What the rapid rise of the Republican presidential hopeful says about the American right.
Visit Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign website, and the word “Truth” is plastered everywhere: on trucker hats, beer coolers, mugs, and T-shirts. It even hovers above a list of ten campaign commandments. At a September event in Pennsylvania, a “Truth” sign even fell on top of him. But while truth is a term increasingly devalued in American politics, Ramaswamy’s obsession with it seems to coincide with his most tenuous grasp on reality.
Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and political outsider, has embraced a variety of controversial stances, including flirting with 9/11 conspiracy theories and backpedaling on his past statements. His campaign’s embrace of “truth” reflects an emerging political strategy: flinging unworkable or unbelievable ideas into the public sphere, hoping some of them gain traction.
In just a year, Ramaswamy has gone from political obscurity to securing a spot in the fourth Republican primary debate, which takes place on December 6. Though he remains far behind frontrunner Donald Trump, who has opted out of the debates, and trails behind Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, his sudden rise has led to speculation that he might be considered for a key role in the White House should Trump win a second term.
This unexpected ascent is even more remarkable given Ramaswamy’s background. As a millennial Asian-American born in 1985 to immigrant parents from Kerala, India, his demographic profile would typically place him in the Democratic camp. Yet, as a tech multimillionaire educated at Harvard and Yale, he has positioned himself in stark contrast to those very elite institutions, which many Republicans disdain.
