Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire entrepreneur, successful biotech investor and scourge of awakened ideology, has set out to become President of the United States. On February 21, the 37-year-old announced his Republican candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. He accompanied the video announcement with a concurrent Wall Street Journal op-ed, explaining that he is being driven by what he describes as a “national identity crisis.”
“We hunger for meaning in a moment when faith, patriotism and hard work are on the wane. We embrace secular religions like climatism, covidism and gender ideology to satisfy our need for meaning, but we cannot answer what it means to be American,” Ramaswamy wrote in his commentary, adding in his video message: ” We’ve become so obsessed with our diversity and our differences that we’ve forgotten all the things in which we really are the same as Americans.”
Ramaswamy is also the author of the bestseller Woke. Inc: “Corporate accountability is silently wreaking havoc on American democracy. Instead of the usual democratic mechanisms, a small group of investors and CEOs determine what is good for society. This new trend has led to a major cultural change […]. It polarizes our politics. It is dividing our country to the breaking point,” writes Ramaswamy of the term woke, which first appeared in the 1930s, became popular during the civil rights movement, and gained wider usage during the Black Lives Matter protests of the past decade. In 2017 it was included in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Reading the compass of American politics is never an exact science, but Ramaswamy’s bid doesn’t appear to have much of a chance of succeeding — neither did that of a certain Donald J. Trump when he announced a candidacy for the White House in 2015. Meanwhile , Ramaswamy’s entry into the political fray has served to invigorate the main Republican race while Democrats remain static awaiting Joe Biden’s decision on whether or not to seek a second term.
Alongside Ramaswamy on the starting line for the 2024 presidential election are Trump, who announced his third candidacy last November, and Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations at the Trump White House. All eyes, however, remain on Ron DeSantis, who has taken the time to test the ultraconservative experiment that has worked so well for him nationally at the Florida ballot box. Other potential Republican candidates include Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence and Virginia and New Hampshire Governors Glenn Youngkin and Chris Sununu.
There has also been speculation about a possible run for South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, an African-American politician who takes a slightly more traditional view of American conservatism, more along the optimistic line of Ronald Reagan than the angry worldview propagated by Trump. Should Scott, Ramaswamy or Haley – both born to Indian immigrants – succeed in the Republican primary, they will make history as the first non-white male candidate in the party’s history.
One thing that unites all potential candidates and many conservative US politicians – white men or not – is the anti-Woke agenda, which DeSantis has made a powerful emblem in Florida, “where Woke goes to die.” For the Florida governor, wokeism can manifest itself in many ways, from books he bans in schools to protecting LGTBI rights to including the study of racism in academic curricula.
In his WSJ article, Ramaswamy, in Woke, Inc. says, “To be woke is basically to be obsessed with race, gender, and sexual orientation. Maybe climate change too. That’s the best definition I can give” – declaring, “To put America first, we must rediscover what America is,” adding that he’s not just launching a political campaign, “but a cultural one Movement to create a New American Dream – one that isn’t just about money, it’s about the uncompromising pursuit of excellence.”
Ramaswamy presented his credentials in this area and offered his own family history: “My parents came to this country legally, worked hard and raised two children who went on to start businesses that improved the lives of thousands of Americans. We need more immigrants like them instead of those who break the law when they enter our country. That means uncompromisingly securing the border and eliminating lottery-based immigration in favor of merit-based admission.”
Ramaswamy also promises to strip federal employees of benefits and “eliminate stimulus policies throughout the American economy,” citing Lyndon B. Johnson’s Executive Order 11246, which “state contractors — who employ about 20% of the US workforce — introduce racial hiring preferences.” In his commentary, the presidential candidate said he would “repeal this executive order and direct the Justice Department to prosecute illegal racial preferences.”
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