Vivek Ramaswamy’s Geopolitical Fantasy is the World’s Nightmare

An "anti-woke” presidential candidate has a plan...to destroy Taiwan

If you’ve never heard of Vivek Ramaswamy, then bless your heart.

He’s a plutocratic, hedge-fund, Ivy League, Republican presidential candidate. Real man of the people. 🙄 He also seems to check all the boxes of a “post-liberal,” far-right, MAGA politician.

Until recently, Ramaswamy’s singular obsession has been talking about identity politics from a typical right-wing tech-bro perspective. He made a name for himself by going on shows like Bill Maher to decry the threat of “wokeness.” 🙄

The “culture warriors” of the far right openly repudiate the obligations of maintaining a liberal hegemonic order, so if you’re a Washington establishment type, they’re your enemy. They’re also exceedingly likely to trade on American power in exchange for advancing their reactionary political agenda, so if you rely on the US in some way, be prepared to become a pawn. In the process, this version of demagogues white-wash the most violent and militaristic practices ongoing in US foreign policy.

Like other nationalist militarists, Ramaswamy is saying quite clearly that he doesn’t want to end militarism—he wants to redirect it toward the US border and the US homeland while setting up innumerable tripwires for great-power war.

Ramaswamy’s false frame tries to flatten public voices into only those willing to defend liberal hegemony (despite its horrific track record of militarism and domination) and those willing to admit that America should be the worst kind of empire—the purely extractive kind that has altogether given up on the pretense of enlightened purpose or greater good.

In this way, Ramaswamy’s ideas are important as a weathervane for the deeply radicalized and deranged Republican Party regardless whether he wins the Republican nomination.

Let me explain.