debate on Wednesday if they would support Trump if he was the nominee, nearly all of the candidates said yes. More

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      Vivek Ramaswamy is America’s demagogue-in-waiting | Margaret Sullivan

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      He thinks the climate crisis is a hoax, supports Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and would gladly pardon Donald Trump on day 1 of his would-be presidency. A wealthy biotech entrepreneur, the 38-year-old has never before run for public office.Despite all of this (or maybe because of it), this week’s Republican debate became a national coming-out party for Vivek Ramaswamy.Suddenly, this inexperienced and dangerous showoff is almost a household name.Many in the Republican base ate up his showmanship and blatant fanboying of their hero, Donald Trump. In CNN’s post-debate focus group of Republican voters in Iowa, for example, Ramaswamy got the most favorable response.Trump publicly applauded him. And many in the mainstream media declared him victorious. The Washington Post put him up high in its “winners” column, trailing only behind Donald Trump, who notably wasn’t even there. (Choosing not to enter this particular clown car showed some uncharacteristic good sense on the former president’s part.)The New York Times analyzed the situation under a glowing headline “How Vivek Ramaswamy Broke Through: Big Swings With a Smile”, with emphasis on his style: “unchecked confidence and insults”.For this millennial tech bro, his performance on the Fox News stage in Milwaukee couldn’t have gone much better.As a glimpse of America’s future, it couldn’t have gone much worse.“If you have wondered what Trumpism after Trump looks like, ask no further,” suggested the magazine writer David Freedlander on the social media site formerly known as Twitter. His prediction accompanied a debate stage photo of Ramaswamy with clenched fist.Certainly, he has the essentials covered. No, not foreign policy chops or a background in public service, but a mocking aversion to social justice and equality.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, may talk a good anti-woke game but Ramaswamy wrote the book. His Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, published in 2021, takes aim at the nation’s “new secular religions like Covid-ism, climate-ism and gender ideology”.His night in the spotlight, and its aftermath, shows that neither Republican voters nor many in the mainstream media have learned much since Trump came down the elevator in 2015 and proceeded to wreak havoc on the country.In case there was any doubt, now we know: they will always fall for the attention-seeking, the policy-unencumbered, the candidate quickest with a demeaning insult. That’s a “winner”, apparently.And it’s all too familiar.“Ramaswamy is like Trump in the larva stage, molting toward the full Maga wingspan but not quite there yet,” wrote Frank Bruni in his New York Times newsletter. “His narcissism, though, is fully evolved.”If Ramaswamy’s real aim – other than to bask in his own glorious reflection – is to get Trump to choose him as his running mate, he made progress toward that end.The day before surrendering to Georgia officials on Thursday, the 91-times-indicted former president found time to praise the newcomer’s onstage statements. He was particularly pleased, of course, by Ramaswamy’s labeling Trump as “the best president of the 21st century”.Faint-praise alert: there have been only three others, and two – Barack Obama and Joe Biden – are Democrats. But no matter, since rapturous approval, especially in superlative form – “the hugest inaugural crowd”, etc – has always been the way to Trump’s heart, such as it is.“This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH,” Trump gushed in a social media post.Not everyone in the media, of course, was buying it. Charlie Sykes, editor in chief of the right-leaning Bulwark, was blunt, calling Ramaswamy “facile, clownish, shallow, shameless, pandering”, but, then again, “exactly what GOP voters crave these days”.Given that the Republican party – still firmly in the grip of a twice-impeached con man – has lost its mind, this craving makes a certain amount of sense.But it makes the endless media normalization even more cringe-inducing. Shouldn’t mainstream journalists be able to step back a tiny bit, providing critical distance rather than the same old tricks?How can there be “winners” in yet another milestone on the way to fascism?Losers? That’s easier. I think we already know who they are: Americans who care about democracy.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      Trump on his way to Georgia to surrender at Fulton county jail in election interference case – live

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      From 2h agoDonald Trump has left his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort for Georgia, where he is expected to be formally arrested this evening, CNN reports.The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that a federal judge has set a September 18 hearing for former Donald Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark’s request to remove his case to federal court. Clark has been charged alongside Trump in a 41-count indictment over efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential elections in Georgia.Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie appeared on Morning Joe following Wednesday evening’s debate during which he refused to raise his hand when the presidential candidates were asked whether they would support Donald Trump if he becomes the GOP nominee.Christie spoke about the other candidates who raised their hands, saying: “I can only assume it’s because they’re auditioning for what they’re praying to be a future vice-president nomination or cabinet bid in a Trump administration.”
      The problem for them is that Donald Trump is never going to be president of the United States again … When someone says they’re willing to suspend the constitution, that they took an oath to preserve, protect and defend. That’s just wrong … It’s not a hard answer for them either, but they’re playing a political game.
      As Donald Trump makes his way to Atlanta, Georgia, his former vice-president and current Republican opponent Mike Pence has urged him to join the other candidates in the next GOP debate.Speaking to the Associated Press in a new interview after Wednesday night’s debate, Pence said:
      I believe that this country’s in a lot of trouble and every man and woman who aspires to carry the banner of the Republican party owes it to the American people to get on that stage to answer the tough questions and to articulate their vision for the future of the country and let the voters decide.
      The legal gears continue to grind forward for the other people indicted in Georgia alongside Donald Trump, including Jeff Clark, the former justice department official who has asked to move his trial to federal court.Politico reports that the judge handling his case will hold a hearing on 18 September on the matter:This was the scene as the motorcade of Donald Trump made its way from his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, to the airport in Newark:Squint through the gloomy Newark, New Jersey weather in this Sky News footage and you can see the flashing lights of what appears to be Donald Trump’s motorcade arriving at the plane that will take him to Georgia:Donald Trump has arrived at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, where he will board his flight to face arrest in Atlanta, CNN reports.In his order to begin Kenneth Chesebro’s trial on 23 October, Judge Scott McAfee noted that the schedule does not apply to anyone else.“At this time, these deadlines do not apply to any co-defendant,” the judge wrote. That’s good news for the 18 other people indicted by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, including Donald Trump, whose lawyers are currently trying to get his case moved to federal court, which could delay it for months – potentially long enough for him to win his race for the White House.Kenneth Chesebro, another of Donald Trump’s attorneys who advised him on his plot to overturn his 2020 election loss, requested a speedy trial after being indicted in Georgia, and it appears his wish has been granted.The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the judge handling his case has said Chesebro’s trial will begin on 23 October – as Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis had proposed:When Donald Trump appears at the Rice Street jail in Atlanta this evening, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that he will be treated like any other defendant. That includes having his mugshot taken, and his height and weight recorded:Donald Trump was expected to surrender at the Fulton county jail on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, yielding to the criminal justice process in Georgia that will involve him being processed like any other defendant.The former president’s arrival in Georgia follows a presidential debate featuring his main rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination, a race in which Trump remains the overwhelmingly dominant frontrunner despite his many legal troubles.Trump had his legal team negotiate his booking to take place during the primetime viewing hours for the cable news networks, as he sought to discredit the charges and distract from the indignity of the surrender by turning it into a spectacle.But Trump was expected to be booked by authorities without the special privileges afforded to him in his other criminal cases, being subject to a mugshot that he had desperately sought to avoid, having his fingerprints taken, as well as having his height and weight recorded.Trump faced his fourth indictment since leaving office when he was charged in a 41-count indictment by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, last week, that described Trump and 18 allies as having engaged in a criminal enterprise to reverse his 2020 election defeat.Donald Trump has left his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort for Georgia, where he is expected to be formally arrested this evening, CNN reports.In a post on his Truth social account, Donald Trump said he expected to be arrested in Georgia at 7.30pm eastern time, and fired off his typical string of insults at Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis.Here it is, in full:
      231,000,000 Views, and still counting. The Biggest Video on Social Media, EVER, more than double the Super Bowl! But please excuse me, I have to start getting ready to head down to Atlanta, Georgia, where Murder and other Violent Crimes have reached levels never seen before, to get ARRESTED by a Radical Left, Lowlife District Attorney, Fani Willis, for A PERFECT PHONE CALL, and having the audacity to challenge a RIGGED & STOLEN ELECTION. THE EVIDENCE IS IRREFUTABLE! ARREST TIME: 7:30 P.M. More

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      The Guardian view on the US Republican debate: stumped by Trump | Editorial

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      Donald Trump stayed away from Wednesday’s Republican candidates’ debate in Milwaukee. Yet he remained the evening’s dominant presence. The former president’s poll lead among Republican supporters for the 2024 US presidential contest is so strong that he could afford to do this. His absence deliberately belittled both the televised event, as he simultaneously gave an imperiously misleading social media interview to Tucker Carlson, and his eight challengers, who were left vying to impress in a fantasy “What if?” contest over the choice for a party not in fact dominated by Mr Trump.Absence also allowed Mr Trump, on the eve of his latest court appearance in Atlanta and now facing 91 felony counts in four separate criminal cases, to avoid offering himself as a target to his eight rivals. Not that he need have worried about that. Most of them went out of their way all evening to pay him repeated homage. No one did this more shamelessly than the Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who told the audience both that Mr Trump was the best Republican president of the 21st century and that, if elected, Mr Ramaswamy would instantly pardon him for whatever he may have been convicted of in the meantime.By identifying deliberately with Mr Trump’s outsider status, Mr Ramaswamy did two things. He made a bid to be Mr Trump’s running-mate next year and he also separated himself from the platform’s professional politicians. These seven all see themselves, with varying degrees of credibility, as the alternative candidate to Mr Trump. Their shared problem is that the party shows little sign of being interested in such a person. Certainly not in the former vice-president Mike Pence, whose certification of Joe Biden’s victory in January 2021 was supported by most of his fellow candidates but remains heretical to Trump supporters. And probably not in the Florida governor Ron DeSantis either, who entered the debate as the nominal chief rival to Mr Trump but who once again did relatively little to cement that claim.There were, nevertheless, clashes and revealing evasions. Mostly, however, they were over the degree of ferocity that the candidates would bring to promoting the party’s priorities rather than over whether the priorities were desirable in themselves. One bidding war of this kind focused on militarising the US’s southern border. Another on rolling back the Biden administration’s climate crisis agenda. A third came over entrenching an abortion ban at federal level, a pledge from which the sole woman in the debate, Nikki Haley, demurred. One striking divergence came on Ukraine, whose defence, for Republicans like Mr Ramaswamy, runs counter to the isolationism that Mr Trump has made integral to America First rhetoric, but which for older politicians like Chris Christie and Mr Pence remains a geopolitical commitment that must be honoured.In the past, candidates’ debates have sometimes had dynamic political consequences. Not this time. The Republican party is too far gone for that. It is too dominated by Mr Trump. It is too obsessed with talking to its own echo chamber. It is too fanatical about its agenda. It is too dependent on electoral dark arts. The net result is that it has won the popular vote in US presidential contests only once since 1988. This week’s debate was a mealy-mouthed and discreditable event that changes nothing. The Republican party needs the courage to call out Mr Trump and his lies and take a new path. But there was no inkling of that in Milwaukee. More