We Need to Talk About the Right-Wing Attacks on 2024 Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy

As RedState reported on Tuesday evening, the Republican race for the White House in 2024 has a new entrant. Wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has made nationalism his chief argument, announced he’s entering the race, which currently contains Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, though many more are likely to get in soon enough.

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Here’s what that looked like, before we get to the meat of the attacks now being levied against him.

 

Immediately, despite Ramaswamy obviously being an ideological ally as a nationalist, some on the right (specifically trying to boost Donald Trump) began to spread insinuations about the businessman. One of those is that he’s part of a globalist conspiracy via the World Economic Forum (WEF).

So, is Ramaswamy actually a shill for the WEF despite having positioned himself as a nationalist, anti-woke crusader during his career? There’s no actual evidence of that, and citing the fact that he was part of the organization’s Young Global Leaders list shows a profound misunderstanding or purposeful misrepresentation of what that means.

Ramaswamy did not sign up to be on that list. As far as I can tell, he never endorsed his joining it either. Rather, anyone can nominate anyone to be chosen, and the list itself is, at least ostensibly, non-political, being populated by business leaders and those who make a name doing charity work. For example, Tulsi Gabbard has made the list despite spending her time in the public eye fighting foreign interventions and the prospect of global governance.

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Then there’s the clear insinuation that Ramaswamy is actually being pushed by George Soros.

In the wake of that, the internet lit up with claims Ramaswamy is actually a Soros plant. Is that true? Again, the answer is no. Rather, Ramaswamy was given a scholarship by the Paul and Daisey Soros Foundation back in 2011. Those scholarships are not political and are given to first and second-generation immigrants (Ramaswamy’s parents came from India). Ramaswamy would go on to earn his law degree with that money.

The obvious retort would be that somehow Ramaswamy is beholden to George Soros given he received a scholarship from his brother’s foundation. But that makes little sense given the presidential candidate is now worth $500 million. Somehow, I doubt a scholarship over a decade ago has any influence over him.

Finally, I’d like to point out how hypocritical this is. Donald Trump (and this isn’t a critique but an observation) was deeply embedded in elite circles before he ran for president. He donated to Kamala Harris, went to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, and had many associations that were no better than those being alleged about Ramaswamy. The right should have consistent standards instead of picking and choosing when to apply these purity tests.

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I don’t know much about Ramaswamy except that I think his candidacy is pointless, so I didn’t write this to boost him. I simply felt compelled to lay out the facts because some of the attacks being levied from certain parts of the right are dishonest. We should be better than that. If one doesn’t like Ramaswamy, they should point out the policies he promotes that they disagree with. This conspiratorial game of insinuation being played is garbage.

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