By:  Ilana Siyance

Vivek Ramaswamy, millionaire and right-wing activist, has entered the 2024 race for presidency.

As reported by the NY Times, Ramaswamy announced his bid on Tuesday with an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and a video in which he speaks about his opposition to social justice activism.

The 37-year-old Republican co-founded Strive Asset Management, an investment firm opposed to environmental, social, and corporate governance, at which he currently serves as the Executive Chairman.  He is a former biotechnology executive, having founded biopharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences in 2014, where he served as CEO till 2021.  As per Forbes, Ramaswamy’s net worth has been at and above $500 million since 2015.  A Harvard and Yale Law School graduate, he was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.  His parents immigrated from India.  He is married and has two sons.   Ramaswamy has authored two books, including: “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam”, and “Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence”.

A self-described conservative, Ramaswamy has already made a name for himself in the right-wing by speaking up against corporate efforts to advance political, social and environmental causes.  Histhree-and-a-half minute video announcing his candidacy said he will focus his campaign on conservatives being victimized by the overwhelming focus on racism, bigotry and their effects. “We’re in the middle of a national identity crisis,” he began.  “Faith, patriotism and hard work have disappeared, only to be replaced by new secular religions like Covidism, climatism and gender ideology,” he says in the video.

In an interview with the NY Times on Tuesday, he said if he is elected as president, he will repeal the Executive Order, which banned discrimination and required affirmative action for federal contractors since 1965.  He told the Times that what sets him apart from the other Republicans running is “a vision of national identity that dilutes these other agendas to irrelevance.”  Former US President Donald Trump, and Former Governor of South Carolina and former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley have also announced their candidacy for the 2024 race.

On Tuesday, an opinion column by Ramaswamy was published by the Wall Street Journal, entitled, “Why I’m Running for President”.  He wrote than Americans “hunger for purpose”, and said he hopes to “fill this void with an inspiring national identity”.  He said the country needs to embrace “merit” and an “unapologetic pursuit of excellence”.  He said the borders need to be closed to illegal immigrants and opened on merit basis.  He took a jab at censorship on Twitter and other tech companies.  He wrote it’s time for the US to “reclaim global energy leadership” and referenced the threat that China poses.  “America’s strength isn’t our diversity but the ideals that unify us across our differences. These ideals won the American Revolution, reunited us after the Civil War, won two World Wars and the Cold War,” he wrote.  “If we can revive them, nothing will defeat us.”

Ramaswamy had previously considered running for US Senator in Ohio in 2022, but now has jumped directly into the race for presidency. “It may seem presumptuous for a 37-year-old political outsider to pursue the highest office in the land, but I am running on a vision for our nation—one that revives merit in every sphere of American life,” he wrote in the WSJ opinion piece.