Rx for American Identity Crisis

There’s a new voice offering leadership in 2024 to reverse the US tailspin with Biden in the WH. Vivek Ramaswamy is on to some things and his words and passion could resonate and inspire. For those preferring to read his ideas, a transcript is below from the captions, in italics with my bolds and added images. TC is Tucker Carlson and VR is Vivek Ramaswamy.

TC: American Liberalism and Identity politics is a question that entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
has spent a great deal of time thinking about through two books as well as in his latest venture which he joins us to tell us about tonight. Vivek, thanks so much for coming on.

So it does seem like Don Lemon, you know just a cable host, but this is a perfect illustration of where identity politics wind up when you stray from Universal principles that bind us all under the same rules

VR: Exactly. I mean we are in the middle of this national identity crisis, Tucker where we have celebrated our diversity and our differences for so long that we forgot all of the ways we’re really just the same as Americans: Bound by a common set of ideals that set this nation into motion 250 years ago. And that’s what I’m proud to say tonight that I’m running for United States president to revive those ideals in this country. Those basic rules of the road include meritocracy–the idea that you get ahead in this country not on the color of your skin, but in the content of your character. The idea that you are allowed to speak freely, yes to be wrong sometimes, as long as your neighbor gets the same courtesy in return.

The idea that the people who we elect to run the government, by the way,
are the people who actually run the government.

Basic rules of the road are the things that bind us together. You and I have different shades of melatonin and I say so what. That’s not beautiful, that is not our strength. Our diversity is meaningless if there’s nothing greater that binds us together across that diversity. And the reason that I’m running for president is to revive those ideals, and I believe deep in my bones they still exist. Most Americans still believe in them but we need to rediscover that, and the only way we can do it is to start talking openly again.

TC: So I’m not going to ask you any political questions, because given my calls in the midterms, I don’t understand American politics. I’m not going to ask you what you’re doing in Iowa or whatever, other people can do that. Give us the bullet points of what you’re going to tell audiences as you embark from here on this campaign.

VR: I think we need to put Merit back into America in every sphere of Our Lives. I mean Merit in who gets into this country, let’s start with that okay. I think more people like my parents can be a good thing for this country, but people whose first act of entering this country as a law breaking one: We should say a hard no to that.

Merit not just who gets in but also who gets ahead. Decimating affirmative action that has been a national cancer. One of my top priorities will be to end affirmative action in every sphere of American Life. And it’s not just meritocracy and who gets ahead, ending affirmative action yes. I mean our whole government is based on that idea. Well the funny thing Tucker, this would be an easy thing for a president to do. Lyndon Johnson issued an executive order that required anyone who does business with the US government–that covers over 20 percent of the U.S Workforce–to adopt race-based quota systems. Any Republican president since Lyndon Johnson could have taken a pen and crossed that out. We haven’t done it, yet I think that’s the kind of Courage we’re going to need to muster to go after these sacred cows from woke religion. In the form of affirmative action and to this new climate religion which is completely shackling the American economy and culture. We need to take the most sacred cows of these alternative secular religions, and I’m sorry to say this: Take them to the slaughterhouse.

Because that’s what what it’s going to take for this national revival where we stop apologizing for what it means to be American, for putting America first. But in order to put America first we have to begin by first rediscovering what America is. To me those are these basic rules of the road that set this nation into motion: from meritocracy to free speech to self-governance over aristocracy. Make the people who we elect actually run the government, rather than this cancerous Federal bureaucracy.

That’s going to be the heart of my message and I’ll tell you this we don’t have an option anymore. We face these external threats like the rise of China, which I think has got to be our top foreign policy threat to which we respond, not pointless wars somewhere else. That’s going to require some sacrifice, it’s going to require a declaration of independence from China, complete decoupling. And that’s not going to be easy; it’s going to require some inconvenience, since buying cheap stuff for so many years we got addicted to it.

But I think we can make those sacrifices if we know what we are sacrificing for. I want to see the GOP answer the question: What does it mean to be an American today? If we give an answer to that question, we dilute this woke agenda in these secular religions to irrelevance. Yes I’ve been complaining about them for the last three years because there’s a role for identifying the problem. But if we want to deliver a solution we’re need to rediscover that national identity that we all share. If we do that I still think in my bones that our best days, not in some cheesy politician kind of way, but truly I think our best days can be ahead of us. But it’s going to take that Revival to make it happen.

TC: I hope you’ll come back often because you are one of the one of the great talkers we’ve ever had. But very quickly: You identified China as the primary concern of American foreign policy; you don’t think it’s the war in Eastern Europe?

VR: Absolutely correct. Foreign policy is all about prioritization. We must wake up to the fact that China is violating our sovereignty. If that had been a Russian spy balloon, we’d have shot it down instantly, and ratcheted up sanctions. Why didn’t we do that to China?

The answer is simple: We depend on them for our modern way of life.
This economic co-dependent relationship has to end.

And the only other priority I’d add is: If you’re actually going to use the military for something, use it to decimate the cartels South of the Border in a failed Narco State that’s now actually killing people on American soil with fentanyl. That’s what a good use of a military looks like: Actually protecting American soil and American interests, not a pointless War somewhere else.

The heart of this goes to Reviving that national identity: What does it mean to be American. Then you know what you need to defend. That’s where our domestic policy vision and this cultural vision is inextricably linked to our foreign policy Vision too. And that’s why I’m running for president because I think that needs to be at the top of the GOP’s agenda. It needs to be at the top of this country’s agenda so I’m running for president to make it happen.

TC: That is so far from the current agenda it will be fascinating to see you weigh into this race, and we appreciate your announcing here tonight, thank you.