Brendan Stern

As a political scientist and a debate coach, I have sadistic ambitions that my 8-year-old son will enjoy political theater as much as I do, so I let him stay up late to watch the first GOP presidential debate with me live on TV. 

It was an eye-opening experience.  

Over a week later, the main takeaway seems to be that Vivek Ramaswamy is breaking through as somebody who’s charming and obnoxious, happy and cynical, articulate and ignorant all at once. I believe that my son’s observations offer additional insight.

In the mold of Vivek’s so-called “sacred and undeniable truths,” here are five truths about the 2024 presidential election:

#1) Body language is king. Minutes into the debate, my deaf son turned to me and signed, “I have a crush on Vivek.” 

“Why?”

My son imitates him without words and signs, gesticulating like an Italian street hawker at the Borghetto Flaminio Market, blending theatricality, joy, humor, vigor, command, and boldness.   

According to studies, up to 90% of communication is done with body language, with the rest consisting of those measly little things we call words. 

Vivek gets it.  

In contrast, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence looked like they were going into rigor mortis on TV. 

My son doesn’t have a crush on them.  

#2) Identity matters. A fourth through the debate, my son pointed at Nikki Haley, asking if she would be the first woman president in U.S. history if she won. I nodded. Then, Haley claimed that we ought to ask women if we want something done. 

For all the negative chatter about ‘identity politics’ by Republicans, it is real, inevitable, and here to stay, no matter the party affiliation. 

A day later, it hit me that – unlike in 2016 – none of my family, friends, or colleagues had mentioned that this year’s only female presidential candidate would finally break that glass ceiling. 

It is safe to say that identity politics in the 2024 presidential election will continue to be more convoluted and omnipresent than critics and defenders wish to admit.  

#3) Hearing people are weird. Halfway through the debate, my son asked why hearing people move their hands while they talk. “Because hearing people need to keep their hands busy,” I answered. I then asked him to imagine how awkward it would be to speak with frozen extremities, elaborating on the necessity of body language. 

Minutes later, he turns to me and asks, “Deaf people do the same thing. We move our mouths when we sign. Is this called mouth language?”

I giggled like a 13-year-old watching Basic Instinct, thinking of all the new signers who sign as if their mouths were stapled shut, believing with the best of intentions that’s how deaf people sign.

#4) The GOP resembles a house at Hogwarts. When the moderator asked the candidates to raise their hands if they would vote for Trump if he was convicted but still won the GOP nomination, and when Vivek’s hand shot up like a cannon, only to be followed by all others except for Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, my son turned to me. He asked if the GOP was like Slytherin. 

Ouch.

#5) The beer test is real. The beer test is a popular theory about the role of personality and likability in electoral politics and how voters will choose the candidate they prefer to have a beer with.

While I have not polled voters about whom they would rather have a beer with, Vivek has clinched the Lego test after my son watched his ‘debate prep’ video in which he tries to murder tennis balls without a t-shirt. 

In 1966, Ronald Reagan said politics is just like show business. 56 years later today, it’s even more accurate. Nobody wants to drink an IPA with a Stoic, play Legos with the Grim Reaper, or vote for a bore. 

The sooner our most qualified and responsible candidates understand this by gesticulating like Italians, proclaiming that women are more capable than men, exhibiting the goodness of Gryfinndor, and posting bombastic short videos, the better off our country will be.    

According to my truth-telling 8-year-old, at least.