Vivek Ramaswamy cultivates the image of a “Trump 2.0.” A 38-year-old millionaire who made his fortune in biotechnology with his company Roivant. A born orator, this son of immigrants from India is described as a “very promising candidate” by Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla and X, who came out in his favor.
The candidate for the Republican nomination is following a course that places him very far to the Right of the political spectrum: “We are in the midst of an identity crisis,” says the 38-year-old, who accuses the country’s elites of spreading a “cultural cancer,” especially on LGBT+ issues.
As for wokism, Vivek Ramaswamy made himself known to American conservatives in 2021, the year in which his book Woke, Inc. was released in bookstores, directed against an ideology which he defines as “an obsession with race, gender, and ‘sexual orientation’ in civil society.”
“In any primary, there are scintillating candidates who attract attention. This year, it’s Vivek,” says Charlie Gerow, CEO of political communications firm Quantum Communications.
He is a “scintillating candidate” that may shock many in the United States. He would like to push back the voting age to 25 for young people who refuse to take a “citizenship test” or perform their military service. This would allow him to undermine the electoral base of the Democratic Party.
Ramaswamy is also climate-sceptic and accuses the federal government of being “dead weight.” He does not hesitate to decry “affirmative action,” which has historically been promoted by the Democrats, as a “cancer.”
In the foreign policy field on Ukraine, the entrepreneur is not politically correct either. He opposes any enlargement of NATO to include Ukraine and proposes giving part of the Donbas to Russia. He also plans to reduce military aid to Israel, and undertakes to defend Taiwan against any Chinese intervention (but only until 2028).
To everyone’s surprise, this political novice, who has chosen to stand in support of Donald Trump, whose electorate he hopes to rally in the event the former president is incarcerated after being found guilty in one or more of his criminal cases, occupies third place in the polls on the Right, just behind Ron DeSantis.
An obstacle for Vivek Ramaswamy (and not a small one) are his Hindu religious beliefs, which he is not afraid to profess, and which constitutes a “major stumbling block” when it comes to convincing conservative evangelical Christians to vote for him, or so says political pundit Tim Dickinson.
Aware of what might appear to be a handicap, the GOP primary candidate recently made an overture to conservative Christians, declaring, “The real divide in our country is not between people of Hindu faith, of Christian and of Jewish faith. It is between people who believe in one true God, and those who have substituted him for new secular religions.”
Vivek Ramaswamy is seducing the American conservative media, to the point that some predict a meteoric rise for him in the event that former President Donald Trump is prevented from running for a second term in November 2024 due to the four felony cases pending against him. But the young politician, although a graduate of a Catholic education, is of the Hindu religion, which alienates him from part of the Christian religious Right in America.