The Cognitive Dissonance (or Lack Thereof) of Ohio Republican Leaders
Donald Trump never hesitates to call out fellow Republicans past and present who failed America. Vivek Ramaswamy should too when it comes to Ohio. He should start with John Kasich and Mike DeWine.
"Cognitive dissonance" is the psychological discomfort people feel when they hold two or more conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors simultaneously. Ohio Republican leaders should feel cognitive dissonance, but don’t because the Ohio media, Republican voters, and donors don’t make them feel it. I know, I know I sound like a bitter ex-candidate who was rejected by Ohioans and I am to some degree, especially given that my agenda for governor is largely being adopted by Vivek Ramaswamy (I think—more on that below). At least, unlike some, I admit it. I just lacked his television exposure and hundreds of millions to throw at both getting that television exposure and running for office. Ohio Republicans love the star factor that comes with being on Fox News. I have a term for it, but I can’t use it in this fora.
Nonetheless, on top of the perpetual denials about the weakness of Ohio’s private sector, it is very hard to swallow some of the comments coming out of Ohio Republicans leaders about Ramaswamy’s campaign as it relates to him “fixing” Ohio. To be clear, I am not criticizing Ramaswamy, as I remain cautiously optimistic about him; rather, I am criticizing those around him. Specifically, from this Fox News article here are some select quotes:
Jai Chabria, Chief Strategist for Vivek Ramaswamy (and J.D. Vance):
"He said Ohioans who once trusted traditional Democratic leadership are embracing Ramaswamy’s message of economic growth and new ideas after decades of disappointment. In his view, voters are leaving behind "a tired model" that did not deliver and are backing someone who represents prosperity and reform.”
"I think, like many people in Ohio who were promised one thing under these institutions, and by institutions I mean people that have been elected over and over and over again and didn't deliver for people, I think people are coming to see that someone else with fresh ideas is what they need to invest in rather than the tired old model that didn't deliver for the state.”
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou:
“Stressed that Ramaswamy’s agenda has broad working-class appeal, citing his proposals on manufacturing, education and eliminating the state income tax to make Ohio more competitive. He said those ideas speak directly to middle-class Ohioans, including union workers, postal employees and delivery drivers, who could benefit from lower taxes and better economic conditions.”
"At 40, Ramaswamy represents "a new era of leadership," Triantafilou said, contrasting him with Ryan, whom he described as emblematic of Democrats focused on cultural debates rather than the economic concerns of ordinary voters.”
Note the bolded and underlined parts of the above quotes. It strikes me as incredibly odd and disingenuous to make those claims knowing that REPUBLICANS have controlled Ohio almost entirely since 1992 except for three years in the Ohio House in 1992-1994, two years in the Ohio House in 2009-2010, and one gubernatorial term in 2007-2010. If Ohio is broken, who may I ask Chabria and Triantafilou broke it? Ohio needs to be fixed because Republicans broke it and have failed to fix it, not because Democrats did either act or omission. The 40-year-old Ramaswamy does represent a potential “new era of leadership”—not because he is being compared in the Fox News piece to 52-year-old Democrat Tim Ryan; rather, it is because he will be replacing 78-year-old Republican Mike DeWine who replaced 66-year-old Republican John Kasich.
Not to be snarky, but Chabria was a long-time Kasich aide dating back to his college days at Ohio State who spent most of Kasich’s gubernatorial tenure as a top advisor, so the fixes that were not delivered and decades of disappointment include his old boss’s eight years as governor. People like me who called the spade a spade during the Kasich and DeWine eras have been ostracized and condemned by the Republican Establishment, with our donors ordered to cut us off. Chabria and I crossed swords several times during the Kasich era because I had the audacity to mildly criticize Kasich’s budget proposals and oppose his proposed tax increases that grew government (Medicaid expansion), sought to raise taxes (severance tax hikes which we defeated the four times he pushed it), failed to reduce spending (see the chart below), created the failing JobsOhio to pick winners and losers, and, equally as troubling, failed to contain or sustain core conservative policies Ohio desperately needed to escape its downward terminal velocity. I am thrilled to see Chabria has now come around to my positions and eagerly look forward to seeing much of my agenda for Ohio pushed by Ramaswamy. The number of Saul-to-Paul conversions on the road to Damascus that have occurred among some Ohio Republicans since 2016 is encouraging.
I just wish they would throw us a bone every now and again by donating to the vital work that we do in crafting the policies they now appear to embrace and which they ignored from 2009 to 2025. Hey all you Saul-Pauls, please hit the donate button above and render unto Opportunity Ohio what should have been rendered years ago. On that note, isn’t it interesting that politicians and their staffers rarely support groups like Opportunity Ohio that do all of the policy spade work so they have well-developed policies to enact? Just look at their public disclosures and tax returns. You won’t find any donations to The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Opportunity Ohio, or any other policy development group. Thankfully, many of you do support our critical work so there are prepackaged policies for politicians to adopt when they finally get around to doing something.
In terms of Ramaswamy’s agenda for Ohio, his website still is fairly thin on details, so I’m not sure what proposals folks are referring to other than whatever he has stated in speeches, which are inherently bereft of details and some of which he has moved away from (i.e., he called for eliminating property taxes in his launch speech, but now calls for reforms to slow the growth of property taxes). I, for one, will be grateful when Ramaswamy issues a detailed policy agenda for Ohio similar to what I released when I launched my exploratory run for governor in 2023 (see the above agenda). I think voters deserve detailed, clear proposals on what you want to do before expecting them to vote for you, especially when voters have no track record upon which to judge you.
I understand Ramaswamy and his team have to tread lightly when it comes to criticizing the weak stewardship and failed tenures of DeWine, Kasich, Jon Husted, and the various Ohio Speakers and Senate Presidents who rejected fifteen years of Reaganesque, bold color policy recommendations from me and other conservative leaders. Treading lightly, however, shouldn’t mean blaming Democrats who have been and are blameless for being in the ditch Ohio was driven into by Republican acts and omissions. Trump never hesitates to call out fellow Republicans past and present who failed/fail America. Ramaswamy should too when it comes to Ohio. He should start with Kasich and DeWine. It would be disappointing if he didn’t.
P.S. When I was raising my kids, there were a few lessons that seemed to pop up with regularity. All involved taking shortcuts or rushing. My messages to them in those moments were these:
Speed over accuracy is never a smart choice;
Being done first doesn’t matter if you don’t also do well;
Just because you tell someone you accomplished something doesn’t mean you did if you didn’t actually do it;
If you don’t do the work, you won’t improve, which only hurts you; and
Failure to put in the work will come out when you are put to the test.
Most of these lessons involved sports or insignificant things like how many steps taken as measured by a FitBit (e.g., my son when young would swing his arm back and forth while sitting then brag about the steps he had (not) taken). I fear the use of ChatGPT and grade inflation in our K-12 schools and higher education institutions are like my son swinging his arm for the FitBit. Both equate to getting the work done without doing the work and being given grades that weren’t earned. We live in the era where kids take tests and get to take unlimited retests if they didn’t get a good grade. An “A” just isn’t an “A” anymore.
Ultimately, kids who use ChatGPT and parents who think the grades their kids get accurately reflects their acquisition of knowledge will be in for a rude awakening when those kids face tests to determine knowledge for which they can’t use ChatGPT. In most cases, that test will be the SAT, ACT, AP exams, LSAT, MCAT, or GRE. Those scores are going down, as report card grades keep going up. For others, that test will be an assignment at work that requires actual writing, comprehension, analysis, and presentation skills for which the young adult will be woefully underprepared to do. If you want your kid to truly succeed, do everything you can to warn them off of using ChatGPT. It was bad enough when we realized that smartphones actually make us dumber. It will be catastrophic when we learn that artificial intelligence leaves us substantively brain dead.
