Vivek Ramaswamy 2024: His story, experience, and policies
Washington DC - Businessman and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has been leading an aggressive presidential campaign, but does he have what it takes to secure the Republican ticket and go on to win the White House?
Right-wingers and conservatives may recognize Ramaswamy from Fox News and other conservative outlets, as he has made quite a name for himself fighting "woke culture" before it was the cool thing to do.
Liberals and those on the left may recognize him as the last controversial interview conducted by Don Lemon of CNN that influenced the network to fire the anchor in April, an incident that Ramaswamy has since championed as a win for the right.
Either way, Ramaswamy 2024 is a force to be reckoned with, but he has an incredibly long road ahead of him.
According to Morning Consult, despite his aggressive push to become a household name in conservative circles, 44% of Republican voters have never heard of him.
So, do Vivek Ramaswamy and his style of politics stand a chance to win the Republican vote in 2024? TAG24's candidate guide is here to answer all your questions.
Who is Vivek Ramaswamy?
Vivek Ramaswamy was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1985 to two immigrant parents from India.
He graduated from both Yale Law School and Harvard, and is best known for his business Roivant Sciences, which he stepped from in 2021.
In 2016, his success landed him on Forbes' Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 list with an estimated net worth of around $600 million.
In 2021, Ramaswamy made his debut as an author with the publication of his first book - Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam. The book aims to argue how the "modern woke-industrial complex divides us as a people."
He followed up the work in 2022 with his book Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence, which argued how "hardship is now equated with victimhood," and the only way to combat it is to "revive a new cultural movement in America that puts excellence first again."
By February 2023, Ramaswamy had finally decided to jump into politics, but instead of vying for a position in local or state level politics, he entered the race to be president of the US in 2024.
Former president Donald Trump was the first Republican to jump into the race, followed by former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.
Trump currently leads the party in the polls by a large margin, but Ramaswamy is working diligently to close that gap.
Why is Vivek Ramaswamy running for president?
During an interview with CNN in March, Ramaswamy was asked what made him believe that he could win the presidency as someone who has no experience whatsoever in politics and lacks the "public figure" status of a candidate like Donald Trump.
"I'm running distinctively on my vision for this country, I'm not running on my biography or my business credentials," 37-year-old responded.
"My view," he continued, "is that we are in the middle of this national identity crisis, where if you ask most people... what does it mean to be an American these days, you get a blank stare in response, and I think that is the vacuum at the heart of our national soul."
"The opportunity of the GOP now is not just to complain about 'wokeness,' or gender ideology, or climate ideology, but to actually go upstream and fill that black hole with a vision of American nation identity that it runs so deep that it dilutes these agendas to irrelevance, and actually unifies us as a country."
Ramaswamy was heavily influenced by Donald Trump to run for office, and believes whole heartedly in the idea of making America great again.
Vivek Ramaswamy's policies ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign
Vivek's "anti-woke" messaging has become the bread and butter of not only his public persona, but now his presidential campaign.
Most of his policy positions can be traced back to that guiding "principle" in some way.
Many of his speeches and talking points tend to get repeated, as he has made an aggressive effort to be seen and heard.
He tends to focus so much on identity politics and having a national identity.
His rhetoric has been proven to be effective with Republican voters.
Vivek Ramaswamy's education policies
During his speech at CPAC, Ramaswamy stated that he planned to shut down various government entities including the Department of Education and the FBI, but didn't go into much detail as to why.
Vivek Ramaswamy's foreign policies
When it comes to the US border with Mexico, Ramaswamy has said he believes that the military should be used to "annihilate the Mexican drug cartels" that he blames for the rise in fentanyl use and deaths over recent years.
He also has strong views on China, once describing its relationship with the US as "codependent."
"Codependent relationships do not end well," he explained to a crowd. "The only question is: who ends it first? The sooner we end it, the better for us. The longer we wait, the better for them."
Vivek Ramaswamy's views on abortion
On the subject of abortion, Ramaswamy has described his views as "unapologetically pro-life."
Vivek Ramaswamy's views on climate change
While Ramaswamy has never called the concept of man made climate change an out-and-out hoax, he has likened the movement of voters and activist that see climate change as a central issue to that of a "cult."
As many of his Republican contemporaries would agree, Ramaswamy says the "climate cult" is really about "Power. Dominion. Control. Punishment."
"It's not like this was a tyrannical response to a threat, it was the creation of an artificial threat to exercise tyrannical power itself," he said in an interview with Jordan Peterson. "It's a religious cult... I think the climate religion has about as much to do with the climate as the Spanish Inquisition had to do with Christ, which is to say nothing at all."
What are Vivek Ramaswamy's chances in the 2024 elections?
Vivek Ramaswamy has proven to be a witty candidate with a sharp tongue and a knack for pleasing platitudes. But, while many of his talking points get applause from conservative audiences, he has failed to gain any ground in the polls. If the outsider candidate expects to take on Donald Trump in the Republican Primaries, he will have to step his game up.
Cover photo: IMAGO / USA TODAY Network