Aspiring politician Vivek Ramaswamy broke his lifelong vegetarianism Tuesday evening, consuming a fats one within the Ohio gubernatorial race the place he ran as a Republican in opposition to Democratic candidate Amy Acton. It is actually a vexed time to try to court docket a right-wing viewers as a Hindu and Indian-American candidate. Let’s wind again the clock and see how that technique labored out for him over the previous few years.
Recall the promising origins of Ramaswamy’s political consciousness: biotech government abruptly turned critic of the “trendy woke-industrial complicated.” With the discharge of his 2021 e book Woke, Inc. and his unlucky slide into public view, he supplied the nation a pressure of sleazy, technocratic Trumpism. At the same time as he opposed the scourge of identification politics, he appeared to not understand that he himself would quickly be topic to them. From the beginning of his nationwide prominence, Ramaswamy has tried to make his Hinduism extra palatable and relatable to his fellow vacationers. This was a throughline of his 2024 presidential marketing campaign as a Republican. “The teachings realized being Hindu had been related and in some ways overlapping with Judeo-Christian values like sacrifice, performing your obligation with out attachment to the outcomes and believing that your work on this Earth just isn’t being achieved by you, however by means of you,” he mentioned in a 2023 interview with the Related Press. The article, paraphrasing Ramaswamy’s views, famous his perception that “Hindu values appear to resonate with Christian and Jewish audiences.”
Shockingly, Ramaswamy’s political instincts may need led him astray on that entrance. He suspended his presidential marketing campaign in January 2024. In Could of that yr, after a Republican candidate debate, Ramaswamy hosted conservative commentator Ann Coulter on his personal podcast, the place she expressed a view that was undoubtedly prevalent amongst his hypothetical voter base. Ramaswamy voluntarily promoted that episode by saying that Coulter “informed me flat-out to my face that she couldn’t vote for me ‘since you’re an Indian,’ regardless that she agreed with me greater than most different candidates. I disagree together with her however respect she had the heart to talk her thoughts. It was a riveting hour. The TRUTH podcast is again.” Right here, he adopted his signature pose: groveling to individuals who plainly hate anybody who seems like him, below the pretense of accepting their powerful ideological disagreements. He would later face related assaults from Coulter’s millennial and Zoomer non secular successors, Laura Loomer (who criticized him for opening America’s borders to “third-world invaders”) and Nick Fuentes (who mentioned he’d moderately see a Democrat win than Ramaswamy).
After Donald Trump’s victory within the 2024 presidential election, Ramaswamy was tapped to assist Elon Musk run DOGE, their sociopathic authorities autolysis program. Infighting saved him out of the job. By Trump’s inauguration, Ramaswamy was ejected from DOGE, reportedly for partaking in a livid on-line debate amongst conservatives with regards to H-1B visas, an intra-MAGA civil struggle that pitted capitalism uber alles in opposition to blood-and-soil nationalism. Maybe the mere existence of such a debate, about whether or not Indian immigrants must be allowed to work within the U.S., would have triggered a savvier Indian-American political operative to rethink his political trajectory, in addition to his life decisions. Not Vivek Ramaswamy, who may need thought he might win over this base along with his concepts and, er, charisma. One among his many sins was letting his (at all times apparent) immigrant exceptionalism seep into his public feedback. Ramaswamy, who employed H-1B staff in his personal biotech firm, criticized American tradition for “venerat[ing] mediocrity over excellence,” which, in his view, pressured firms to achieve abroad for expertise. Conservatives additionally dredged up his outdated guarantees to intestine the H-1B program, so he was framed as a hypocrite, too.
After flaming out of DOGE, Ramaswamy set his sights on turning into Ohio’s governor. At an October 2025 occasion hosted by Turning Level USA, the Hindu candidate was challenged by Christian college students at Montana State College. One scholar requested him why he selected to “masquerade as a Christian.” One other questioned his polytheism. “Do you imagine within the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?” Ramaswamy then requested the coed, who agreed. “And that doesn’t make you a polytheist, does it?” Received ’em.
These critics had been the well mannered ones. By the top of 2025, having belatedly seen his new bedfellows, Ramaswamy was complaining within the New York Occasions Opinion part about racist groypers. Here is an excerpt from his op-ed, which strained to current his imaginative and prescient of America as a “colorblind meritocracy” troubled by solely quickly racist younger conservatives, complicated a foundational function for a passing fad:
Older Republicans who might doubt the rising prevalence of the blood-and-soil view ought to suppose once more. My social media feeds are suffering from a whole bunch of slurs, most from accounts that I don’t acknowledge, about “pajeets” and “road shitters” and calls to deport me “again to India” (I used to be born and raised in Cincinnati and have by no means resided outdoors the U.S.)
Antisemitic statements at the moment are normalized on-line, and it’s not restricted to the web both. Rod Dreher, a conservative author, lately described a visit to Washington, D.C., the place he estimated {that a} sizable minority of Republican Gen Z staffers are followers of Nick Fuentes.
This new online-right motion doesn’t symbolize the views of most real-world Republican voters — take it from a son of Indian immigrants who dominates polling in Ohio’s G.O.P. major for governor. However as one of the crucial vocal opponents of left-wing identification politics, I now see actual reluctance from my former anti-woke friends to criticize the brand new identification politics on the suitable.
However, Ramaswamy continued. In one other column this previous January, this time for the Wall Avenue Journal, he resolved to turn out to be a social media “teetotaler” in 2026, deleting his apps and handing off his accounts to staffers. On to the 2026 Republican major. The groypers had been simply lurking within the remark sections, and weren’t truly searching for public workplace, proper?
Over the course of the Ohio major, Ramaswamy’s Republican major opponent Casey Putsch did the next: posted a video of himself firing a rifle and alluring Ramaswamy to play “Cowboys vs. Indians,” clarifying, “Don’t be concerned, it is feather, not dot”; informed the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation that there was “nothing remotely American” about Ramaswamy; and referred to him as an “Indian anchor child.” Backed by Trump, Ramaswamy nonetheless coasted to victory within the major.
Down the stretch, Ramaswamy obscured his background as a lot as attainable—no anodyne Blissful Diwali tweet this yr, and no public touch upon the tried Hindu temple mass taking pictures in Illinois, maybe as a result of his base resembles tried Hindu temple mass shooters. Regardless of all that, and after working essentially the most vile assault advert within the latest historical past of American politics, Ramaswamy misplaced to Acton in Tuesday’s election, by an almost 8 p.c margin at time of writing. I stay up for seeing how the vote cut up alongside demographic classes, however I’ve my suspicions. Over the course of my and Ramaswamy’s lifetime, the American proper wing has gone from vaguely hating Indians as a result of they believed they had been Arab Muslims who did 9/11, to virulently hating Indians for a set of distressingly particular arguments about labor, genetics, and assimilation. Their racism has turn out to be extra fine-grained and evil. Absolutely this was the proper time for an Indian American to court docket this precise group of individuals. Cannot imagine that shit did not work out for him.
