New Delhi: Indian-American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has announced his candidature for the Republican race for US president, has said there has been a birth of a new strand of Left after 2008.
Ramaswamy posted an over 3-minute video of his address at Saint Anselm College where he spoke on the relationship between Wall Street and Silicon Valley. He captioned the video, "After 2008, Wall Street & Silicon Valley got in bed with the new left. Together they birthed a new woke-industrial complex that duped both political parties into submission. It’s a new hybrid of government & business that together can do what neither can on its own."
Ramaswamy said, "...but something else happened right around the same time, which was the birth of a new strand of the left with the election of Barack Obama as the first Black President of the United States in 2008. There was the birth of a new strand of the left around that same time that had a slightly different theory of the case."
He said, "And what they said was, well, hold on a second, occupy Wall Street, okay? It's not just economic injustice. It's not just poverty that we care about. We have some new concerns on the left like racism and misogyny and bigotry and of course, climate change."
He said that it was an 'opportunity of a lifetime' for big businesses in the US, and added, "After 2008, Wall Street and Silicon Valley got in bed with the new left. Together they birthed a new woke-industrial complex that duped both political parties into submission. It's a new hybrid of government & business that together can do what neither can on its own."
"If you're big business, if you're Wall Street, occupy Wall Street is a pretty tough pill to swallow. But the new woke stuff was actually pretty easy. You applaud diversity and inclusion. You put some token minorities on your boards. You muse about the racially disparate impact of climate change after you flying a private jet to Davos," he said.
Ramaswamy said, "It's pretty good work if you can get it. But they did not do it for free. They expected that new left to look the other way when it came to leaving their corporate power intact and it worked masterfully like a charm for both sides. That is the story of how a bunch of big banks got in bed with a bunch of woke millennials who themselves are hungry for a cause."
"It worked so well on Wall Street that Silicon Valley then said, 'okay, we're going to get in on that'. Because you know what? If you're Silicon Valley back in 2010, 2009, the threat to your power used to come from the Left. 'Break up big tech' was not a right-wing slogan back then, it was a Leftwing slogan back then," Ramaswamy further added.
"They were skeptical of the monopoly power of the rise of concentrated behemoths in Silicon Valley. So we know what Silicon Valley said, they said, 'okay, we can make that same deal with you. We will censor hate speech and misinformation as you define it. We will use our power to advance your substantive ends, but again, we will not do it for free. We effectively expect the new left to look the other way when it comes to leaving our monopoly power intact. And again, that trade work masterfully for both sides," he added.
Terming alleged coming together of Wall Street and Silicon Valley as an "arranged marriage" and an act of "mutual prostitution", Ramaswamy said, "That is the story of this unholy alliance, this arranged marriage. It was not a marriage of love. It was an act of mutual prostitution and the net result of that act was the birth of a new Leviathan, far more powerful than what Thomas Hobbes envisioned 400 years ago, far more powerful than what our founding fathers envisioned 250 years ago."
He further said, "This new woke industrial ESG industrial complex that's a hybrid of government power and corporate power that together could accomplish what neither could on its own. And then that's how you get the litany of what you saw follow. In the years thereafter, the rest of corporate America gets in on the act."
Lashing out at Coca-Cola, Ramaswamy said that the popular brand making statements about a new voting law in Georgia sounds more like a "soft drink manufacturer teaching its employees how to be less white in their words".
"However, they do nothing about their own impact on diabetes and obesity in the black community. Nike decries slavery and does not speak about using slave labour in China," he added.
Earlier this week, Indian-American tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy launched his 2024 presidential bid with a promise to “put merit back” and end dependence on China, becoming the second community member to enter the Republican Party's presidential primary after Nikki Haley.
"I am proud to say tonight that I am running for president to revive those ideals in this country," Vivek Ramaswamy said during a live interview on Fox News’s prime time show of Tucker Carlson, adding, "I think we need to put ‘merit’ back into ‘America’ in every spirit of our lives."