Producers’ Pick | Vivek Ramaswamy: How to defeat identity politics and “victimhood”

This episode is brought to you by La Quinta by Wyndham here you are miles from home and ready to start your vacation. Good thing you're staying at La Quinta by Wyndham. They free high-speed Wi-Fi to stream all your favorite movies and in the morning get fresh waffles with their free bright side breakfast or squeeze in a workout at their fitness center. Either way you're ready to conquer the day. Tonight La Quinta tomorrow. You triumph book your stay@lq.com Vega Ramaswamy joined just now welcome good beer. I congratulations on the book. It's fascinating. I'm not through all of it, but I hope to be by tomorrow when you join me on one nation were this week was Romeo when nations called nation a victim's identity politics and the death of merit and the path back to excellence. I did not know was a book I caught the end of your interview last week I thought to myself that's exactly been talking about. I'm I didn't talk about matching intellects. I'm not talking about I just talking where's the work ethic. What about dart that guy or that woman swore the you you network them.

If you don't get the job you gonna blame somebody. What prompted you to to focus on this research like you did what it was was buying the SQL to locate right so this is a book I wrote last year about corporate America cynically expelled exploiting progressive values to be able to aggregate more power and even more profit for themselves, but what I realized by the end of the books it takes two to tango at the end of the day that only works if there's a general population of consumers of millennial engines. The consumers included core falling for the trek into this book looks upstream to the culture to say that what is it about the vacuum of identity in the heart of a generation. What is it about that vacuum that allows will capitalism to thrive. That was the topic of the last book so that that's what caused me to take a deeper dive your some sort of a sequel to Woking. It's about our culture. Though this is not a corporate America. This asked the question of what's the vacuum. The black hole of identity at the heart of the American soul right now and my theory is that when you have a vacuum that runs that deep. That's what allows poison to fill the void in one of the things I had done over the last couple of years is critique that poison one at a time. Identity politics will culture, climate, religion, whatever that whatever the toxic poison may be we can stamp out one it's time but were not solving the problem. Unless we fill that vacuum of American identity that hopefully dilutes the poison to irrelevance and so I look in the mirror and say look, I'm not doing enough of that myself. That's what this book was about. So now we have this thing called quiet quitting with people who just want to such a bad job to get fired and collect unemployment others to the pandemic obviously is not their fault it's China's fault they got lazy.

They say way of this job is not rewarding enough to fill you back to work is in the New York Times over 1500 employees refused to go back they said they said my unit is going to protect me. I don't want to go back to work five days a week, or at all work from home. It's incredible is as well exist in the book is victimhood fits laziness like a glove is one of the things that we see right now is the antiwar culture it's even called the antiwar movement, the great resignation was accelerated during the pandemic where you have a generational reluctance to work to achieve, but it's not enough to admit that laziness or sloth or life preferences would be good enough.

They wrap it with part of the grand struggle against the oppression of capitalism during Ford, one of the eight when the great leaders of the so-called anti-work movement and read it says this all the time. It's about fighting against the colonialism of capitalism, the oppression of capitalism and that's what gives it, staying power, because then it's not just a matter of being lazy or making life choices but you wrapping around with a moral veneer of legitimacy. That's what makes this permanent is it's not just about laziness and the lack of work.

It's the moral indignation that comes with it not for them: on the bill and read your book it has great perspective on on her history.

Go back to people being blame like your general long Street being blamed when Gen. Lee didn't listen to him.

He dies a couple years at five years after the war doesn't really never really blame Wall Street for it was his decision to go right up the middle at Gettysburg and they got annihilated right that's right what Stonewall Jackson dies and he becomes a legend, a lead eyes doesn't do enough defense and long street pays the price and history. He becomes the victim of this rewriting of history but it's an inaccurate rewriting of history is an inaccurate writing is just one of the things I do in this book is that this book isn't for everybody, for someone who acts, he cares about looking at American history. Even Roman history as a way to gain insights into the present.

That's the audience why I hope that you get some thing out of this book and wanting to love about looking at history as it takes us out of the present for a second right now were wearing such sigh loaded chambers with respect people who can engage cannot engage in political discourse receiving people pulling out of political debates. Today it we can engage in political discourse when were tethered to the present. But when we go to history. Somehow, that allows people to take off their constraints a little bit so I do trace a lot of the pre-could a post-Civil War reconstruction era history were victimhood culture was actually born I get began with a lot of the jurisprudence that began in the back of the reconstruction era that taught people to think of themselves as disempowered classes and victims. The US constitutional law. In some ways actually been demanded it, but I go all the way back to Roman history document how victimhood created this historical lens of how we see long street general long street versus say Stonewall Jackson likely one of my favorite stories from the book was even the way we look at Roman emperors right so that the ducts of Timmy Severus of the black Emperor. Here's the one who I was taught in high school was the so-called black Emperor. One of things I learned in doing the research for this book is that he didn't see himself as the black Emperor. He was only named the black Emperor in the last 40 years by Americans who wanted to celebrate a black conqueror because that's what the American moment demanded back in the Roman era. They didn't see each other as as having anything other than dark eyes, dark hair, dark skin. It didn't matter. They were citizens of a nation as it is if you go back to history and see what actually happened. It gives you a different filter through which you can actually see the present couple things I remember is going on in this early in your book, but I remember reading in the 1880s. People feeling am worried about my generation. There was so tough during the Civil War. Everyone fought ever picked up a gun. We've gotten soft as a country. After 1776 were find the war of 1812 and was sooner try to rule lateral generals and there's one difference is khaki is say what happened to that attitude would have been to Argyle without tough anymore in our greatest generation became the greatest because they had to be the world went to war. So a lot of it is the circumstances in which are born correct necessity may demand even for the upcoming generation to but I said that such an inspiring point. You just made Brian which is that this point I make in the book as it relates to Rome by the way we think about the rise of Rome in the fall of Rome one of the great discoveries again it into writing this book. Going through my old historical knowledge but but bring it Russian it up again is that there was no rise and fall of Rome.

There were many rises and many false and the same goes for the history of the American experiment to there have been many rises and many falls and once we see that that gives us hope in the current moment to to say that you know what we might do cleanup might not be done with this whole American experiment. After all, there were many rises and many falls we might get a nadir but actually it's been a be about the agency that we as citizens exercise disabled or have the next revival pride again it just like we did it just like we did back then, as in the in the early 1800s. We have one of those moments. Now we gone through before we get there to get to severe black or of Eurasian US or Europe, or, if you're rich, there's always that way.

Dissociative SKUs are quite you can grab if you choose, that's right. One of the points in the book that I'm going to challenge you because you said no one will ever bring up you awoke, Inc. is about Asians and about American about the Indians whose grades will probably go through the roof and even though the SATs are extremely high. The GPAs are extremely high. It's hard for them to get into these Ivy League schools because there's so many others in the lucrative diversify and it's not flat out merit-based Cartwright affirmative-action hurting the extremely bright minorities exactly right in Harvard what one-mile matters used to describe this years ago as the so-called Jewish problem that was Harvard's words not mine. The same thing they effectively have the Asian problem now that if they just went on along the axes of merit including American be defined many ways can be musical exceptionalism could be athletic exceptionalism, but could be academic. The population would it turns out, be disproportionally Asian is a 400+ point gap in terms of what it takes to get into a top university on the SATs, but to be an Asian applicant a black applicant mightily 1600s Gail Mosser working its way up to challenge affirmative-action Claris CAR there is and and and and so I think that legally it's it's interesting it's one it's one of the few cases if you go back to Ector Sandra Day O'Connor's opinion about 2025 years ago. In the early affirmative-action cases they it was one of few cases where they put an ex parte on a constitutional principle. What is it about 20 to 25 years from now, we expect that these policies will no longer be necessary, may not even be constitutional under lock a circumstance will change now were hitting about the 20 to 25 you're markedly interesting to see what Supreme Court does I delve into some of those arguments in this book, but it goes beyond the legal dimension of this. I hope the supreme court comes out of the wrong site on the right side of this by rejecting affirmative action policies, but the deeper question Brian is what he said about our culture that makes us demand these policies in the first place right to see each other as victims, on the basis of the color of their skin. The more we tell that narrative the more we create the new oppression that comes from the narrative of victimhood itself, and that's accepting the greatest shackle on black identity.

Today the thing is, holding that thing that creates most black victims is the narrative of black victimhood identity right people to get out by the staff is not like I believe that I did that we should be able to debate these ideas in the open without regard to what skin color. We have to that's part of what makes us American and we forgotten that Vic Ramaswamy here is book is now out as of this as of yesterday is called nation of victims identity politics and the depth of merit and the path back to excellent. So here's it. They say if you get up everyday and utopia your parents and you teachers that America's racist and you're a minority or black egg. Okay, I have an attitude I'm ticked off. Why is it that the world is against me. So if I'm 68 1012 is come going to have a little over a little bit of a chip on my shoulder exactly in is a common currency and regular files for the 60 soon it just is worth anyone's advantage to wake up to the world's against you overcome it. Find a way and there was more of an attitude of that during segregation in the South than there is right now we have more of a level playing field than ever before. I totally agree tightness in the Indian American community rights.

Aware immigrants came to this country and first generation family some.

I was born America first generation it. We have one upbringing, scrappy underdog mentality merit focused hard work get ahead, put your head down and create your own destiny where I'm beginning to see in the second and third generation, even among Asian Asian Americans is now the reinvention of thinking of yourself as a person of color photo were not one of the privilege people were one of the people of color, inventing a victimhood narrative that going through hardship that axes their parents, the grantors are the ones with went to the hardship, the guys met it easy get the guys who had it easy. Other ones were reinventing this narrative of thinking themselves and recasting themselves as victims because because the Athens instructor. That's how you get ahead in America today where just following their incentives and like so many times board truly tells the story you actually use that you can you be a benefit from feeling at the underdog. Michael Jordan gives a speech in the Hall of Fame, and he talks about the 10th grader. They got cut from the varsity team made the JV team.

Most thinkers like JV and I like it frankly used it as momentum. He bought six round trip think Tom Brady rest of his life used to break] persistent drug traffic. Although most teams are passed up on me.

The patriots who passed up five times. It benefits you to feel as though you have something to prove every day use it to your advantage. Where's that mentality more with the Vegas we come back because we do have some economic numbers. I had a really tap into your mind. Economic by where were going as a country whose of the brain can only show double learning something new every day. Tom O'Brien kill ratio.

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What he did you shrink in the economy you're purposefully doing it to fight against inflation setting there's there's no path out of an inflationary crisis like the one that were in that does not run through raising rates. We has undergone addicted to easy money skiing artificial snow as I say that's the last 15 years have been hokey CAT scan artificial snow forever. However, the key is to raise rates in a period where you also have economic policies for the actual economy that unlock economic potential to counter the effects of raising the rates themselves under Reagan what you give a direct literary agenda given agenda that spurs private innovation. Given agenda gets government out of the way of private businesses tax reform tax cuts that allow the economy to thrive against the backdrop of aggressively raising rates as opposed was happening now which was wrestling double whammy system so well this this this pending the spending is is is up was put in a separate category for now because that that contributed inflation, which then creates the need for for raising rates even more, but against a regulatory environment against an unfavorable potential future tax policy environment at once contributes to not certainly a growing economy possibly shrinking the economy in real-world terms. At the same time that you're also raising rates and so that's the potential double whammy we think about the risks for recession, the risks for economic contraction. That's what you worry about, which is really different than the last time we had this kind of inflation.

When you had to raise rates to stave it off as at least it was against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan's policies that were at least economically, stimulating rather than economically depressed and plays into the mindset right now because you might look at the economy. Rates are going up I can't to this account that I can't do that or where's my opportunity. How do we overcome this.

How do I get stronger mentally that's right absolutely need. If you think about this from the standpoint of your life a lot young founders within Silicon Valley or whatever grew up over 10 year period where anything that rhymes with tech had money raining into it tech Biotech health Tech cleantech Finn deck in your arms attack while building great businesses for most of American history was actually really hard to do because access to capital was more scarce. Now that means a disconnection to be a good thing for greedy entrepreneurs to say that you know what, in order to get funded and have to ask have a real business model that works and to prove it. Not just write something down on a piece of paper that can't be good for our economy, our culture over the long run is who is fundamentally a mindset to how we overcome this rather, I cannot believe how bad the economy is I can't leave out.

I want to buy a house.

No, I can't which way.

Unfortunately, the we were in a time go and pick up his book nation of victims will have more this one nation cyanide, 8 o'clock from Fox news contests network subscriber listen to the trade only one former federal prosecutor and four terms US Congressman from South Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind pungent subscriber list now by going to Fox news on tests.com