Vivek Ramaswamy Thinks BuzzFeed Should Re-Brand Itself By Hiring Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson & Aaron Rodgers
Written by djfrosty on May 30, 2024
Source: David Dee Delgado / Getty
Former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy may not, at the moment, be the major player in Republican politics that he started to become before dropping out of the Republican primary race in January, but he appears to have turned his sights toward American media, which he appears to want to make great again by increasing the platforms of some of the most ignorant and least informed talking heads in right-wing “news.”
According to Variety, Ramaswamy disclosed in a filing last week that he owns 7.7% of BuzzFeed’s stock, and in a letter dated May 27 to BuzzFeed’s board of directors, he said he now holds a 8.37% stake in the company “and I continue to increase my position.” And because he reportedly owns less than 9% of what Variety described as a failing media company’s stock, he has grand ideas about how he can improve the company as the self-proclaimed authority on how to turn a media company around, which includes firing the current staff and hiring people who aren’t very smart but definitely share many of his points of view.
“BuzzFeed has lost its way,” Ramaswamy wrote in the letter. “I own your stock because I believe BuzzFeed can still become a more valuable company than at its initial listing, but this requires a major shift in strategy.”
Now, to be fair, Ramaswamy isn’t only recommending that BuzzFeed hire conservative journalists and pundits, he wants the company to hire talent from “across the political and cultural spectrum.” Still, it’s pretty revealing that the examples of conservative voices he wants to see hired include Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Aaron Rodgers. Sure, it’s true that the pool of halfway smart right-wing pundits has more pee in it than the dating pool, but certainly Ramaswamy can do better than a MAGA mammy who thinks diversity is anti-white cisgender straight male supremacy (and that that’s a bad thing), an ex-Fox News host who got big mad because cartoon M&M mascots aren’t as “sexy” as they used to be, and an NFL quarterback who thinks he knows more than medical experts about the efficacy of vaccines.
Of course, it isn’t terribly surprising the Ramaswamy wants more factless, pseudointellectual bigots and buffoons at the helm of BuzzFeed’s media sites. This is, after all, the guy who nodded along like an idiot while loud and proud white nationalist Ann Coulter told him to his face that she would never have voted for him because “you’re an Indian.” Also, coming from the guy who thinks Juneteenth is a “redundant” holiday because MLK Day already exists—and is a proponent of the white nationalist “great replacement theory,” despite the fact that brown people like himself are the very people white conservatives are afraid of being replaced by—it isn’t surprising that he believes political diversity is much more important than racism diversity in a media company.
But the guy who baselessly claimed the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was an inside job and that critical race theory is a “secular religion” and also “psychological slavery for children” is now telling BuzzFeed it should “distinguish yourself from competitors by openly admitting your past journalistic failures and redefine BuzzFeed’s brand around the pursuit of truth,” not that he would know anything about truth or journalism.