WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — After last week’s disorderly, hostile debate, some fun and games on the presidential campaign trail may have been just what the doctor ordered.
Multi-millionaire businessman and GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy rolled out Vektoberfest Thursday evening in suburban Des Moines, bringing Iowans “family-friendly fun” mixed with a serious campaign speech dredging the depths of America’s soul-sucking void.
The outdoor rally with its fall festival atmosphere followed a pitched scene earlier in the day on the campaign trail when liberal protesters reportedly rammed a car into a Ramaswamy campaign vehicle at a Grinnell, IA, coffee shop. No one was injured.
Ramaswamy seemed unfazed by the incident as he happily greeted scores of Iowans before addressing a rally crowd of 200-plus at West Des Moines’ Jamie Hurd Amphitheater.
Rally-goers played rounds of cornhole and kept food and beer truck operators hopping while kids decorated pumpkins and Ramaswamy campaign volunteers passed out caucus cards on the windy and brisk early fall evening.
With just over 100 days before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus, these are make-or-break days for campaigns. And the Hawkeye State will become an even busier place for the crowded field of Republican presidential candidates in the waning weeks of a long 2024 presidential primary season.
Ramaswamy, like his other GOP presidential rivals, has a massive gap to make up in catching front-runner and former President Donald Trump. Nationally, Trump is polling at nearly 58 percent, up 45 percentage points on his closest competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, according to RealClear Politics. Ramaswamy is running in 4th place, at 5.6 percent.
In Iowa, Trump leads the field by 33 percent, with Ramaswamy again in 4th place, at 7 percent.
At Thursday’s rally, Ramaswamy stuck to his national revival campaign themes, that the 2024 election isn’t just about change, it’s about revolution in a nation filled with young people thirsting for purpose.
“We’re lost, we’re hungry for a cause,” the 38-year-old millennial Republican said. “We are starved for purpose and meaning and identity at a time in our national history when the things that used to fill that void — faith in God, belief in country, patriotism, hard work, family — these things have disappeared at the same time. And when you have a vacuum in your heart, a black hole that runs that deep, that is when the poison fills the void.”
The poison, as the anti-woke crusader has often preached, is the far left’s “cults” of climate change, equity, gender and sexual identities, class warfare.
Ramaswamy said the U.S. is in a war of sorts, and the real enemies are the Chinese Communist Party and the unconstitutional fourth branch of government, the administrative state, aka the swamp.
“We need a U.S. president in this country who will stand up with a spine to the real enemy,” he said. “Here’s my strategy: We win. They lose.”
To do that, Ramaswamy reiterated, the swamp that GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has been at war with for years must be gutted. He pitched his plan to dramatically cut the workforce of non-military federal government employees through mass layoffs and eight-year term limits for bureaucrats.
“When there are government agencies that should not exist, from the FBI to the IRS to the ATF to the CDC to the U.S. Department of Education, we’re not going to tinker around the edges. We’re going to get in there and shut them down,” the biotech entrepreneur said to enthusiastic applause from the crowd, sitting on blankets on the lawn or on hay bales provided by the campaign. “That is how you revive the integrity of the constitutional republic.”
Ramaswamy also called for a divorce, a Declaration of Independence from China. He noted the deep dependency the U.S. has on the communist nation — from pharmaceuticals to the components for smartphones and military equipment.
“We are done depending on our enemy for our modern way of life,” he said. “We are in a co-dependent relationship and those don’t end well. The only question is who ends it first.”
He acknowledged breaking away from China’s control on U.S. consumerism could cause some “small inconveniences.” Indeed. U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled an estimated $758.4 billion in 2022, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Exports were $195.5 billion; imports were $562.9 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $367.4 billion in 2022.
The U.S. sources 99 percent of shoes sold from overseas, with 70 percent of those coming from the People’s Republic of China, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
“Same with 72 percent of smartphones. The artificial sweeteners in Diet Coke. Toys, furniture, sports equipment … what you buy every time you go to Target,” states an institute report on America’s dependence on China.
Ramaswamy charges the dependency must end or America will become more captive to an oppressive regime.
“We can make a sacrifice if we know what we are sacrificing for, that is this thing that we call the United States of America,” he said.
As he ended his speech, the October night sky over Mills Civic Parkway glowed with a drone light show message: “This is our 1776 Moment,” punctuating the electoral revolution Ramaswamy is calling for.
The candidate is next off to New Hampshire for a multi-days swing through the first primary state, including a visit to the U.S. northerner border and a stop in Dixville Notch, traditionally known for being one of the first places to declare its results during the Granite State presidential primary.
– – –
M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
