![Anti-Woke, Inc.](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1670833652/articles/A9GL_s31D1671434302363/Vivek-Ramaswamy-Right-wing-star.jpg)
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.”
Denne historien er fra December 19, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra December 19, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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![The Kamala Show](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1803857/6Ae3mRm3n1724156579144/crp_Kamala-Harris.jpg)
The Kamala Show
The evolution of Harris’ public persona.
![A Cult in the Forest - The vast majority of Kenyans are Christian, a faith that arrived with early colonization. A group of Finnish missionaries brought Pentecostalism in the nineteen-hundreds](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1803857/nKf0F9oJi1724155736647/crp_Kenya-evangelical-Christianity-large-congregations-Paul-Mackenzie-religious-festival-Mackenzie-Catholic-church-Pentecostal-church-Good-News-International-Ministries-Malindi-Shakahola-Kenia-secta-religion-streme-religions.jpg)
A Cult in the Forest - The vast majority of Kenyans are Christian, a faith that arrived with early colonization. A group of Finnish missionaries brought Pentecostalism in the nineteen-hundreds
The vast majority of Kenyans are Christian, a faith that arrived with early colonization. A group of Finnish missionaries brought Pentecostalism in the nineteen-hundreds. The colonial government tried to suppress it, because a faction of pro-independence freedom fighters belonged to the African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa, which included messages about decolonization in its hymns. But after independence, in 1963, Pentecostalism and other forms of evangelical Christianity spread. They emphasized charismatic forms of worship—visions, spiritual healing, speaking in tongues—and a gospel that promised prosperity to the faithful. “If you want your church to be full, do what I call ‘spiritual gymnastics,’ ” Martin Olando, a scholar of African Christianity at the Bishop Hannington Institute, in Mombasa, told me. “Jump up and down, prophesize good tidings, tell people what they want to hear.” By the nineties, Kenya’s President, Daniel arap Moi, enjoyed a beneficial relationship with Arthur Kitonga, an influential Pentecostal bishop. “President Moi has been appointed by God to lead this country,” Kitonga said at the time. William Ruto, Kenya’s current President, and its first evangelical one, brought gospel singers into his campaign team and party, and has donated cars, and thousands of dollars, to evangelical churches. His wife, Rachel, invited the U.S.-based televangelist Benny Hinn to preach with her at a crusade. (This year, Hinn apologized for giving fake prophecies. “There were times when I thought God had showed me something that He wasn’t showing me,” he told the Christian podcast “Strang Report.”)
![FAITH HEALING](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/lJJZApN3T1724672446516/FAITH-HEALING.jpg)
FAITH HEALING
\"Between the Temples.\"
![DEVIL MAY CARE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/rEFgCcxPc1724672371277/DEVIL-MAY-CARE.jpg)
DEVIL MAY CARE
\"Evil,\" on Paramount+.
![FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/_57crhnCT1724672281359/FOR-LOVE-OF-COUNTRY.jpg)
FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY
How Post Malone made himself at home in Nashville.
![THE COLLECTOR](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/gLFxeSlni1724671294649/THE-COLLECTOR.jpg)
THE COLLECTOR
Bonnie Slotnick, the downtown food-history savant.
![LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/S52o6jOQN1724671069195/LOVES-LABORS-LOST.jpg)
LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST
The forgotten history of sex in America.
![LIVING UNDER A ROCK](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/7SCINJSPC1724670783950/LIVING-UNDER-A-ROCK.jpg)
LIVING UNDER A ROCK
A geologist reflects on her life.
![THE PARTICLES OF ORDER](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/jqEYoMQVE1724670145390/THE-PARTICLES-OF-ORDER.jpg)
THE PARTICLES OF ORDER
The guest from America was to arrive in the late afternoon.
![EARLY SCENES](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1810368/1xFzPT8401724669632236/EARLY-SCENES.jpg)
EARLY SCENES
Remembering a childhood in the South Bronx.