Oh(io) No: Vivek Ramaswamy's Catch-22 problem with MAGA

The Indian identity has always cast a strange shadow over America, even before the USA came into existence. Christopher Columbus – who never reached the present-day mainland US and yet became one of its founding symbols because Americans needed something to differentiate themselves from the British, and an Italian voyager flying under the Spanish flag made for better storytelling – called the natives “Indians”.The name came from Columbus believing that the Antilles were part of the Asian lands Europeans called the Indies, and Native Americans got stuck with the “Indian” label for centuries because, when a European makes a mistake, our colonial legacy ensures it lives on almost infinitely.Indians would arrive later in the US of A to provide various services, what comedian Nimesh Patel labels “gas, beds, and meds”, but today the Indian identity on the right side of American politics is going through what can be called a sticky wicket.On one side, you have Indian boy Kash Patel living the high life (his critics will argue literally) as the head of the FBI, flying around to chug beer with hockey teams when he’s not bragging about his country-singer girlfriend. On another, you have avowed Trump fan Dinesh D’Souza, who recently lost his cool on Twitter against racist Americans whom he perhaps considered his bedfellows.When someone mocked Vivek Ramaswamy’s failed attempts at carrying a child and wrote, “In case you’re wondering how England was able to take over the subcontinent of India with like a platoon of guys”, D’Souza hit back: “Yeah but one half-naked Indian guy was able to chase the British out in 1947 without firing a single shot.”

It’s a peculiar stage where a man who has spent his life currying favour with white racists suddenly invokes Mahatma Gandhi in an argument against them. And perhaps the man who truly epitomises this dichotomy in the Indian-American identity is Vivek Ramaswamy.As The Economist noted, Vivek Ramaswamy has the odd problem of being “too MAGA and not MAGA enough”. The piece states: “…most polls show Dr Acton with a slight lead.

Mr Ramaswamy is proving too MAGA for Ohio’s moderates and not MAGA enough for many Republicans.”

He is running to become Ohio governor, a position he perhaps sees as a stepping stone to something bigger in the party. Yet Ramaswamy’s association with Trump is increasingly becoming a liability among neutral voters, while his faith and skin colour are proving a deterrent among parts of the MAGA base.He had many of the talking points of Trumpism with smoother syntax, fewer digressions and the confidence of a man who had sold his pharma company for hundreds of millions.

And it was apparent that he understood MAGA’s most abiding philosophy: Trump is God and all else is embellishment.This was how Ramaswamy tamed anti-Indian MAGA by winning the Republican primary at a canter after Trump’s endorsement, but the upcoming midterms involve people who never agreed to that arrangement.The MAGA flag is flying at an all-time low – much of it thanks to Trump’s actions that have thrown the global economy into disarray – and hitting voters where it matters the most: their wallets.CNN’s October poll puts Amy Acton at 50% and Vivek at 42% among likely voters. Trump, who carried Ohio by 11 points in 2024, had an approval rating of 36% in the state. One poll doesn’t make a summer, but it does show that the presidential blessing now comes with significantly more baggage. It turns out war – that leads to global upheavals – isn’t great for the economy, at least not the way it used to be during World War II. The globe is just too interconnected now.His opponent, Acton, makes an awkward villain. She led Ohio’s pandemic response under Republican governor Mike DeWine, and while Trump calls her a “radical left-lunatic”, voters remember her as someone who has been associated with the state’s existing administration.The blast radius of Trump’s actions – MAGA lives and dies with his actions – isn’t just confined to Vivek.Pew’s late-September and early-October survey put Trump’s national approval at 30%.

Even among his 2024 voters, approval has fallen from 95% to 67%. Ramaswamy’s short political career has always been the afterglow of Trump’s solar power, but now he has to negotiate an electorate that has got sunburnt.Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, would have found the contradiction quite amusing. Ramaswamy needs Trump to keep the MAGA base and needs to demonstrate to neutral voters that he’s not Trump.The problem here is balancing Otto von Bismarck’s art of the possible and improbable.

The problem is that no matter what Vivek does, even if he balances a Bible on his head while reciting the Constitution, he would be judged for his skin colour and religion. Even if he converted like Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley, or were a born Christian like Dinesh D’Souza, he would still be castigated for not being white. Racism simply never ends.The more sophisticated version of this prejudice now travels under the label of the heritage American, which sounds like a protected variety of cheese but essentially means that some Americans are more American than others because their ancestors arrived earlier.

The exact date of arrival also varies. Some believe anyone who didn’t come on the Mayflower doesn’t qualify to be a heritage American. Others go back a few centuries.

Sometimes, it’s just white immigrants.Ramaswamy’s political identity is based on the Reaganesque idea that “anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”And now Reagan’s party – cannibalised by MAGA – no longer believes that.

Of course, Ramaswamy has a style of conscientious arrogance that is great for start-up bros but isn’t particularly helpful for politicians not named Donald. Even Obama was accused of being a tad harrowing, so it’s hardly a surprise that Ramaswamy’s Boxing Day lecture about “American mediocrity”, asking Americans to watch less television and study more, sounded like something a Tiger Mom would tell her immigrant children.After all, the movement’s enthusiasm for colourless merit hit a snag when it appeared that Indians were winning it. Even Malcolm Gladwell has noted that America’s current positive affirmation movement hits Indian-Americans the hardest, which is starting to manifest as resentment against Indians.Consider the viral photo of Indian-American students attending a University of Texas football game where they were somehow targeted for doing the most American thing ever: drinking beer from a Viking horn while cheering on a football team.

This was presented by Bo French, the Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner, as evidence of something wrong with the country.

It’s remarkable because the same crowd, if they saw Indian-Americans watching cricket, would argue that immigrants are not assimilating enough. And when they do assimilate, it’s passed off as an invasion.Even MAGA’s colourless merit argument hits a snag with brown-skinned Indians.

As Jonathan Chait documented in The Atlantic, Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist best known for campaigning against critical race theory, and right-wing publisher Jonathan Keeperman discussed the matter in a podcast ominously titled “The Indian Question”. Rufo complained about Indians spending endless hours preparing for spelling bees.

Keeperman preferred the football player who spent the night drinking beer and still scored 1500 on his SATs.Ergo, we hit the heritage American qualification, but the fallout of anti-India and anti-Hindu hate – that used to be the preserve of America’s Left – now has bipartisan appeal.The online hatred exploded into the real world, like in the recent case of a 19-year-old who was arrested after an alleged mass-shooting plot targeting a Hindu place of worship in Aurora. Ironically, Ramaswamy, who has been very vocal about being Hindu, hasn’t weighed in on the attack, even though various Hindu American politicians like Ro Khanna and Suhas Subramanyam have condemned it, as have Republican ones like Rick McCormick and Darin LaHood.But Ramaswamy – at least at the time of writing – doesn’t appear to have used any press conference or social media account or given a word through his campaign. Which is a bit ironic, given that the proverbial cat has got the tongue of one of the nation’s most prominent Hindu Americans – who is wont to weigh in on every topic.Also read:

It’s perhaps just a continuation of his Catch-22 problem: ahead of the midterms, Ramaswamy doesn’t want to aggravate any potential voter already on the fence between Trump’s misadventures and his Hindu identity. Or perhaps he’s just waiting for Trump to weigh in.But if Ramaswamy does manage to win despite being caught between a rock and a hard place, it would be quite remarkable. Though perhaps not as remarkable as a country that spent centuries celebrating a man who never actually found it.