I am going to start by noting that I am not accusing Ramaswamy of being in the Epstein files or personally covering them up. I make that point below, but MAGA folks don’t read well, so I better make the point right up front. So with that out of the way, I’ll start.
Vivek Ramaswamy is campaigning to become Governor of Ohio. He is running against Democrat Amy Acton.
Ramaswamy’s campaign is spending millions of dollars promoting an ad in which Ms. Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, asserts that Ms. Acton has lied about her childhood–a childhood, according to Ms. Acton, in which she and her brother faced homelessness, neglect, and abuse, and in which, Ms. Acton alleges, she was raped at age 12 by Ms. Arthur’s husband, Cledith Arthur (Ms. Acton’s stepfather).
If you believe Acton’s mother, none of this occurred, despite the facts that Mr. Arthur was, in fact, indicted for Amy Acton’s rape, and Ms. Arthur and Mr. Arthur fled the state, rather than fight for vindication in a court of law. Mr. Arthur died in 2004, never having faced trial.
Mr. Acton’s brother has confirmed that he and Amy Acton were removed from their mother’s custody and had been abused, noting that Amy Acton bore “the worst” of the abuse.
In the interests of full disclosure, I acknowledge that I believe Ms. Acton and her brother and give no credence–none–to a woman who appears to have neglected her children, chosen her alleged rapist husband over her children, and decided to join her husband who became a fugitive in order to escape accountability for what happened to her children.
But let’s say you aren’t sure what the truth is. Let’s say you think that it all happened a long time ago and, as noted, Mr. Arthur’s guilt or innocence was never adjudicated. And let’s say, you want to overlook the fact that Mr. Arthur’s case was never adjudicated because he went on the lam, jumping bail.
Even with all these doubts, would you choose to believe the woman who chose the side of the alleged abuser? Would you choose to capitalize on your doubts (which appear to have no basis at all, but we’ll put that to one side) and run ads accusing your opponent, who may have been raped as a child, of fabricating her harrowing tale? Would you choose to ignore an alleged witness (Ms. Acton’s brother) and not even ask him about the matter before running an ad in which Ms. Arthur self-servingly claims that none of the abuse, neglect, or sexual violence happened?
Of course you wouldn’t. Nor would any normal person–even a normal Republican candidate for Governor. But these aren’t normal times, and Mr. Ramaswamy is, apparently, not a normal candidate.
To the contrary, in these times, we have a President who still won’t release the Epstein files and a candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, who, like Trump himself, called for the release of the Epstein files during the runup to the 2024 election, but who has since gone silent on the issue.
Trump and Ramaswamy are people who, at one time, seemed to claim to care about victims of sexual violence–when they could exploit such claims for electoral advantage. But then they turned on those victims when it suited their interests.
To be clear, as far as I know, Mr. Ramaswamy is in no way implicated in the misdeeds involving Epstein. But with his despicable ad against Ms. Acton, he betrays the same kind of entitlement, cruelty, and moral depravity that characterize the men who actually appear as perpetrators in the Epstein files and that characterize those in the Trump Administration who have sought to prevent the release of those files to the public.
I hope the voters of Ohio recognize just who Vivek Ramaswamy has revealed himself to be and reject him and his disgusting–and immoral–brand of politics.