Indian-American Seeks Republican Nomination for US President in 2024; promotes merit-based employment; slams China, affirmative action and ‘wokeism’
Media reports say that an Indian American, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, 37, a graduate of Harvard University, now a resident of Ohio, announced his bid for the 2024 Republican nomination to run for President of the USA. The announcement was made during a live interview on Fox News’s TV station during prime time show of Tucker Carlson, a conservative political commentator.
Just last week, another Indian America, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, a former two term Governor of that state and Ambassador at the UN for former President Donald Trump. Ramaswamy’s parents migrated to the United States from Kerala and worked at a General Electric plant in Ohio. He was born and raised in that state before pursuing studies in Biology at Harvard. He runs a tech business in Ohio.
Ramaswamy in his launch in his announcement for his Presidential bid he will “put merit back” into government and end dependence on China.
He told Conservative commentator Tucker, “We are in the middle of this national identity crisis where we have celebrated our differences for so long that we forgot all the ways we are really just the same as Americans bound by a common set of ideals that set this nation into motion 250 years ago”.
He calls “wokeism” (a focus on racial and social justice issues and left politics) a national threat “That’s why I am proud to say tonight that I am running for United States president to revive those ideals in this country”.
He said: “I think we need to put ‘merit’ back into ‘America’ in every spirit of our lives”. He adds: “I will end affirmative action in every sphere of American life.”
Reports say Mr. Ramaswamy founded Roivant Sciences in 2014 and led the largest biotech IPOs of 2015 and 2016, eventually culminating in successful clinical trials in multiple disease areas that led to FDA-approved products, according to his bio.
Reports say he founded other successful healthcare and technology companies, and in 2022, he launched Strive Asset Management, a new firm focused on restoring the voices of everyday citizens in the American economy by leading companies to focus on excellence over politics.
He announced: “I’m all for putting America first, but in order to put America first, we have to first rediscover what America is. And to me, those are these basic rules of the road that set this nation into motion from meritocracy to free speech, to self-governance over aristocracy. The people who we elect actually make them run the government rather than this cancerous federal bureaucracy. That’s gonna be the heart of my message”.
The second generation Indian American also said in his Fox News interview that the US faces external threats like the rise of China. “It has got to be our top foreign policy threat that we’ve gotta respond to, not pointless wars somewhere else. That’s gonna require some sacrifice. It’s gonna require a declaration of independence from China and complete decoupling. And that’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna require some inconvenience”.He added: “We gotta wake up to the fact that China is violating our sovereignty and the reason, if that had been a Russian spy balloon, we’d have shot it down instantly and ratcheted up sanctions. Why didn’t we do that for China. The answer’s simple. We depend on them for our modern way of life. This economic co-dependent relationship has to end”.