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By Vivek Ramaswamy
Mr. Ramaswamy was a Republican candidate for president in 2024 and is running for governor of Ohio in 2026.
There are two competing visions now emerging on the American right, and they are incompatible. One vision of American identity is based on lineage, blood and soil: Inherited attributes matter most. The purest form of an American is a so-called heritage American — one whose ancestry traces back to the founding of the United States or earlier.
This view is now popularized by the Groyper right, a rapidly ascendant online movement that argues for the creation of a white-centric identity. This is a predictable response — one that I anticipated in my 2022 book, “Nation of Victims” — to anti-white discrimination over the last half-decade, and it is no longer just a fringe viewpoint.
The alternative (and, in my view, correct) vision of American identity is based on ideals.
Americanness isn’t a scalar quality that varies based on your ancestry. It’s binary: Either you’re an American or you’re not. You are an American if you believe in the rule of law, in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, in colorblind meritocracy, in the U.S. Constitution, in the American dream, and if you are a citizen who swears exclusive allegiance to our nation.
As Ronald Reagan quipped, you can go to live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman; but anyone from any corner of the world can come to live in the United States and become an American. No matter your ancestry, if you wait your turn and obtain citizenship, you are every bit as American as a Mayflower descendant, as long as you subscribe to the creed of the American founding and the culture that was born of it. This is what makes American exceptionalism possible.
The divide between these two views is more foundational than policy divides between Republicans and Democrats. Older Republicans who may doubt the rising prevalence of the blood-and-soil view should think again. My social media feeds are littered with hundreds of slurs, most from accounts that I don’t recognize, about “pajeets” and “street shitters” and calls to deport me “back to India” (I was born and raised in Cincinnati and have never resided outside the U.S.).
Antisemitic statements are now normalized online, and it’s not limited to the internet either. Rod Dreher, a conservative writer, recently described a trip to Washington, D.C., where he estimated that a sizable minority of Republican Gen Z staffers are fans of Nick Fuentes.
This new online-right movement doesn’t represent the views of most real-world Republican voters — take it from a son of Indian immigrants who dominates polling in Ohio’s G.O.P. primary for governor. But as one of the most vocal opponents of left-wing identity politics, I now see real reluctance from my former anti-woke peers to criticize the new identity politics on the right.
This pattern eerily mirrors the hesitance of prominent Democrats to criticize woke excess in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, even though most Democratic voters clearly never believed that math is racist, or that hard work and the written tradition are hallmarks of whiteness. That’s a big part of why Kamala Harris lost in such spectacular fashion. If the post-Trump G.O.P. makes the same mistake with our own identitarian fringe, we will meet a similar fate.
Young people are often a leading indicator of where political winds are blowing, and the generational nature of the problem is remarkable. Many voters under 30 believe they will never be able to afford a home. They’re often saddled with college debt, and absent dramatic policy interventions, Social Security will most likely be curtailed before they ever receive benefits. They are understandably bitter about it.
Their rising sense of economic insecurity conspires with pent-up psychosocial angst. Depression and anxiety are more prevalent among members of Gen Z than in prior American generations. In the absence of a shared national identity, they’re turning to tribalism and victimhood instead — Groyperism on the right, Zohran Mamdani-infused socialism on the left.
So what’s the solution? We need to imagine a new American dream that delivers economic empowerment while also filling the next generation’s hunger for purpose and belonging. To achieve that vision, four conditions must be met.
First, conservative leaders should condemn — without hedging — Groyper transgressions. If, like Mr. Fuentes, you believe that Hitler was “really f-ing cool,” or if you publicly call Usha Vance a “jeet,” then you have no place in the conservative movement, period. The point isn’t to clutch pearls, but to prevent the gradual legitimization of this un-American animus. This online edgelording reminds me of toddlers testing their parents’ limits: The job of a real Republican leader is to set firm boundaries for young followers, as a good father does for a transgressive son.
That doesn’t mean censorship; it means moral clarity instead of indulgence. On policy debates, the Overton window should remain broad. It should be acceptable on the right to criticize U.S. aid to Israel or immigrant visas, but it is downright unacceptable to spew poison toward Jews, Indians or any other ethnic group. We must practice what we preach: My current Democrat opponent in Ohio is a Jewish woman, and while I criticize her policy record unsparingly, I will be her most vocal defender against antisemitic attacks from left or right.
Second, reduce costs of living. States can deliver quick wins. Drive down home prices by eliminating local land-use restrictions to increase housing supply. Reduce property tax burdens by making bloated local governments more efficient. Reduce electric bills by speeding up permitting timelines for new power plants and natural gas extraction. Democrats gave a mixed reception to Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s case for abundance, but if they shed the left-coded delivery of their ideas, a future G.O.P. could easily welcome many of them.
Third, create broad-based participation in wealth generation from stock market gains. In the A.I. era, it’s conceivable to envision a future with stock market outperformance even in the face of stagnating wages and job losses. That is a formula for social unrest, and shared equity offers a practical solution. If every kid legally born in the United States receives an “American dream birthright” in the form of $10,000 invested in the S&P 500, every young American would become a millionaire by age 60 (assuming a modest 8 percent annual return, which falls below historical five-, 10-, 20- and 40-year averages). That’s the mathematical magic of compounding.
The effect would be profound: Instead of lambasting millionaires, they would be on the way to becoming millionaires. Young Americans on the left and right alike would have shared skin in the game to root together for maximal economic growth — a chance to play on the same team again while weaning themselves off the federal welfare state. The recently enacted Trump accounts are an early positive step in this direction. If the program expands in the future, it could gradually replace certain other federal entitlements instead of simply adding to them.
Fourth, provide America the shared national project we badly need. America has a greater purpose in the world than what we have embodied thus far in the 21st century. Americans of all stripes long to be reminded of it, through a modern-day equivalent of the Apollo mission. Perhaps it’s establishing a base on the moon to achieve nuclear fusion in a way that powers the creation of artificial intelligence without negative externalities and constraints on Earth; perhaps it’s something else of similar scale and ambition. Such a project could serve as a much-needed catalyst to revive high-quality math and science education in America — by elevating standards in public schools, expanding educational choice and much more.
The uplifting truth is that the solution to identity politics needn’t be one camp defeating the other, but instead achieving together a national escape velocity to more promising terrain.
What Is an American?
Dec. 17, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ETBy Vivek Ramaswamy
Mr. Ramaswamy was a Republican candidate for president in 2024 and is running for governor of Ohio in 2026.
There are two competing visions now emerging on the American right, and they are incompatible. One vision of American identity is based on lineage, blood and soil: Inherited attributes matter most. The purest form of an American is a so-called heritage American — one whose ancestry traces back to the founding of the United States or earlier.
This view is now popularized by the Groyper right, a rapidly ascendant online movement that argues for the creation of a white-centric identity. This is a predictable response — one that I anticipated in my 2022 book, “Nation of Victims” — to anti-white discrimination over the last half-decade, and it is no longer just a fringe viewpoint.
The alternative (and, in my view, correct) vision of American identity is based on ideals.
Americanness isn’t a scalar quality that varies based on your ancestry. It’s binary: Either you’re an American or you’re not. You are an American if you believe in the rule of law, in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, in colorblind meritocracy, in the U.S. Constitution, in the American dream, and if you are a citizen who swears exclusive allegiance to our nation.
As Ronald Reagan quipped, you can go to live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman; but anyone from any corner of the world can come to live in the United States and become an American. No matter your ancestry, if you wait your turn and obtain citizenship, you are every bit as American as a Mayflower descendant, as long as you subscribe to the creed of the American founding and the culture that was born of it. This is what makes American exceptionalism possible.
The divide between these two views is more foundational than policy divides between Republicans and Democrats. Older Republicans who may doubt the rising prevalence of the blood-and-soil view should think again. My social media feeds are littered with hundreds of slurs, most from accounts that I don’t recognize, about “pajeets” and “street shitters” and calls to deport me “back to India” (I was born and raised in Cincinnati and have never resided outside the U.S.).
Antisemitic statements are now normalized online, and it’s not limited to the internet either. Rod Dreher, a conservative writer, recently described a trip to Washington, D.C., where he estimated that a sizable minority of Republican Gen Z staffers are fans of Nick Fuentes.
This new online-right movement doesn’t represent the views of most real-world Republican voters — take it from a son of Indian immigrants who dominates polling in Ohio’s G.O.P. primary for governor. But as one of the most vocal opponents of left-wing identity politics, I now see real reluctance from my former anti-woke peers to criticize the new identity politics on the right.
This pattern eerily mirrors the hesitance of prominent Democrats to criticize woke excess in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, even though most Democratic voters clearly never believed that math is racist, or that hard work and the written tradition are hallmarks of whiteness. That’s a big part of why Kamala Harris lost in such spectacular fashion. If the post-Trump G.O.P. makes the same mistake with our own identitarian fringe, we will meet a similar fate.
Young people are often a leading indicator of where political winds are blowing, and the generational nature of the problem is remarkable. Many voters under 30 believe they will never be able to afford a home. They’re often saddled with college debt, and absent dramatic policy interventions, Social Security will most likely be curtailed before they ever receive benefits. They are understandably bitter about it.
Their rising sense of economic insecurity conspires with pent-up psychosocial angst. Depression and anxiety are more prevalent among members of Gen Z than in prior American generations. In the absence of a shared national identity, they’re turning to tribalism and victimhood instead — Groyperism on the right, Zohran Mamdani-infused socialism on the left.
So what’s the solution? We need to imagine a new American dream that delivers economic empowerment while also filling the next generation’s hunger for purpose and belonging. To achieve that vision, four conditions must be met.
First, conservative leaders should condemn — without hedging — Groyper transgressions. If, like Mr. Fuentes, you believe that Hitler was “really f-ing cool,” or if you publicly call Usha Vance a “jeet,” then you have no place in the conservative movement, period. The point isn’t to clutch pearls, but to prevent the gradual legitimization of this un-American animus. This online edgelording reminds me of toddlers testing their parents’ limits: The job of a real Republican leader is to set firm boundaries for young followers, as a good father does for a transgressive son.
That doesn’t mean censorship; it means moral clarity instead of indulgence. On policy debates, the Overton window should remain broad. It should be acceptable on the right to criticize U.S. aid to Israel or immigrant visas, but it is downright unacceptable to spew poison toward Jews, Indians or any other ethnic group. We must practice what we preach: My current Democrat opponent in Ohio is a Jewish woman, and while I criticize her policy record unsparingly, I will be her most vocal defender against antisemitic attacks from left or right.
Second, reduce costs of living. States can deliver quick wins. Drive down home prices by eliminating local land-use restrictions to increase housing supply. Reduce property tax burdens by making bloated local governments more efficient. Reduce electric bills by speeding up permitting timelines for new power plants and natural gas extraction. Democrats gave a mixed reception to Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s case for abundance, but if they shed the left-coded delivery of their ideas, a future G.O.P. could easily welcome many of them.
Third, create broad-based participation in wealth generation from stock market gains. In the A.I. era, it’s conceivable to envision a future with stock market outperformance even in the face of stagnating wages and job losses. That is a formula for social unrest, and shared equity offers a practical solution. If every kid legally born in the United States receives an “American dream birthright” in the form of $10,000 invested in the S&P 500, every young American would become a millionaire by age 60 (assuming a modest 8 percent annual return, which falls below historical five-, 10-, 20- and 40-year averages). That’s the mathematical magic of compounding.
The effect would be profound: Instead of lambasting millionaires, they would be on the way to becoming millionaires. Young Americans on the left and right alike would have shared skin in the game to root together for maximal economic growth — a chance to play on the same team again while weaning themselves off the federal welfare state. The recently enacted Trump accounts are an early positive step in this direction. If the program expands in the future, it could gradually replace certain other federal entitlements instead of simply adding to them.
Fourth, provide America the shared national project we badly need. America has a greater purpose in the world than what we have embodied thus far in the 21st century. Americans of all stripes long to be reminded of it, through a modern-day equivalent of the Apollo mission. Perhaps it’s establishing a base on the moon to achieve nuclear fusion in a way that powers the creation of artificial intelligence without negative externalities and constraints on Earth; perhaps it’s something else of similar scale and ambition. Such a project could serve as a much-needed catalyst to revive high-quality math and science education in America — by elevating standards in public schools, expanding educational choice and much more.
The uplifting truth is that the solution to identity politics needn’t be one camp defeating the other, but instead achieving together a national escape velocity to more promising terrain.
