Vivek Ramaswamy targets online far-right during remarks at AmericaFest

Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy laid out his vision of what it means to be an American and encouraged conservatives to embrace ideals, not “ancestry,” during a speech at AmericaFest at Turning Point USA on Friday.

Ramaswamy rejected what he calls the race- and identity-obsessed vision of the “woke left,” as well as certain segments of the “online right” that connect American identity to heritage.

“I think the idea of ​​American heritage is as crazy as any idea put forward by the woke left,” he said at Turning Point’s conference in Phoenix, Ariz. “There is no American who is more American than anyone else… It’s binary. You’re either an American or you’re not.”

Believing in ideals is what makes the man who calls himself the proud son of “legal immigrants” an American, Ramaswamy said.

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“What does it mean to be an American in 2026? It means we believe in the ideals of 1776,” he said. “That means we believe in merit, in getting the best person to get the job, regardless of skin color.”

“This means we believe in freedom of expression and open debate,” he added. “Even for those who disagree with us, from Nick Fuentes to Jimmy Kimmel, you can speak your mind without the government censoring you.”

Ramaswamy linked far-left and far-right figures in saying there is no place in the conservative movement not only for progressives who believe in racial quotas, but also for those who rationalize hatred of groups of people, and specifically called out far-right White nationalist Nick Fuentes for some of his incendiary statements.

He also urged participants not to play the victim role like woke leftists.

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“The culture of victimization from left to right will be the destruction of this country,” he said.

Ramaswamy’s speech followed guest article Earlier this week, he argued in The New York Times that the American right is divided into two incompatible sides: a “blood and soil,” identity-obsessed perspective, and a perspective based on American ideals.

“Whatever your ancestry, if you wait your turn and become a citizen, you are every bit as American as the Mayflower descendants, so long as you subscribe to America’s founding creed and the culture that grew out of it,” he wrote. “This is what makes American exceptionalism possible.”

Ramaswamy, who was born in Ohio to Indian immigrant parents, wrote in his article that older Republicans are ignoring Generation Z’s rising tide of white nationalism and anti-Semitism at their own peril. He likened this momentum to the rise of the far-left wing in the Democratic Party, which has evoked ideas such as racist mathematics, calling on Republicans to confront and criticize identity politics on the right and become a bulwark against racist attitudes.

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He meanwhile called on Republicans to do more to shore up the dire economic outlook for young Americans by lowering costs and giving them more of a place in the game through such means as “broad-based participation in wealth creation from stock market gains.”

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“The refreshing truth is that the solution to identity politics does not have to be for one camp to defeat another, but instead to achieve a national escape velocity together to a more promising area,” he wrote.

The background to Ramaswamy’s article is a fight between various personalities in the right-wing media, who differ sharply on everything from Israel to protectionism to the Charlie Kirk murder. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has emerged as a harsh critic of figures like Fuentes, Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, calling them conspiratorial charlatans who are hurting the movement and the country.

On the first night of AmericaFest, Shapiro and Carlson took the stage separately and exchanged vitriol; Carlson said Shapiro tried to remove himself from the platform, which is contrary to Turning Point co-founder Charlie Kirk, who argues with anyone who comes along on college campuses.

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