Anti-Woke, Inc.
The New Yorker|December 19, 2022
Will skewering corporate do-gooders and civil-rights activists make Vivek Ramaswamy a right-wing star?
By Sheelah Kolhatkar
Anti-Woke, Inc.

In June, as the sun set on Dublin, Ohio, a well-to-do suburb of Columbus, several dozen people dressed in golf shirts and floral shifts filed into a small auditorium to listen to a talk by a new neighbor. Vivek Ramaswamy, a thirty-seven-year-old entrepreneur, had settled in the area with his wife and toddler son after making a large fortune as the founder of a biotech company. Now, thanks to dozens of appearances on Fox News to criticize “cultural totalitarianism” enforced by liberal élites, he was closing in on fame as a conservative pundit. In the past year, he had cast aspersions on Black Lives Matter and “the death of merit”; mask mandates and U.S.-border protection; public-school curricula and the actor Jussie Smollett. All the flamethrowing had established him, in the words of one anchor, as the network’s “woke and cancel-culture guru.”

Ramaswamy has perfect-looking teeth, a high forehead, and a thick shock of hair that rises into a swirl at his crown. Out on the sidewalk, he’d hastily replaced his flip-flops with sneakers, in a nod to formality. At the front of the auditorium, perched on a stool, he spoke into his microphone with a showman’s brio, as if addressing a far larger crowd. He enjoyed forums like this, “where there’s no agenda, there’s no objective, other than to create spaces for open conversation, for people to be free to say, and feel free to say, the kinds of things that they might have wanted to say behind closed doors,” he said, smiling brightly. The true test of the strength of a democracy was not, he argued, how many people voted. It was “the percentage of people who feel free to say what they actually think, in public.”

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 19, 2022-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 19, 2022-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS THE NEW YORKERAlle anzeigen
GET IT TOGETHER
The New Yorker

GET IT TOGETHER

In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
GAINING CONTROL
The New Yorker

GAINING CONTROL

The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
The New Yorker

REBELS WITH A CAUSE

In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
AGAINST THE CURRENT
The New Yorker

AGAINST THE CURRENT

\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
METAMORPHOSIS
The New Yorker

METAMORPHOSIS

The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
THE BIG SPIN
The New Yorker

THE BIG SPIN

A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
The New Yorker

THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED

I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.

time-read
2 Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
The New Yorker

HOLD YOUR TONGUE

Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
A LONG WAY HOME
The New Yorker

A LONG WAY HOME

Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
November 25, 2024
YULE RULES
The New Yorker

YULE RULES

“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”

time-read
6 Minuten  |
November 18, 2024