Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to Ohio State students during a Turning Point USA event at the Ohio Union Tuesday. Credit: Faith Schneider | Lantern Photographer
Lines spilled out the door for the Ohio State stop of the “You’re Being Brainwashed Tour” hosted by Ohio State’s chapter of Turning Point USA at the Ohio Union Tuesday, with approximately 850 students in attendance for event headliner and former candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination Vivek Ramaswamy.
The tour is currently traveling across American college campuses “to empower and educate college students with the principles and tools they need to challenge left-wing indoctrination on college campuses,” according to the Turning Point USA website.
Turning Point USA is the “largest and fastest growing conservative youth activist organization in the country,” according to its website.
The program — held in the Ohio Union’s Archie M. Griffin Ballroom — featured a table outside the event space with posters, buttons and other Turning Point USA merchandise. Jobob Taeleifi, a comedian and political commentator professionally known as Jobob, performed as the opening act before a speech and Q&A session led by Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy’s time focused on discussing pressing issues like LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, racial tensions and what he refers to as “anti-wokeism,” a mentality that challenges progressive ideologies through the values of conservative faith, family, hard work and American patriotism.
Opening remarks
Taeleifi opened the event at 7 p.m sharp with a seven-minute anecdote, in which he relayed a story about his Papua New Guinea-native grandmother potentially having eaten President Joe Biden’s uncle during his time as a soldier in World War II.
“The president of the United States said this, talking about his uncle who got shot down: ‘They got shot down. They never found the body because there used to be, well, there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea,’” Taeleifi said. “My grandma’s saying from Papua New Guinea was ‘I eat the people.’”
Taeleifi told audience members to “never stop fighting for [their] freedom” before handing the stage over to Ramaswamy.
“Never stop fighting for truth, yes,” Taeleifi said. “And never stop fighting for this country.”
Ramaswamy’s speech
Ramaswamy walked on stage at approximately 7:13 p.m., kicking off his 20-minute talk with a brief outline of his opinions on American politics and the upcoming election.
“I want to start with an analysis of what we think of progressive woke poison, but not beginning with a position of anger,” Ramaswamy said. “Let’s begin with just a position of curiosity — what’s actually going on?”
Ramaswamy went on to identify three central factors of what he believes to be “woke poison” in America: “puzzles of race wokeism,” “LGBTQ identity” and the “climate change agenda movement.”
On the topic of “race wokeism,” which he defined as “the racial obsession of racial identity,” Ramaswamy said the notions of civil rights and racial equality have taken on a new identity far removed from their historical meanings and purposes.
“It’s a bit of a mystery here, because on one hand, we strove in this country starting from a place of inequality 160 years ago to 250 years ago, finally reaching the promised land, only to then arrive at a different vision that says, ‘No, no, the remedy to actually past discrimination is present discrimination,’ and we don’t want any more Black faces that don’t want to be Black voices, which means I can tell something about the content of your character on the basis of the color of your skin, which is the very thing we rejected in the 1960s,” Ramaswamy said. “So that’s the first little puzzle.”
Ramaswamy then introduced another war Americans fight: “the war of LGBTQIA+ identity,” which he critically compared to “race wokeism” in that both movements’ perceived goals have changed over time.
“The core premise of the gay rights movement at the end of the 20th century, beginning of the 21st century, is that the sex of the person you’re attracted to is hardwired on the day you’re born,” Ramaswamy said. “Yet, that same movement now, in the form of the LGBTQIA+ movement, now says that your own biological sex is totally fluid over the course of your life. Again, you can’t believe both of those two views at the same time.”
Finally, Ramaswamy ended his lecture with a call to combat the “agenda of climate change,” which he said he believes to be hypocritical.
“So this is a movement that, on one hand, is completely hostile to the production of fossil fuels and the ignition of carbon in the west, in the United States of America,” Ramaswamy said. “But [it] turns a blind eye as we shift those same carbon emissions to places like China.”
Q&A
Ramaswamy opened the event’s remaining time to allow questions from audience members, with topics ranging from economics, future political endeavors, thoughts on current legislation and societal concerns such as anti-semitism, religious discrimination and LGBTQ+ identities.
Tay Thibodeaux, a first-year in atmospheric science, debated with Ramaswamy on the topic of transgender healthcare.
Initially, Thibodeaux asked about Ramaswamy’s perspective on the recognition of “transgenderism” by every major medical association globally, to which Ramaswamy drew a distinction between gender-affirming healthcare for adults versus children.
“If you’re 18-plus years old, you are free to decide how you want to identify, what you want to do with your body, as long as you’re not harming anybody else,” Ramaswamy said. “That doesn’t mean you get to, as a man, collect women’s sports trophies in women’s swimming competitions. But kids are not the same as adults, the same reason you can’t get a tattoo before the age of 18.”
According to GLAAD, an American non-governmental advocacy group for LGBTQ+ individuals, “every major medical association and leading world health authority supports health care for transgender people and youth,” including the World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association.
“I knew that me asking a question would get a reaction out of the audience, both good and bad,” Thibodeaux said. “I wanted people who were there, who were not necessarily in support of these various speakers’ beliefs, to know that not everyone here is here for this.”
Conversely, David Gams, a third-year in finance, said he believed the event to be informative and thought-provoking, applauding how Ramaswamy encouraged open debate on and/or about views he disagreed with.
“He was very open-minded,” Gams said. “He was arguing with a lot of people, from people that agreed with him and people that didn’t agree with him. I really liked the fact that he could talk to anybody.”
Participants began to leave at 8:30 p.m., while Ramaswamy gave advice to one audience member who inquired about how to stand out on such a large college campus like Ohio State’s.
“I think what sets the people apart, at the top of their game — whether that may be in American politics, to business, to athletics, to academics — are people who are honest with themselves about who they are,” Ramaswamy said. “I think that’s a beautiful thing, and once you’re able to figure that out, the sky’s really the limit for what you can achieve.”
Ramaswamy gave his final remarks at 8:38 p.m., saying “God bless you, God bless America and thank you Turning Point.”
