Anti-woke Vivek Ramaswamy confronts racism in his run for Ohio governor [View all]

Vivek Ramaswamy built a political brand casting racism as an obsession of Democrats. As a Republican running for Ohio governor, he’s facing racism on the right.

Vivek Ramaswamy didn’t mention the racist taunts that follow him online or the GOP primary opponent who said he’s not a real American. But the Ohio gubernatorial candidate who clinched his party’s nomination this week alluded to bigotry on the right in his opening message to a town hall full of young Republicans.

Ramaswamy, a Hindu son of Indian immigrants, warned the crowd against adopting the same “victim” mentality that he said had afflicted the left. “The number one factor that determines whether you achieve your goals in life … is actually you,” he said at the May 1 event.

“It’s not the Jews,” Ramaswamy added. “It’s not the White people. It’s not the patriarchy. It’s not the Black people. It’s not the foreigners.”

It was a striking message from a candidate who has long cast racism as an obsession of Democrats and has more recently confronted it on the right. After building his political career denouncing “wokeness” on the left, at one point dismissing “the myth of white supremacy” during his 2024 presidential campaign, he is trying to steer his party away from the extremist fringes that have flared up in his own race.

Ramaswamy, 40, won the GOP nomination easily Tuesday, but an obscure primary opponent, Casey Putsch, secured about 18 percent of the vote while assailing “third worlders,” invoking “blood and soil” language used by Nazis and attacking Ramaswamy as an “Indian boy [who] cosplays an American.” Many Republicans dismiss people like Putsch as online agitators who are best ignored — but some are still unnerved by the traction they have gotten despite their embrace of open bigotry.

https://wapo.st/49uXLy7