Vivek Ramaswamy is making me nervous. Mostly because one week ago I had no idea who this man was. And now he is just all over the news spouting his opinions on everything from the meritocracy to Yes, the kkk. The seemingly overnight rise of this man onto the national media stage comes in the wake of the Republican debate where Trump was a no show, leaving space for a new Spotlight lover to grab the mic. 

So who is this man? He is an Ohio bread businessman who made himself very wealthy through his involvement in the finance, pharmaceutical and biotech industries. He went on to self fund his 2024 run for the presidency. If his performance in this debate was any indicator Ramaswamy is clearly styling himself as a younger version of Donald Trump, who he called the best president of the 21st century. He is loud, he is obnoxious, he talks over people, he makes inflammatory statements that seem deliberately crafted to appeal to Trump space while also grabbing him considerable media attention. Where have we seen this before? 

A quick rundown of some of Ramaswamy suppositions. He supports state level bans on abortion at six weeks. He opposes affirmative action. He is in favor of abolishing the Department of Education, the FBI and the IRS. He wants to raise the voting age to 25. He wishes to eliminate Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Ramaswamy is also in favor of ending US military aid to the Ukraine and has stated that the climate change agenda is a hoax saying falsely that quote more people are dying from climate policies than actual climate change. 

During a recent appearance in Iowa, Ramaswamy accused Ayanna Presley, the first black woman who has been elected to Congress to represent Massachusetts of racism, he also compared her to the modern grand Wizards of the kkk. Even more recently, he doubled down on this view on CNN where he said that, you know, racism was just about obliterated from the United States prior to the last few years, which no, our country is built on a system of structural racism, sir, it is there whether you want to see it or not. 

So beyond the obvious, the reason why this self, self proclaimed anti woke candidate makes me nervous is that people are responding to him. Immediately after the debate, his campaign received nearly half a million dollars in donations, and you only had to watch the crowd’s reaction to see that his shtick is working. He got the second most airtime of any candidate and his statements were met with just raucous cheers. He is in short, he’s taking up a lot of oxygen in the room. 

Do I think he’ll beat Trump? No, of course not. But I think that Ramaswamy knows that too, and that his long game is rather to join Trump’s cabinet perhaps as his running mate and use the position to jumpstart a second round. That is what worries me a younger, even more far, right? political neophyte, more interested in showboating than healing is the last kind of leader this country needs.