Age: 37
Party: Republican
Candidacy: Confirmed
A leading manufacturer of the corporate anti-woke movement, conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is eager to take on Trump in the Republican primary, announcing his presidential campaign in late February 2023. The businessman is running on a platform of unity — one that's deceivingly divisive.
Ramaswamy, an Ohio native whose parents immigrated from India, has been outspoken against companies using their platforms for social causes and has echoed views of many far-right Republicans today that America's values are in decline, citing critical race theory, affirmative action, environmentalism and self-victimization as things that he believes destroyed the nation's once-shared identity.
"We've celebrated our 'diversity' so much that we forgot all the ways we're really the same as Americans, bound by ideals that united a divided, headstrong group of people 250 years ago," he wrote in a tweet when he announced his campaign. "I believe deep in my bones those ideals still exist. I'm running for President to revive them."
In addition to founding tech and health care companies, Ramaswamy is the best-selling author of Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam, leading the New Yorker to dub him as the "CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc." His book proved him a political thought leader in conservative spheres and earned him regular appearances on Fox News alongside Tucker Carlson, whose hot-tempered tone has seemingly rubbed off on Ramaswamy.
To many on the right, Ramaswamy is a familiar face with intriguing ideas about business and the economy, which will prove a useful reputation as he fights his way through the Republican primary season with far more prominent GOP opponents. The question is whether he can really unite Americans in the way he hopes, or if his foray into right-wing culture wars will come back to haunt him.