LEMON DROP | Vivek Ramaswamy & The Limits of White Approval
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How did Vivek Ramaswamy first position himself in the GOP and why did it seem like a perfect pitch?
Let's discuss Vivek Ramaswamy. He's finding out that he's not white, and he's also finding the limits of white approval. Remember Vivek Ramaswamy, he arrived on the Republican scene with the ostensibly perfect sales pitch, a biotech millionaire, an anti-woke wunderkind, dead set on disturbing the status quo. He preached meritocracy, you know they love that, toughness and fierce patriotism. He was an avowed MAGA loyalist. Considering all that, we must ask, why does the GOP hate him? Why does the GOP hate Vivek Ramaswamy? Well, I mean, he's brown and he's Hindu. And so I may as well just end this right here. But I'll digress. We can talk about it more. So as the former Doge co-chief, who was pushed out, by the way, has campaigned to be Ohio's next governor, he has been plagued by vicious, cruel racism from the right.
Surprise! The latest episode came earlier this month. It was at a Turning Point USA event. This one was in Montana. One student asked why Ramaswamy masquerades as a Christian. Another demanded Jesus Christ is God and there is no other God. How can you represent the constituents of Ohio who are 64% Christian if you are not a part of that faith? That's what the student or the young person asked. Well, even conservative firebrand Ann Coulter said something similar so that she would not vote for him because he's Indian. She said the quiet part out loud.
Why does Don argue the Republican Party ultimately rejects Ramaswamy despite his pro-GOP credentials?
Those exchanges and exchanges like that and the reactions to them, they're all very telling. They expose a contradiction at the heart of Ramaswamy's political persona. The man who insists America is colorblind, that identity politics is poison, that merit alone determines destiny, is confronted again and again by the brute fact of identity, specifically his own identity. Apparently, Vivek Ramaswamy needs a mirror. Ramaswamy has built his brand on telling white conservatives that they are not racist. He flatters their self-image. He absolves them of guilt and insists the only true oppression in America is wokeness. Yet the same people he has spent two years reassuring keep reminding him in subtle and not so subtle ways that he is not one of them.
He will never be one of them. He continues to deny systemic racism in America. He insults black people with a false and disingenuous interpretation of our history and seems completely oblivious to the fact that if it were not for black people and the civil rights movement, he and his own brown Indian family might not even be here or at least would not enjoy the rights and opportunities he now takes for granted. So I want you to check out this article. insulting and outrageous interview that he did with me on cnn where he distorted the civil war by claiming that black americans earned their freedom thanks to the nra that is not only historically false it is obscene Say what you said again.
Black people secured their freedoms after the Civil War. It is a historical fact, Don. Just study it. Only after their Second Amendment rights were secured.
They were not secured their freedoms after the Civil War. You are discounting Reconstruction. You're discounting a whole host of things that happened after the Civil War when it comes to African Americans, including the whole reason that the Civil Rights Movement happened is because black people did not secure their freedoms after the Civil War and that things turned around. People tried to change the freedoms that were supposed And you know how they got it?
They got their Second Amendment rights and they actually got the NRA played a big role in that. But today, Don, the NRA did not play a big role. Absolutely, they trained black Americans how to use firearms. That's a lie. That's not.
The NRA did not play a big role.
This is just historical fact. It's not a historical fact. Just because you say it's a historical fact. The part that I find insulting is when you say today black Americans don't have those rights after we have gone through civil rights revolution in this country.
The fact that I find insulting is that you are sitting here telling an African American about the rights and what you find insulting about the way I live, the skin I live in every day.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How did Vivek Ramaswamy first position himself in the GOP and why did it seem like a perfect pitch?
0:13–1:49
2
Why does Don argue the Republican Party ultimately rejects Ramaswamy despite his pro-GOP credentials?
1:49–6:00
3
What incidents at Turning Point USA and remarks about faith exposed tensions around Ramaswamy's identity?
6:00–7:56
4
How have conservative figures like Ann Coulter publicly signaled racial bias against Ramaswamy?
7:56–9:46