Vivek Ramaswamy Battles Prejudice In MAGA Movement
India-West News Desk
PHOENIX, AZ – Prominent Republican leader Vivek Ramaswamy and other Indian Americans aligned with the MAGA movement are increasingly facing attacks from within their own political ranks, forcing an uncomfortable reckoning inside the conservative base he continues to court.
Speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest here on December 19, Ramaswamy used the stage to confront what he described as prejudice, extremism and conspiracy driven abuse coming from within the conservative movement itself, even as he remains a prominent figure in it.
His remarks reflected a personal and political battle and a deeper struggle within MAGA politics, where immigrant conservatives and Indian Americans like himself are finding themselves targeted by the same movement they help lead, even as he insists there is no future for conservatism that tolerates racism and extremism.
Ramaswamy forcefully condemned racist attacks directed at Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance, responding to online slurs aimed at the second lady.
“If you call the second lady of the United States of America a Jeet, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement,” he said, drawing loud applause from the crowd.
He warned that the movement risked losing both moral standing and political credibility if it failed to reject extremist voices outright. Referring to online commentator Nick Fuentes, Ramaswamy said anyone who praises Adolf Hitler has “no place in the future of the conservative movement.”
“Anyone who engages in that kind of rhetoric has no place in the conservative movement,” he added. “And if you can’t say these things clearly and without hesitation, you have no place as a leader at any level certainly not in my state of Ohio.”
Picking up from a New York Times op-ed he recently wrote discussing who an American is, Ramaswamy also took aim at what he called the “heritage American” ideology, arguing that it distorts the meaning of citizenship and fuels prejudice against immigrants and their families.
He said such thinking would suggest that President Joe Biden is “more American” than Donald Trump, whose mother was an immigrant, or that Senator Bernie Sanders is “more American” than Bernie Moreno, who immigrated from Colombia. By the same logic, he added, Elizabeth Warren would be seen as “more American” than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose parents were immigrants.
“All of this is utterly loony,” Ramaswamy said. “An American citizen is an American, period.”
His comments came amid heightened tensions inside conservative circles, fueled by viral online rumors involving senior Republican figures. In the days before the convention, social media platforms were flooded with claims about a supposed rift between JD Vance and Usha Vance with renewed scrutiny of past remarks by Vance in which he said he would “prefer” if his wife converted to Christianity.
