Vivek Ramaswamy doesn’t care what you think because you don't matter. The assuredness of his brilliance, compared with the hard-working, quiet strength of Amy Acton, highlights an important duality in American life today: mediocre men have wrecked this place, but good people can improve it.
While I usually write about history and art, the Vivek Ramaswamy ad hits very close to home for me as a born-and-bred Clevelander and the child of Indian immigrants. If you know anyone in Ohio who still isn't voting for Amy Acton, I hope this short write-up gives you tools to help them. See how Vivek is wrong for Ohio.
Like Ramaswamy, I was born to a Brahmin family. Unlike him, I largely rejected many of the trappings. Although he is from a very different ethnicity, I recognize many of the traits Brahmin families happily foster in their sons. In the Hindu caste system, some of the earliest writings describe a structured breakdown of society based on occupations. Brahmins were largely associated with worship and held the top position intellectually, above royalty. Wealth and blessedness were on different hierarchical scales. Brahmins are not necessarily the richest in India. They are often the most educated. But this was not about being born special. It’s just about history.
Hinduism dates back to the Indus Valley civilization, likely around 2500 BC. Seals from this time indicate a writing system. That faith system likely changed with successive waves of Central Asian immigrants who we now call Aryans. The religion would spread through South Asia, and with it the religious hierarchy.
Indigenous people adopted the Brahminical hierarchy. Communities that speak non-Indo-European languages, like Tamil and Malayalam, have Brahminism and hold fast to the systems that helped them maintain authority over the majority of people. Ramaswamy is from the Tamil Brahmin Iyer community, which resettled from Tamil Nadu to Karnataka and Kerala. They maintained power over local people through landholding but had to build their own temples because Brahmins in those states wouldn’t give up their power. We’re talking about a subcommunity that held authority over local people for centuries. This is high-level tribalism for centuries.
For centuries, Brahmins were the people who could read. They read the scripture. They said the prayers. But that literacy also meant that, as culture changed, they understood the system. Brahmin families therefore have likely had literacy for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. They could pick up the new languages and understood how to study. One of the greatest predictors of academic success is parents who have completed the system. If your ancestors have been reading as part of work for generations, you have a ready system to ensure your success.
But just like Trumpism, where DEI is suspect for potentially hiring unqualified Black people, but unqualified white people get a pass, the caste system has also created a culture of telling people they’re special for being born. They often hire people from similar castes rather than looking outside the rigid system for quality.
In the 1960s, the US had a shortage of engineers and doctors. Immigration allowed foreigners with degrees. While only 4% of Indians in India are Brahmins, 25% of Indians in the US are. And the vast majority of Indian Americans are from the privileged caste. Many of these immigrants moved into communities with other Indians. They found themselves recreating India's caste system here.
Plus, the patriarchal culture of India made sons like kings. Boys raised to be faultless never realize their mistakes. They can be lawless and hateful without reprecussions. In the States, these types of men became rich, proving what their mothers always told them. They then raised Indian-American sons like them.
It’s why a man who doesn’t live in Ohio took his company out of Ohio, lied about his residency to run, and still thinks he’s the best candidate. He regularly misunderstands the state's geography, but he’s a Brahmin. He thought the only National Park in the area was near Youngstown, even though it’s near Akron. (I’d wish someone would suggest he take the hike from Youngstown to Cuyahoga Valley National Park.)He was bred to be the best, and his mom told him so. Of course, his mother lied about the result of his dementia medicine, lost millions of hope for a cure, and thousands lost their life savings, but at least her sweet boy got to be a billionaire.
But there was a big difference. Their marriageable, privately educated Brahmin sons weren't seen as privileged in the American mind. No white boy in Cincinnati, Ohio looked at young, self-satisfied Vivek and saw a king amongst men. They saw a weirdo who played tennis instead of football or baseball, who looked like Butthead and Apu put together.
That is a fabulous comeuppance for Vivek, I hope. With that privilege, many made huge salaries and tried to ally themselves with white men, after they’re special by accident of birth, only to find in the US they’re just the same as Apu. I do love that for Vivek. He was born and bred to see himself as the best of the best just because he was born. He went to an all-boys private school known for breeding some doozies, only to be intolerable to everyone he studied with. Purportedly, He couldn’t fit in with the privileged white boys of Cincy because they just saw him as a lame dude with an unearned attitude of superiority. Reportedly, he was equally unliked at Harvard. Remember this is a school that trained Ted Cruz, Bobby Kennedy, and Pete Hegseth. To stick out for being unbearable is a skill.
Ramaswamy shows that systems that give everyone unearned victories make horrible people think they are special and make the systemic structure invisible. After all, if they saw the system, they'd have to acknowledge they had special benefits and they aren't the apex of the human race.
Acton represents what the US claims to be. She's all about merit. She was raised in the toughest part of Youngstown, a city with a lot of tough parts. The 1980s in the Rust Belt were a never-ending cycle of bad news as Reagan systematically broke our manufacturing base. Manufacturing was how men showed their masculinity and brought home the bacon in northeast Ohio. The destruction of manufacturing destabilized masculinity in the whole region. Cities like Cleveland and Youngstown were also incredibly corrupt with age-old allegiances, creating a culture of cronyism and huge mob control.
Recently, Vivek Ramaswamy showcased Acton's birth mother. The woman lost her rights as a mother when Acton was 12 years old because she allowed her husband to rape her daughter starting at age 9. She refused to believe her daughter. And she finally lost custody. The culture of toxic masculinity that existed in northeast Ohio in the 1970s was insane. For a woman to lose custody of her daughter means it had to have been horrifying. But Acton’s rapist never stood trial because his wife, her mother, helped him flee the state. He lived peacefully for the rest of his life. Acton, on the other hand, had to struggle through the trauma to put herself through medical school.
Unlike Vivek, who studied out of state and has largely lived outside of Ohio, Acton studied at Ohio schools, including the publicly funded Youngstown State University. She then chose to make her career in Ohio. Unlike Vivek Ramaswamy, who has largely avoided the state and took his business out of state, Acton made her own way to serve the people of Ohio.
But what is Ohio? Ohio is a Franken-state. Cleveland and Cincinnati were founded directly after the revolution. Cleveland was originally part of Connecticut. Cincinnati bridged the North, South, and West. The state came later. But the culture never became cohesive. The cities drove much of the economy, had most of the diversity, and generated much of the state’s profits. But farmland defined the state's early identity, not the cities on the nation's western edge.
In th**e **early days, we were a state of smart, industrious people with many universities and as many millionaires. We educated huge numbers of Americans and transformed the Economy. It was a state that made change, from the first stoplight to early blood transfusion technology. But since the Reagan era, Republicans have attempted to refashion our state as a downhome, farmland-only, stupidity-first state. That’s not historically accurate, and it's not helped our state at all. Instead, it’s drawn down our education levels; when combined with some of the worst sites of opioid addiction (JD Vance might know about that), it’s made prosperity disappear.
In her campaign, Acton and her Cincinnati-based David Pepper have been in all 88 counties. As a child, the state had many sun-down towns. My parents largely stayed in the places that were safe for Black and brown people. As an adult working in the arts, I saw a state that vilified the cities and worked hard to destroy our culture to let the rural people continue to feel as if they're the real Ohio. I’ve often been angry that rural Ohio seems to have the statehouse, since we're a state that is ½ urban by population. Our cities generate most of our economy and shouldn't be sacrificed for rural people. But after hearing both Acton and Pepper speak, I’m struck by how much they enjoy all of Ohio. They truly love this complicated state. They want to show that people who have made a life here can help make Ohio a place to stay. Most importantly, Acton shows that people can make something of themselves despite the system and their family. She shows that this nation can have merit and that good people can do great things.
I cannot express enough how wrong Ramaswamy is for this state. He hates it, and he has shown the nation a hateful side of our culture. But on the other hand, Acton represents a huge part of the state, from people in the 1790s who left burned farms in New England for the shores of Lake Erie to the many formerly enslaved people who came to Cincinnati and Cleveland to the immigrants like Amy’s Jewish ancestors and Vivek’s parents. We are a state that deserves someone who fought for herself, because we’re a state that needs to start fighting for itself again.
