Conservative author and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy announced Tuesday he is running for president in the 2024 race.
Ramaswamy appeared on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight to make his big announcement, releasing a campaign video on his freshly launched site.
“We are in the middle of a national identity crisis today. Our nation is hungry for a cause, for purpose, for meaning,” Ramaswamy said in his campaign video. “The things that used to fill that void, like faith, patriotism, hard work and family, have disappeared. We now embrace one secular religion after another, like COVIDism, climatism and gender ideology to satisfy our deeper need for identity. Yet we cannot even answer the question ‘what it means to be an American.’”
Ramaswamy then touched on how those on the left have created “psychological slavery” by scaring those from speaking out because of fear of being labeled a racist and a bigot.
“I am announcing my run for President of the United States. This isn’t just a political campaign, it’s a cultural movement to create a new dream for the next generation of Americans.”
Ramaswamy said in a statement to the Daily Caller that the U.S. is “in the middle of a national identity crisis.”
“If you ask most people what it means to be American today, you get a blank stare in response. We’ve celebrated our diversity so much that we forgot the ideals that bind us together across our diversity as Americans. I believe deep in my bones those ideals still exist. I am running for President to revive them.”
Ramaswamy has hinted at a potential run, having traveled to Iowa in January. While there, he spoke to farmers and Republican leaders about reviving national identity and combatting woke ideology. Ramaswamy told the Daily Caller he believes “we are in the middle of this national identity crisis” because “the things that used to define American national identity have disappeared.” (RELATED: ‘Wish Her Luck!’: Trump Slams Nikki Haley For Flip-Flopping On 2024, Then Offers Encouragement)
Ramaswamy is the third candidate to announce his bid for the Republican nomination alongside former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Ramaswamy said it’s “up to the voters to decide in 2024 which nominee” to choose in a statement to the Daily Caller.
“We sometimes obsess over the ‘who,’ without asking the ‘what’ and the ‘why.’ 2023 should be all about defining the ‘what’ and the ‘why.’ And then it’s up to the voters to decide in 2024 which nominee will best advance that agenda.”
Ramaswamy began his career on Wall Street before venturing into pharmaceuticals with Roivant Sciences, which develops drugs that were abandoned by the industry. He left Roivant in 2021 before founding his assets management firm, Strive Asset Management, with the mission of depoliticizing corporate America from the environmental, social and governance investing movement taking over. Ramaswamy has an estimated net worth of roughly $500 million and is set to self-fund his campaign.
A first-generation American, Ramaswamy has an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a law degree from Yale. Ramaswamy is also a best selling author, publishing Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam in 2021 and Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence in 2022.
