What’s the truth of Vivek Ramaswamy?
People like Ramaswamy have the ability to sow seeds of self-doubt in those who don’t strictly live by a party constitution.
Vivek Ramaswamy is correct. The United States (US) is indeed in the throes of a national identity crisis. But so is India. And China. And every single country in the G20. And possibly the entire world. Because the age of being sure, if there was ever any, is over. Moral certitudes are being swiftly replaced with moral panic. Ramaswamy is also correct about identity politics overwhelming everything and everyone, often obfuscating real issues.
What the youngest Republican presidential candidate does get wrong, however, is that he is not an apothecary who can cure his country. If anything, Ramaswamy is part of the problem that he’s flagging. A self-proclaimed contrarian and compulsive debater, this 38-year-old Ivy-league educated practising Hindu cis-male Indian American entrepreneur is experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity — and funding — much to everyone’s astonishment. His identity is hyphenated and so are his political opinions. And he likes to mine and frack on both sides of the fence. There’s nothing wrong with that, too. Ideas, identities, and ideologies ought to be inclusive, hyphenated, and — when needed — even mutually contradictory. Ramaswamy is both a product and a purveyor of the national identity crisis he so dreads. If only he knew this about himself, he’d be a different man.
Or maybe he knows this truth and deploys it strategically — just like intepirdine, the drug he proclaimed as the magic cure for Alzheimer’s. The drug failed major clinical trials but he made millions out of the stock market hype. Unless Donald Trump is disqualified, no other Republican stands a chance to be the next US president. Recently, Trump has acknowledged his fondness for Ramaswamy as opposed to Ron DeSantis. The early charm of the Florida man is slowly being neutralised by the vegetarian Tam-Brahm. All of this suits Ramaswamy.
When Frantz Fanon propounded the idea of Black Skin, White Masks he wouldn’t have even dreamt of the mutant mimic that Ramaswamy is emerging to be. Ramaswamy upends the notion that conservatives across the world are similar and that Right-wing political ideologies are almost identical in their manifestations — patriarchy, communalism, anti-immigrant sentiment et al. He’s not anti-science or anti-feminist or even anti-LGBTQ+; he is simply fishing in the waters of excesses. In simple words, he’s building his campaign on everyday irritations that are caused by “causes”. And that’s what makes him effective. And potentially dangerous.
Bringing his libertarian values to the Republican fold, Ramaswamy seeks to woo people who like to stay blameless when faced with larger questions and moral dilemmas. It’s easier for them to back a candidate who positions himself as an outsider committed to the America First agenda. He’s not wearing a white mask to cover his brown skin for staying in the game. He is changing the rubrics. All his problematic stances may be forgiven with “Oh, he doesn’t understand” and all his successful tricks can become part of the political playbook. His assertiveness in the first Republican debate was mocked by many but he emerged a “winner” and Republican voters opened their coffers to fund his campaign even before the live debate ended.
Ramaswamy hates corporate virtue-signalling on diversity or the climate crisis; he likes “open conversation”, and he opposes a federal ban on abortion. All of this brings him closer to Democrats. But liberals won’t touch him with a barge-pole and he gets to assay the role of a victim.
And this is where and how he succeeds. His appeal transcends the US and its presidential election. People like Ramaswamy have the ability to sow seeds of self-doubt in those who don’t strictly live by a party constitution. Conspiracy theories are easy to ridicule and reject but calling out corporate malpractices can’t really be faulted. This self-doubt coagulates into a moral panic — an ideal state for Ramaswamy to recruit his supporters. The Greeks understood this modus operandi — Thucydides wrote about ekpletto, an act of rendering someone powerless through fear or amazement.
Vivek Ramaswamy is the presiding deity of the stupefied.
Nishtha Gautam is an author, academic and journalist. She’s the co-editor of In Hard Times, a Bloomsbury book on national security. The views expressed are personal
Continue reading with HT Premium Subscription
