Conservatives should reject Ramaswamy’s abstractions
It’s that season again: time for Christmas tunes, honey-glazed ham, and once more, Vivek Ramaswamy stirring frustration among conservatives.
Over the past year, Ramaswamy—known for his anti-woke stance and as the son of Indian immigrants—has regained prominence on the right. He’s campaigning for Ohio governor, appearing poised to secure the GOP nomination, and recently earned a keynote slot at AmericaFest 2025, hosted by conservative group Turning Point USA.
The event’s roster highlighted leading figures in American conservatism, but notably missing were three key voices: the late Charlie Kirk, founder of TPUSA; white-nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes; and President Donald Trump. Their absence shaped the conference’s tone, lending it unexpected seriousness.
Despite the flair of fog machines and fireworks, this gathering transcended a mere rally, evolving into a vivid forum for political rivalry. Speakers sought influence following Kirk’s assassination in September and with Trump’s political retirement looming three years ahead. Many presented themselves as balanced yet firm conservatives, carving a path between Fuentes’s extremism and the far left. Ultimately, a profound debate unfolded, one questioning the very essence of America.
On Sunday evening, Vice President J.D. Vance portrayed a vision of American identity that aimed to unify while remaining true to conservative values. “Americans are hungry for identity,” Vance declared. He attributed the erosion of community and tradition to economic globalization, left-wing elites, and censorious “tech overlords.” He argued for a Christian revival as “America’s creed” and a foundational “anchor of the United States of America.”
Vance’s remarks aligned with his other recent statements, such as his July 2024 nomination speech: “America is not just an idea,” he asserted. “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.” Furthermore, in February at the Munich Security Conference, he described America as part of a cultural bloc including Europe, referring to “our shared civilization.”
Ramaswamy’s outlook starkly contrasts with this and feels foreign to conservative moral sensibilities.
While Ramaswamy outlined his perspective at AmericaFest 2025 and in a recent New York Times op-ed, many on the right first encountered his views last year. That Boxing Day, he delivered a sermon on X defending U.S. corporations that prioritize foreign hires over Americans. He argued that Americans aren’t naturally less capable or industrious than foreigners but suggested their environment has fostered mediocrity: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.”
The response among conservatives was one of indignation, objecting both to his implicit suggestion that Americans can’t match foreigners in skilled labor and his use of scare quotes around “native” in “native Americans.” Though the phrase usually denotes American Indians, conservatives have reappropriated it to mean Old Stock Americans descended from early settlers—a term laden with racial implications amid ongoing mass migration. Ramaswamy’s comments unmistakably targeted this interpretation.
By dismissing this concept, Ramaswamy rejected any definition of American identity rooted in ancestry, family ties, and heritage—core elements of nationhood and natural objects of patriotic devotion. Conservatives see this worldview as an alternative to the liberal notion that Americans are bound together solely by proximity, ideology, and government paperwork.
During his recent on-stage critique aimed at young right-wingers frustrated with what they view as weak Boomer conservatism, Ramaswamy made no effort to conceal his disdain for traditional nationalist ideas. He derided “heritage Americans,” a term the right has embraced, and expanded on his understanding of American identity.
His address explicitly pondered “what it means to be an American,” concluding it comes down to “believe in ideals,” particularly the principle of color-blind meritocracy. He chastised the far right for suggesting that a person’s Americanness depends on their depth of roots in the country, famously stating, “No, I’m sorry, our lineage is not our strength.”
According to Ramaswamy, Americans represent less a nation than a liberal ideological experiment. Though he never stated this plainly, the implication is clear in comments like the following:
You could go to Italy, but you would never be an Italian. You can move to Germany, but you would never be a German. You could pack your bags and live the rest of your life in China or Japan; you would never be Chinese or Japanese. But you can come from any one of those countries to the United States of America and you can still be an American.
Where should one start unpacking this?
To begin with, America shares a commonality with Italy and Germany—unlike China or Japan—in that its political class has betrayed its citizens by admitting vast numbers of young men from foreign nations, vilifying Americans who lament this crisis, and distorting history to portray the country as belonging to whoever crosses its borders.
The Western world is confronting a critical existential threat. Yet Ramaswamy tries to frame this upheaval as an enduring, positive attribute of American identity.
His speech, aside from being fundamentally liberal, also lacked coherence. While condemning the “online right” for viewing American identity as non-binary—where Old Stock Americans are considered more authentically American—Ramaswamy’s own definition based on belief in certain “ideals” implies that citizens who reject those ideals are less American than those, like himself, who embrace them.
Naturally, American principles, although “accidental” in the philosophical sense, are deeply woven into the American sense of self. Still, Ramaswamy trivializes these values by treating them as mere abstractions anyone can adopt by agreeing with them intellectually. In truth, American ideals arise from a shared community experience. For example, Ramaswamy often lauds “free enterprise” as distinctively American, yet the free market that built the nation would have collapsed if Americans had acted as con artists and profiteers instead of hardworking and honest participants.
The Trump administration exceeded expectations in alerting Americans to the dangers of mass migration and the vulnerability of Western civilization, with Vance articulating this message especially well. Due to their efforts, conservatives have finally abandoned the kind of American identity Ramaswamy supports. Given the pressing challenges Western societies face, reviving that vision would be a grave mistake.
Original article: The American Conservative
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