Let’s get one thing out of the way before we unpack what happened in the US this Monday and Tuesday: Vivek Ramaswamy is more ‘White’ than ‘Brown’. He is indeed proud of his Indian heritage (his parents are Tam-Brahms from Palakkad, Kerala), and has never shied away from flaunting it, but if he is to be at the centre of American politics in some way, it is not his religiosity at the family dinner table that matters, it is his social and political views. In that context, it is his childhood piano teacher who has had a greater influence on him than his parents.
In a December 2022 profile piece on Ramaswamy in The New Yorker, Sheelah Kolhatkar speaks precisely of the shaping of his politics: “Ramaswamy’s political awakening began not at home but in the company of a conservative-Christian piano teacher with whom he took private lessons from elementary through high school. As he worked his way from the easy Bach preludes to Mozart’s ‘Rondo Alla Turca’, the teacher, who became something of a godmother, railed against Hillary Clinton and extolled the virtues of free speech, patriotism, and Ronald Reagan.”
Anybody who has read that piece, and later followed Ramaswamy’s politics, will be able to join the dots of what happened on stage on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning India time) in New Hampshire, the state where the first Republican Primary will be held on January 23. Donald Trump has all but secured the pathway to the Republican nomination to fight a rematch against his bête noire Joe Biden, the current President. On Monday night, Ramaswamy, who came a distant fourth in the Iowa voting, dropped out of the race, but, as events showed, not out of the limelight even if it is a little dimmer than Trump’s.
The question, then, on everyone’s mind is: Who will be Trump’s running mate?
A couple of weeks ago, the answer would have been Elise Stefanik, the feisty fourth-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives. Before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a Democrat) took the title at age 29, Stefanik in 2014 was the youngest woman to be elected to the House. She was 30 at the time. A moderate Republican at the start, Stefanik turned hard right in her support for then President Trump in 2019. She opposed Trump’s impeachment by a Democratic-majority House, and later supported his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Interestingly, she replaced Liz Cheney (former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter and harsh Trump critic) as the chair of the House Republican Conference (the party’s primary forum for messaging to its members).
This week, though, the answer is a little ambiguous. In a rally on January 16 in Atkinson, New Hampshire, Trump not only acknowledged Ramaswamy, but said the Indian American leader will be working with him for a ‘long time’. “It’s an honour to have his endorsement. He’s gonna be working with us and he’ll be working with us for a long time,” Trump said. This was just after he hugged Ramaswamy on stage.
Vice President Vivek Ramaswamy, anyone?
Soon after dropping out on Monday, Ramaswamy had endorsed Trump and urged Republican voters to put an “America First patriot” in the White House. He repeated his backing at the Atkinson rally. “There is not a better choice than him (Trump) and urged people to do the “right thing”. “There is not a better choice left in this race than this man right here,” Ramaswamy said, pointing to Trump. “And that is why I am asking you to do the right thing as New Hampshire and to vote for Donald Trump as your next president.”
What he was really doing is auditioning for the post of Vice President. Trump may come across as an imbecile policymaker, but he is a Grade A politician. He knows there are two constituencies he needs to attract for the November polls: the youth and a consolidation of the hard right vote. How can he do that? Get a guy who is more right than he, of course. Stefanik, mentioned above, is a hardnosed politician, but she does not have a mass base. Ramaswamy, on the other hand, is 38, a multimillionaire, he knows technology, and he uses his intelligence to push hardline immigration policies that will, in fact, make it harder for the US to import talent. You could argue it will hurt the Immigrant Nation in the long run, but Trump and Ramaswamy are looking at this election cycle, not 25 years hence. In any case, as economist John Maynard Keynes said in the 1920s (much before he changed global policymaking practices with his 1936 opus ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’), “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.”
Trump knows this. He wants to become President not because he wants to change the world for the better, but because he is power-hungry and wants to avenge the 2020 defeat to Biden. Having Ramaswamy on the ticket makes his job easier.
On his part, Ramaswamy’s policy statements have been straight up Trump’s alley. He wants to end birthright citizenship, a law that allows children of undocumented parents to automatically become US citizens if you are born in US territory. Trump loves this. Ramaswamy wants to scrap the current H1-B visa system (he calls it “indentured servitude”) and introduce a new visa regime “based on merit”. Trump loves this, too. Ramaswamy wants to universally deport all undocumented migrants, and wants to place the US military by the thousands at the southern border to stop migration from Mexico. Trump literally fought the 2016 and 2020 election on this platform.
Ramaswamy’s platform is tailormade for Trump. It is a marriage made for 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue, and the events at Atkinson, New Hampshire may just be the beginning of a long courting ritual.
Sachin Kalbag is a former newspaper editor and Washington correspondent, and currently Senior Fellow at The Takshashila Institution. He can be reached at sachin@takshashila.org.in. He tweets at @SachinKalbag.
Analysis: Vivek Ramaswamy’s VP auditions have begun
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18.01.2024
Let’s get one thing out of the way before we unpack what happened in the US this Monday and Tuesday: Vivek Ramaswamy is more ‘White’ than ‘Brown’. He is indeed proud of his Indian heritage (his parents are Tam-Brahms from Palakkad, Kerala), and has never shied away from flaunting it, but if he is to be at the centre of American politics in some way, it is not his religiosity at the family dinner table that matters, it is his social and political views. In that context, it is his childhood piano teacher who has had a greater influence on him than his parents.
In a December 2022 profile piece on Ramaswamy in The New Yorker, Sheelah Kolhatkar speaks precisely of the shaping of his politics: “Ramaswamy’s political awakening began not at home but in the company of a conservative-Christian piano teacher with whom he took private lessons from elementary through high school. As he worked his way from the easy Bach preludes to Mozart’s ‘Rondo Alla Turca’, the teacher, who became something of a godmother, railed against Hillary Clinton and extolled the virtues of free speech, patriotism, and Ronald Reagan.”
Anybody who has read that piece, and later followed Ramaswamy’s politics, will be able to join the dots of what happened on stage on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning India time) in New Hampshire, the state where the first Republican Primary will be held on January 23. Donald Trump has all but secured the pathway to the Republican nomination to fight a rematch........
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