In a full face of conspicuous make-up rendering him three shades lighter than normal, current candidate for Ohio governor Vivek Ramaswamy took the stage at a Montana State University Turning Point USA to offer legacy Americans a lecture on the defining characteristics of the country his parents immigrated in the 1970s:
“So what does it mean to be an American in the year 2025? It means we still believe in those ideals of 1776. It means we believe in merit, that the best person gets the job regardless of their genetics, that you are judged not on the color of your skin but on the content of your character and your contributions. It means we believe in the rule of law. And I say this as the proud son of legal immigrants to the United States. That means your first act of entering this country cannot break the law. It means we believe in free speech and open debate without censorship, whether you’re Nick Fuentes or Alex Jones or Jimmy Kimmel. It means that words are not violence, that violence is violence. And violence is never an acceptable response to words. It’s not just about our constitutional principles… That’s America. That’s who we are. It’s about our constitution, but it’s about even more than that. It’s about a culture that is distinctive to our nation. It means we believe in accountability. It means that we are courageous, that we are brave, even heroic, when called upon to serve our country, that we take bold risks. Sometimes we fail, but we still pick ourselves up and do it again. It means we don’t view hardship as the same thing as victimhood. Because hardship from time to time is what teaches us who we really are. It means we are ambitious, to achieve the things we taught to believe were impossible.”