In My Humble Opinion

Danger, Will Robinson

Aug. 2023/written by Sam

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with my mother when she asked me about Vivek Ramaswamy. For those of you who know who he is, you understand my surprise. For those of you who don't know who this human is, you're right not to.

Ever since I moved to the U.S., I get the "do you know *insert Indian person's* name here" at least once a month. When I was in college, it was about once a week. I never understood why people always think all Indians know each other, especially since they're also quick to point out how many of us there are. Until my mother mentioned Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Here's an American candidate for the highest office in the land that most of us have never heard of and my mother has the skinny on him. And this is where the story begins. 

Vivek Ramaswamy is a lesser known candidate for the 2024 Republican Party primaries. True to the contemporary Republican playbook, Ramaswamy believes in the elimination of affirmative action, in gender confusion over gender justice, the termination of federal agencies like the IRS and the FBI, military protection from undocumented parents and children on the Southern border, and that climate change is not a real thing, among a thousand other platform points that are as stale and vicious as every one of his Republican colleagues. Except Ramaswamy is a young, published, confident Indian-American, the very picture of the American dream. Not to mention, his parents are both immigrants from the same town my family is from.

This is exactly how he finds himself at the center of my mother's radar.

 This combination of characteristics doesn't just make Vivek Ramaswamy appealing to folx like my mother; it makes her proud. For years, we have watched from afar, fascinated by the bright lights and the intoxicating promise of opportunity, and here is this boy making all of our dreams come true. And of all places, on the national stage of a party whose most prolific patrons have been older, White men. Could it be that he had broken the brown ceiling and proved that in the United States of America, hard work is all it takes no matter the colour of your skin?

Not to shatter my mother's dreams, but on the contrary, Vivek Ramaswamy's candidacy is proof positive that white supremacy is alive and well. How so? Let's discuss. 
  Ramaswamy talks extensively about victim culture. He attributes most of this culture to black Americans using his own story to support his bootstraps theory. In his opinion, if black Americans quit complaining about the past, quit expecting handouts, and simply went to college, they'd all be where he is today. Sound familiar?  

Conveniently, he forgets that while we have a history of being a British colony, what we do not have is a history of chattel slavery and the subsequent anti-black racism that every U.S. institution is steeped in. Dig a little deeper and you’ll see that both his parents had jobs that paid well enough to put him through private school and take regular vacations to India. For a man who waxes on about victimhood, he spends a lot of time blaming the victims instead of trying to fix a system that’s supposed to protect them.Ramaswamy also believes that gender is binary, and will use his Harvard-rated debating skills to convince you of this; of course, the entire time, he is conflating gender with biological sex. Where have I seen this before?               
I suppose you can't expect to learn everything at an ivy league university and maybe once the degree has been earned, we quit while we're ahead. 

It isn't uncommon for immigrants who have had the priviledge to come here legally to do the whole song and dance routine to the melody of “everyone should come here legally”. Ramaswamy is no different. 
What makes him a true Republican? His solution to securing the border involves an inflated need for force. If DeSantis doesn't win the primary, we all know who's getting Abbott's endorsement.

What's most impressive about Ramaswamy is his attention to detail. Not only has this young man adopted the gamut of Republican talking points, he has also learned the art of evading the deep hatred this country has for marginalized communities with the efficacy of a used plastic bag. Ultimately, it seems like it’s easier for Ramaswamy to pretend the issues don’t exist, because if he admits that they do, he’d have to admit that he’s impacted by them too. 

 All said and done, Ramaswamy’s policy points are hardly the scariest part about him. What’s really terrifying is the package in which he presents them. 
In 2023, he claimed to have a net worth of around $15 million before graduating law school. For a person like my father who values success in currency and currency only, there’s no doubt that someone like Ramaswamy is the right person for the job. There will be neither a need to question his ventures, nor a desire to learn that the company which brings him most of his wealth has never been profitable. In the same manner, they won’t question his deference to white Christian nationalism to gain votes or his shift in position to support and pardon perpetrators of January 6th.

For an Indian boy whose family is from Palakkad, and who rapped Eminem covers in college, Ramaswamy and I have so much in common. And yet, somewhere along the way, he was struck by Stockholm syndrome, and decided being loved by the people who hate his kind is more important than being respected by those of us who are fighting for his children’s future.