Nigel Farage has written an interesting profile of Vivek Ramaswamy in the Telegraph. Ramaswamy is the author of Woke, Inc., a book about the woke capture of American corporations, as well as a contestant in the race to become the Republican Presidential candidate. A recent poll of primary voters puts him on 12%, neck and neck with Ron DeSantis, although a long way behind Trump on 48%. Farage thinks he’s done well enough to merit consideration as Trump’s running mate.
I first encountered him at the Conservative Political Action Conference held in Maryland in March. We both gave speeches there, and afterwards met for a chat. We discussed campaigning, messaging and Brexit, and have stayed in touch since.
Although Ramaswamy will celebrate only his 38th birthday this month, I could tell very soon after meeting him that he has what it takes to be a force in American politics. For those of us who aspire to a return to common sense in the Western world, I believe he can also be a force for good more generally.
The story of his life so far is a sort of modern day representation of the American dream. His Hindu parents migrated from India to America. Ramaswamy was born in Ohio in 1985 and raised there. He attended Harvard University, worked in finance, obtained a law qualification from Yale University and has already built a fortune via the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. It’s safe to say that his intellect, capacity for hard work and all-round ability are not in doubt.
This year, he has attracted attention in America via one of his main messages: that Western society must not be blighted any longer by the Left-wing ideology that underpins identity politics, wokeism and political correctness. His belief that these things divide people rather than uniting them has been hard to ignore among the centre-Right.
He also has a lot to say about the disastrous Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) orthodoxy that is so pervasive in the corporate realm and which led to the sorts of problems I’ve experienced at the hands of Coutts and NatWest. Quite simply, this highly successful entrepreneur knows that if companies hire or promote people on the basis of class, race or sex they are very likely to stop focusing on their main mission – to generate profits – and even more likely to start treating their customers according to their own narrow-minded world view.
Ramaswamy will be in Milwaukee this month for the first televised debate between the Republican candidates who want to take on Joe Biden in November 2024. I will be there as well to watch the debate. He is fighting to win and has made it clear to me that he wants to be in politics for the long term. Despite his energy, I’m not sure that he – or any of his rivals – will be able to overcome Donald Trump, whose nomination looks assured at this point. But I do think that Ramaswamy could become Trump’s pick for the crucial role of vice presidential candidate.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Listen to Merryn Somerset Webb interview Ramaswamy for her Bloomberg podcast.
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