Why should the electoral bid of US citizen Vivek Ganapathy country’s presidential election of 2024 matter? Frankly it shouldn’t; he is after all born and brought up in the United States and describes himself as an ‘unapologetic American nationalist’. He is a millionaire who has realised the ‘American dream’ and is now proposing America 2.0 ( Take America First further than Trump).
The honest answer for the curiosity around him for us is just in his name i.e., Vivek, son of a Tamil Brahmin immigrant from Palakkad district in Kerala.Currently ranked a longshot third in the Republican primaries, he is unlikely to make the cut as the final choice of the party, but his maverick persona says a lot about the status of American society, politics, as also about the perceptions of the Indian American community.
To start with, Vivek personifies the stereotypical ‘Asok’ (of Dilbert comic strip) at various levels, and yet breaks away from the same at so many other levels ~ suggestive of the evolutionary redefinition of that traditional imagery.
Like the popularly imagined IIT’ian ‘Asok’, who is functionally and academically brilliant and has abilities to solve complex issues in just a few keystrokes, Vivek is a real-life Harvard and Yale alumni who made it big with his biotech entrepreneurial endevours.
But unlike ‘Asok’ who remains socially awkward, unfitting and naïve to the ways of ‘White America’ and everything that goes along with it, Vivek on the other hand has the alterego of rapper ‘Da Vek’ with black Kangol hat and hip libertarian prose, plays tennis (not cricket), debates fearlessly (not shy) and is ‘fashionably unfashionable’ i.e., antiestablishment, antiwoke (authored, Woke, Inc.: In side Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, and, Capitalist Punishment: How Wall Street Is Using Your Money to Create a Country You Didn’t Vote For), anti-climate change (he did say ‘climate change is a hoax’), anti-ESG (insisting that the US should ‘drill, frack and burn coal’) etc., Basically, he is a Trump wannabe and much more.
To be fair to Vivek, this anti- thetical imagery to the quintessential Indian template of ‘Asok’ is genuine in that he has been a lifelong debater with an edgy tilt (“I like to be contrarian” or “I like to argue”) with extremely right-wing actions.He is no pre-himself )
as he dectender even if he his credibly accused of downplaying and attempting to obliterate any linkages to the controversial George Soros which is simply common sense or electoral ‘washing’. It is a tightrope act for the practicing Hindu to repeatedly insist that America is predicated on ‘Christian values’ and ‘Judeo-Christian values’ not as apologetically, amorally, or insidiously as a Bobby Jindal earlier, but more brazenly and nonchalantly. That has made others in race look at him discomfortingly.
He was the singular punching-bag for almost all fellow Republican candidates in the first debate, where he retained his shrill and accusative tone directed at all others, except Trump.
Perhaps it is a well thought out strategy of punting on Trump’s endorsement, in the unlikely event that the former President bails out, owing to unsustainable legality.
Vivek’s loyalty did not go unnoticed by Trump (who di participate himself) as he declared Vivek to be the winner of round one, “This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH” and added, “Thank you Vivek!”.
It could also lead to the outside possibility of Trump eventually declaring Vivek to be his running mate, to consolidate the hardliners solidly behind him, should he be re-nominated by the Republicans. But for this strategy to play out there is still time and lots of if and buts, for now, Vivek is upping the ante with his snide remarks and refusal to move out of the headlines. Vivek also provoked the other candidate with Indian ethnicity, Nikki Haley, by calling her ‘lying Namrata (sic)’ alluding to her given Indian name.
Vivek’s seemingly winning spiel is a fallback to the constituents who have tired of political correctness and would instead seek plain speak that appeals to their basic instincts.
So, his campaign page prefaced with ‘TRUTH’ is littered with, ‘end affirmative action’, ‘use the military, to secure our southern border’, ‘use our military to annihilate Mexican drug cartels’ or mock the educational system with statements like, ‘Incentivize trade schools over hollow college degrees (sorry, sender study majors)’ etc.!
In a throwback to Trumpism that sought to sweep the ‘Red’ States, brown-skinned Vivek is going all out to woo the hardline rednecks amongst the Republicans. It is a radical gambit that speaks the ‘unspeakable’ till now, and therefore appeals emotions that are easy to titil- late, but disastrous to implement.
To a large extent, the shameless incident of 6th Jan 2021 on Capitol Hill had blown the lid of conversational propriety to such an extent that one of Vivek’s campaign line is to ‘pardon defendants of politicized prosecutions: Trump, Mackey and peaceful Jan 6 protestors’. Tellingly he is amongst the fastest climbers in popularity charts and the enfeebled construct of ‘Asok’, can take a walk!
He is also positioning himself as the trophy show horse of the extremist rightwing with his ‘anti-anti-racism’ line as he seemingly ‘brown washes’ them of all sins, associated with their obvious racism. He uses his identity very cleverly to infuse divisions with- in the non-white shade card that spins Barack Obama’s original line by re-stating, “As a person of color, I prove that America is not racist.
And if Black Americans are faltering, that is due to their own faults”, to posit the narrative of minority success under Republican rule. While appealing to some ‘white’ sections, he is clearly un- appealing to a lot many and his overenthusiasm to prove his Americanness could also result in demonstrating his ‘unbiasedness’ towards India, a worrisome portent.
Is he a spoiler and entertainer in the pack? Is he playing for eventualities? Is he the right man with the wrong image, or the other way round?
Only time will tell. But the Vivek phenomenon is a mirror into American frustrations, aspi- rations and from our angle, the evolved image for ‘Asok’, as one who now raps Eminem’s anthem ‘Lose Yourself ’!
But it is the terse ceaseand desist notice from Team Eminem from using their material that probably shows it may not be a cakewalk for Vivek.
The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Pondicherry