Vivek Ramaswamy

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“”And my question for you is, of all the Democratic candidates out there, why should I vote for the one with the least political experience?
—Ramaswamy in 2003, asking 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton.[1]

Vivek "It Rhymes With Cake" Ganapathy Ramaswamy (1985–) is an American fraudulent businessman,[2] alt-right edgelord,[3] and failed presidential candidate.[4]

He’s well known for being an unoriginal and uninspiring Republican politician with always repeating platitudes, such as him decrying climate change as “a hoax” and any attempts to fix climate change as “climatism”.[5] He's also a liar and a hypocrite (more on that below). Basically, a typical MAGA fascist.

Background and alleged fraud[edit]

In his businessman days, he co-founded an "anti-woke" company called Strive Asset Management, a Columbus, Ohio-based asset management firm. The firm raised about $20 million from outside investors including Peter Thiel, J. D. Vance, and Bill Ackman.[6] The firm is notable for its attempts at grifting pension funds run by Republican states into investing his "anti-woke" Strive funds (which naturally are much more expensive to hold than typical investment vehicles).[7][8]

Ramaswamy's previous job was as the founder and CEO of Roivant Sciences.Wikipedia Under his tenure, a spin-off of the company, Axovant Sciences, acquired an Alzheimer drug (intepirdineWikipedia), which studies run prior to the acquisition had previously shown that it didn't fucking work.[2][6] That didn't matter to Ramaswamy — he simply conjured up a new round of Phase 2Wikipedia trials run by his mother, and pumped up the drug on the business cable network CNBCWikipedia to coincide with an IPOWikipedia of Axovant. Predictably, Axovant's IPO was triumphant, and the company was worth $350 million at its peak. Of course, after the Phase 2 trial run by his mom also showed that intepirdine still didn't fucking work, Axovant lost 99% of its value.[2]

Over his pre-presidential business career, Ramaswamy has pulled multiple other investment stunts like the above. Because of this, critics have gone as far to accuse him of earning his fortune via multiple brazen pump and dump schemes.[9]

His weird relationships with Jews[edit]

In 2011, Ramaswamy was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, which enabled him to attend Yale Law School.[10] This information was deleted and restored from Wikipedia, and considered by Wikipedia editors to be whitewashing by an editor paid by the Ramaswamy presidential campaign.[11] While at Yale, Ramaswamy joined a Jewish secret society, Shabtai,[12] which is open to people of other religions.[13] These two facts alone (George Soros money and belonging to a Jewish secret society) would normally set off alarm bells in the far-right elements of the GOP: QAnon, conspiracy theorists, and other antisemites.

To his credit, Ramaswamy has spoken out against antisemitism,[12] but on the other hand, he has baselessly accused (Jewish) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of mistreating Jews, has strongly attacked a Florida law that penalizes antisemitic acts (passed by Governor Ron DeSantis), and wants to repeal US Executive Order 11246 that bans "federal contractors from engaging in employment discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, or national origin."[14] Ramaswamy wants to end financial aid to Israel by 2028, imagining that it will be unnecessary by then, presumably because there will miraculously be peace in the Middle East. Ramaswamy also wants to end humanitarian aid to Palestinians (which raises interesting questions about what he thinks "peace in the Middle East" means).[14]

Highlights of his campaign[edit]

  • His Hindu background has caused many on the Christian nationalist right to not want to support him,[15] despite him also constantly trying to court those exact voters with his appeals to claims of "Judeo-Christian values".[16] (Gee, it's like nationalists only like people who match their own ethnicity or something.)
  • He paid Wikipedia editors[17] to edit his page specifically to remove his connections to George Soros and his role in the Ohio COVID-19 Response Team.[18]
  • He has called for the repealing of the twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution and the raising of the voting age to twenty-five.[19] Later he added the qualification that people between eighteen and twenty-four would be allowed to vote on the condition they're in the military, work as a first responder, or pass the civics test required for naturalization.[20] It is pathetically obvious that he is calling for this because of the role young voters played in stopping the "red wave" of 2022 that many on the right predicted.[21]
  • He got banned from LinkedIn due to violating the website's policy on misinformation and hate speech.[22]
  • He got called "Alex Jones 2.0" by Alex Jones himself,[23] who has also called him "a cross between Steven Crowder and Alex Jones.”[24]
  • He got hit with a Cease and Desist from Eminem over using his song "Lose Yourself" at a campaign rally.[25]
  • On social media, he has been nickmaned "VivekGPT" in reference to ChatGPT, with criticism of his "ever-shifting answers" as being reminiscent of the chatbot.[26] This was obviously inspired by Chris Christie calling him "a guy who sounds like ChatGPT" in the first GOP primary debate.[27]
  • On the debate stage, he called the "climate change agenda" a "hoax", and claims that fossil fuels help humanity persevere. It’s no surprise that he’s paid off by big oil companies because of his use of their talking points.[28]
  • He's repeatedly made gendered insults about women's physical appearances at the debate and at rallies.[29]
  • He spent $30.7 million of his own money for only 93,126 votes in the primary, averaging $330/vote.[30]

Flip-flops[edit]

Those who have followed Ramaswamy know that he cannot be bothered to keep any kind of consistent position. One rather telling example was when he called for the abolition of Juneteenth two months after posting a video of him celebrating it.[31]

Another flip-flop comes in the form of his comments on January 6th. Previously, he acknowledged it was Donald Trump's fault for the actions of that day and praised Mike Pence for not attempting to overturn the election. Now, he believes Donald Trump was not responsible for the storming of the Capitol, and that Mike Pence didn't engage in a "historic opportunity."[32]

Decline and humiliation[edit]

After dropping out of the race and giving his support for Trump, Ramaswamy has attempted to cling on to relevance, mostly through his podcast “the truth podcast”. One of the most infamous episodes was when he had Ann Coulter on, and went mask off racist when she said “I wouldn’t vote for you, because you’re an Indian”. The clip was widely condemned by normal people and defended by Vivek”s fanbase. Critics of Vivek, including those on the left, accurately called him out on his claim that there was no racism in the Republican Party, a sentiment Vivek himself even vaguely agreed with on Patrick Bet David’s podcast.[33]

Possible cult of personality[edit]

Though Vivek is ostensibly part of the MAGA movement, he has gained a separate following and cult of personality amongst his own supporters. Like with Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson and many other similar far-right figures, Vivek has people who constantly lick and kiss his ass and spam comments on sites like YouTube and claim that Vivek wins every debate, deflect criticism, and claim that everyone who criticizes him are cancelling him and attempting to shut him down because they fear him.[34]

Stopped clock[edit]

Ramaswamy has refused to give into the typical Republican framing on the estate tax, instead viewing it as a good way to stop a "hereditary aristocracy" from forming through parents passing excessive wealth to their children.[35] He also slammed “fascist neocons” for sending troops to die in pointless wars of Iraq and Afghanistan (albeit he mentioned it in the context of not sending aid to Ukraine).[36]

Ramaswamy has called for the federal legalization of marijuana,[37] along with the decriminalization of certain drugs that have been shown to help veterans who suffer from PTSD.[38]

Ramaswamy has also stated that America should not continue delivering aid to Israel, although he later walked back on this stance after being mocked by neoconservative Republicans. He also opposes American military action against Iran.[39]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 20-Year-Old Clip Of Ramaswamy Resurfaces In Which He Asks Presidential Candidate, ‘Why Should I Vote For the One With the Least Political Experience?’
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Vivek Ramaswamy Is a Fraud—and Always Has Been by Sam Nunberg (9/1/23 at 2:12 PM EDT ) Newsweek.
  3. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy Was Created in a Right-Wing Online Edgelord Factory: The Milo Yiannopoulos-ization of the American right has found its vessel in the shameless, motor-mouthed, conspiracy theory-spouting, millionaire jerk. by Matt Lewis (Nov. 09, 2023 1:20PM EST) Daily Beast.
  4. ↑ A Wealthy ‘Anti-Woke’ Activist Joins the 2024 Presidential Field
  5. ↑ https://heated.world/p/how-vivek-ramaswamy-makes-money-from
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 John Hyatt (August 21, 2023). "How Vivek Ramaswamy Became A Billionaire". Forbes.
  7. ↑ "The anti-ESG industry is taking investors for a ride", Economist, 2023 March 2
  8. ↑ "Grift Capitalism: The GOP’s Brilliant Strategy For Ripping Off Ordinary Americans" by Robert G. Ecclse, Forbes, 2022 July 5
  9. ↑ "Smoke and mirrors: I’ve been debating Vivek Ramaswamy for 2 years. Here’s how I got past his diversionary tactics" by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Fortune, 2023 August 31
  10. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy Campaign Insists Wikipedia Revisions Weren’t A ‘Scrub’: Senior adviser Tricia McLaughlin told HuffPost, "All of this information is Googleable." by David Moye (May 4, 2023, 01:00 PM EDT) HuffPost.
  11. ↑ Talk:Vivek Ramaswamy#paid editor tag? (August 2023) Wikipedia.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Ramaswamy: ‘I want to go even further than Trump on the Abraham Accords’: The entrepreneur and Republican presidential candidate also told JNS that far-left ideology has caused rising antisemitism. by Bradley Martin (July 31, 2023) Jewish News Syndicate.
  13. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Shabtai.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 6 Jewish facts about GOP hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, who proposes cut to Israel funding: Biotech mogul and would-be presidential candidate panned Florida law against antisemitism, was in Jewish society at Yale, and suggested Ukraine’s Zelensky is mistreating Jews by Andrew Lapin (23 August 2023, 10:39 am) The Times of Israel.
  15. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy Is On the Rise. So Are Christian Nationalist Attacks on His Religion
  16. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy Leans Into His Hindu Faith to Court Christian Voters
  17. ↑ See the Wikipedia talk page on its article on him,Wikipedia which mentions more than one paid editor.
  18. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy Paid To Get Soros Connection Erased From Wikipedia Page: Report
  19. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy wants to raise the voting age. Even his staff doesn’t like the idea.
  20. ↑ Ramaswamy proposes raising voting age to 25, unless people serve in military or pass a test
  21. ↑ Midterm exit polls show that young voters drove Democratic resistance to the ‘red wave’
  22. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy’s LinkedIn Lockout
  23. ↑ Alex Jones calls Vivek Ramaswamy “Alex Jones 2.0”
  24. ↑ On YouTube, Alex Jones claims “Vivek Ramaswamy ... sounds like a cross between Steven Crowder and Alex Jones”
  25. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy Hit With Cease and Desist From Eminem
  26. ↑ "Vivek Ramaswamy dubbed ‘VivekGPT’ as critics highlight tech entrepreneur’s ever-shifting answers", Marlon Ettinger, Aug 22, 2023, Daily Dot
  27. ↑ "Chris Christie Compares Vivek Ramaswamy to ChatGPT & Obama" NowThis News, August 24, 2023.
  28. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy calls climate change agenda a ‘hoax’ during debate, Kelly Garrity, Politico 23 August 2023
  29. ↑ ‘Speaking as a man’: Gendered insults at Republican debate highlight a risky strategy: The 2024 Republican field has engaged in a round robin of gendered attacks that could backfire with suburban women and independent swing voters in a general election, strategists say by Ashley Parker (November 9, 2023) The Washington Post.
  30. ↑ David Trone and the history of candidates lighting their money on fire: The Maryland Senate candidate spent $62 million of his own money, only to lose the primary. But others have fared worse — at least on a dollars-per-vote basis. by Aaron Blake (May 15, 2024 at 3:48 p.m. EDT) The Washington Post.
  31. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy calls Juneteenth 'useless' 2 months after posting a video celebrating it
  32. ↑ Flip Flop: Vivek Ramaswamy Once Praised Mike Pence For His Actions on January 6, Now He Says He ‘Missed’ A ‘Historic Opportunity’
  33. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy, Ann Coulter , Disrespectful Behavior and the Blatant, Obscene Politics of the Republican Right Wing! Medium
  34. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy’s charisma is nonsensical and dangerous The Emory Wheel
  35. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy’s Rise in 2024 Field Brings Scrutiny Beyond Anti-Woke Record
  36. ↑ 'Fascist neocon with lipstick': Vivek Ramaswamy attacks Nikki Haley as Republican debate turns into 'shout-off' LiveMint
  37. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy Tells Bill Maher 'It's A Joke' That Cannabis Is Not Legal Nationwide
  38. ↑ Trump Opponent Vivek Ramaswamy Favors Federal Marijuana Legalization, Is Polling Third Behind Ron DeSantis
  39. ↑ Vivek Ramaswamy, in Favor of Ending Israel Aid, Opposes U.S. Military Force Against Iran Haaretz
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