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Vivek Ramaswamy is currently the fourth-place GOP candidate for U.S. president, behind only Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, and Nikki Haley. He has taken radical far-right positions on some key issues, including arguing that the United States should deport some legal U.S. citizens in addition to undocumented migrants.
Straight Arrow News contributor Ruben Navarrette argues that Ramaswamy’s vile public persona makes him a perfect candidate for the viral internet era. Navarrette asserts that if his outlandish positions grant him attention, perhaps that is precisely the point.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is perfect for the internet era. He’s a tweet, wrapped in a post, tied to a TikTok video, stuffed into a blog. There’s no substance, no seriousness, no introspection, no empathy. There’s only shock value, smugness, and a look-at-me narcissism that leads him to say some stupid crap. Ramaswamy gets attention by setting his hair on fire, and sometimes the country and its most sacred traditions along with it.
He lit a match recently when he vowed that, if elected president, he would deport not just undocumented immigrants, but also, for good measure, their U.S.-born children. “
The family unit will be deported,” Ramaswamy told a reporter for NBC News after a town hall in Iowa.
That’s odd. Those kids are, what’s that phrase? Oh, yeah, U.S. citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
The fact that those children were born on U.S. soil gives them the golden ticket. The 14th Amendment states very clearly that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the state wherein they reside.” These kids are as American as Yankee Doodle Dandy, whether Ramaswamy likes it or not.
