Ramaswamentum is a product of Bored Journalist Syndrome

A charlatan for our time

The 2016 Republican Party presidential primary was one of the craziest, most thrilling political stories of my career.

Yet zooming out, it actually seems kind of boring. Donald Trump started out with high name recognition and a high level of support, and he maintained that high level of support, gradually gaining from multiple directions until he locked up the primary. Now of course the real story was more complicated than “the frontrunner won,” but that’s still basically what happened. Similarly, even though there was a crazy swing in the 2020 Democratic Party between New Hampshire and South Carolina, that was a very brief period in a very long campaign, the story of which was essentially “Joe Biden has been ahead the whole time.”

By the same token, I think the current surge of interest in Vivek Ramaswamy’s candidacy — like the earlier surge of RFK Jr. coverage — bears all the hallmarks of what I call Bored Journalist Syndrome.