Does Indian-American Vivek Ramaswamy Have a Chance?

Vivek Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old Indian-American billionaire, is running for president right now and he's kind of taking over the internet. Yeah, I'm gonna be honest, Andrew. He set the internet on fire. I'm talking about, I'm seeing memes about Vivek Ramaswamy. I'm seeing him rap Eminem. I'm seeing him, like, go on Breakfast Club with Charlamagne. Yeah, guys, so again, we're gonna talk about Vivek and we're not supporting everything he says. We don't agree with everything. We're not trying to be political. I'm not also experts on his policy, but obviously he has a presence on the internet and he's Asian. Okay, even though he's running for the Republican side, we still gotta talk about him. So please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys. By the way, guys, not an endorsement at all. Just to give you guys an idea, Andrew, when I only had thousands of dollars in the bank, I still gave thousands of dollars to the Obama campaign. I was so pro-Obama. But it is very interesting, right? Like, he's got to be easily, Andrew, in this current presidential race, on either side, the most interesting character. I don't think he's gonna win. He's not gonna beat Trump for the Republican, you know, primary nomination. But some people are thinking he might even be the VP if he becomes popular enough, right? Right, right, right. So let's get into it, David. I guess, what does he remind a lot of people of? Okay, I would say it's really interesting because he's visibly Indian. Nikki Haley's also running as an Indian, but she's not visibly Indian. Like, she kind of looks Italian. So I think a lot of people remind, he reminds a lot of people of Andrew Yang. Mm-hmm, yeah. Young, tech bro, coming in out of nowhere, doesn't have a lot of political experience, at least, you know, federally. Entrepreneurs themselves, has a lot of good ideas, good talkers, right? Other people said he reminds them of Bobby Jindal mixed with Sarah Palin, mixed with Trump himself because he kind of has that, like, business success story. I don't think he's actually worth quite a billion dollars, but with his stock options in Royvon, it's pretty high. I mean, he definitely sounds like a Harvard debate kid. I mean, he went to Harvard. He has a little bit of cheesiness, but he is really good at talking. He actually feels like the captain of the high school debate team at a pretty good debate school that won the national championship. Dude, is this like if Kevin G from Mean Girls went to Harvard and became a presidential candidate? No, I'm not gonna lie, when he was rapping, Lose Yourself, I definitely got some Kevin G vibes. He actually physically looks like this computer character Andrew called Leisure Suit Larry. Interestingly enough, same hairline and everything. I mean, guys, out there, all you short Asian kings out there, whether or not you agree with his policies, whether or not you're Republican, I don't know. He's 5'7". Is he representing for the short kings? Yeah, man. So make sure you like, subscribe, turning your notifications in. We gotta get into our breakdown. Andrew, he is very much a millennial because he's a fan of internet conspiracies. Like he himself, Andrew, he's talked about was 9-11 an inside job, brought that up. What else did he bring up? He brought up Black Rock as a cartel, but then some people were saying that his company has a lot of institutional investment that made him a near billionaire from Black Rock. Right, right. I mean, he did get, he is worth a lot due to his pharmaceutical company. And I will say this, pharmaceutical companies, they don't have the greatest reputation amongst a lot of people in America. So, but again, I don't know. I mean, he says he's an open book, so we'll see. Yeah. I mean, you know, what's really interesting though, when I look at it from an Asian perspective, Andrew, some Asians want to hear him out because he's Asian and he's the youngest guy ever to run. I really think 37 is the youngest guy who would be VP or president in history. Who doesn't know a Vivek? I know like three Viveks. Personally, you're talking about the guy who owns the Sacramento Kings. I know personally at least two or three Viveks in person. I guess what I'm saying is, is it worthy to bring up though? Cause you know how like, I would say still, obviously over 50% of Asians are more on the Democrat side. Some people don't even want to bring his name up, but I'm saying it is valid to talk about, right? Yeah, I think it's valid. I mean, listen, especially from the Asian news sources on Next Shark, which we're going to get into the comment section. I can see that a lot of people were like, why are you bringing up the Republican candidate? Don't give him any more air time. But it's like, if you are covering Asian stuff, you can't be fully biased. Like let's, we got to cover Asian people, you know? And he is an Asian person doing something. Yeah. I think right now my general take on politics, Andrew, just to enter this election cycle real quick, just to, you know, just to, you know, get it all out there. I would say that Republicans, they do seem to be more pro-nativist, heteronormative, Anglo-Saxon. Maybe some people would say a little bit racist-y, right? But they might also be tougher on crime, at least in a local sense, right? But they also might be more into war and the big picture profitability of the business of war. And I think that is kind of the oxymoron of Vivek Ramaswamy right now. From what I know, and I've only watched a few interviews and read some articles, but he is very hard, at least what he's saying, he believes very strongly in like two genders. He believes climate change is like essentially a hoax. These are all things that Gen X, I mean, Gen Z and millennials do not agree with him on. Yo, he wants to raise the voting age to 25 unless you do civil service. Yeah, so he's a young guy with kind of an old soul. Now he might just be saying those things just to get elected because he's still, he's a young Indian guy, so he still has to appeal to the major Republican base to even have a shot. But I don't know. You guys let me know if it's working. Yeah, I would say that Democrats in general, Andrew, would you agree with me? Definitely more open-minded to more different identities that were traditionally marginalized or disenfranchised. And they're okay with having those identities or minorities in powerful positions. And they're also okay with general overall system changes. But sometimes it feels like the team can be so idealistic it complicates their ability to run a tight ship. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you guys let us know in the comments down below how you guys swing between Democrat or Republican if you had to choose. I know neither party is perfect right now, but... Listen, I remember, it's funny, Andrew, 10, 20, 30 years ago, this used to be a really taboo topic to bring up. Hey, are you a Democrat or Republican? But nowadays I feel like I'm just like, yo, everything's just up for grabs now, man. Everything is effed up right now. Yeah, Andrew, there's this famous quote that's wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill. It says, if you're not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. And if you are not a conservative at 35, you have no brain. This is a very classic quote, Andrew. Some people thought it was John Adams who said this in 1800. Other guys, people said this was this French guy regarding the French Revolution in 1850. Either way, this concept, the thing that I just said, has been around for about 200 years. And it still kind of applies nowadays. Yeah, I don't know, man. But you could also argue that in the American version of democracy, both sides nowadays, left or right, has been compromised by corporatocracy, special interests, and powerful lobbyists, right? That's true. Anyway, let's just get into the comments section. This is from a Indian-American message board, Andrew Daisy's. And these are comments from Indians about Vivek Ramaswamy. Yeah, they were saying, he sounds like the try-hard cousin at every family event. Man, he definitely gives me the big debate kid energy. Because I guess the debate kid archetype in high-achieving Indian-American families is a very strong, like, you always got one of those at the family reunion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Kevin G from Mean Girls was a debate. He was in debate class. No, he was math class. Right, right, right. It was math league. Of course, Andrew, we got into the big-ass argument on NexShark. Why are you guys giving this man more exposure? This guy said, why can't we? He's still a POC just because we don't, he doesn't think like most people on NexShark. Right, right. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, because most people on NexShark, probably the majority lean left. And so a lot of people are like, why give a Republican candidate any airtime? Because, but then that's assuming that NexShark has an agenda, a political agenda, right? Right, I don't think they do. I mean, but I could see, I've seen both sides accuse them of like, oh, you're pro-left, you're pro-right. And it's just like the environment we're in right now, if you do anything that's not like me, then you're against me. Right, right, right. What do you think about the part, Andrew, in the first Republican debate where he said, I'm a skinny guy with a funny last name? A lot of people were criticizing him because he took that line from Obama, but he didn't attribute it to Obama. Like when he opened up on the debate stage. And then Chris Christie was like, oh yeah, Obama said that. And a lot of people were like, I don't like how he didn't attribute that to Obama, even though he took Obama's like bar. Interesting, yeah. I mean, that is Obama's bar, but I mean, I don't know. I think he actually sees himself as an Obama more than Andrew Yang, to be honest. If you made me think about like how he sees himself. Vivek comes off in his interviews as a very, very good communicator. He's a very good debater. He knows how to deal with people who are coming at him. He's a five, seven rich Indian guy who's made it. You know, obviously he's used to people getting at him. He's nice with the words. But a lot of people are starting to accuse him of being a scammer, a con man. He said he's a modern day Wolf of Wall Street. He basically are rich doing pump and dump schemes. His first company was this and this share. He did this and this. Basically, they were saying like for him to be that successful that young, he had to do some kind of gray zone iffy tactics. Yeah, I heard, you know, in the pharma world, Andrew, a lot of news that pump and dumps off like clinical trials and FDA approval and stuff like that. I definitely think that if we peel back the layers more into Roivent and all that stuff, I'm sure it would get messy, to be honest, if you made me bet money, but I don't know. Somebody said, how come he's also just regurgitating nonsense NPC talking points that Republicans want to hear? Because, Andrew, they were saying as the election is getting closer and closer, he's just starting to mirror like the bullet points that everybody has to hit to win. Right. So sort of some of his uniqueness and like non-institutionalized person-ness is going away. Yeah, I actually agree that he's probably hitting that stride where all his aides are like, hey, Vivek, now you got to start addressing, you know, the gender stuff and the climate change stuff. You have to start addressing that because that's actually what a lot of the Republican base cares about. But his earlier interviews of months ago, he was just talking about like whatever, like he had a lot of other ideas for like geopolitics and stuff like that. But yeah, now, yeah, he's going to have to pander. He's pandering. Andrew, some people were really mad about what he said about just giving Taiwan to China after America develops its own semiconductor cycle. Right, but is that more of the Republican talking point to say that? It's not their talking point, but the truth is it's probably what a lot of them actually feel in their heart. I feel like is that what Trump would say too? I don't know. I don't really know what other people would say, but I just have a think, like I just think that he like didn't care and he just like said it. And this is why a lot of young Asians maybe don't like Vivek at the same time is because he is basically still has to have the same talking points as a 70-year-old Republican, right? Yeah, somebody's saying, man, America just has no idea how to elect a president anymore. We have all horrible choices. Just the fact that everybody is talking about Vivek like he is the most interesting just goes to show you where we are at. He has absolutely zero political experience. No, I think this comment says a lot, man. I'm not going to lie because like literally you don't know of another Democratic candidate that's even viable. Right, what, Pete Buttigieg? Obviously, it's going to be Biden. They're going to run Biden again. And then obviously everybody's just talking about was it Trump, DeSantis or Vivek, you know, and it's just like Vivek is, he seems like a breath of fresh air, at least on the GOP side. He seems like a guy who can capture some of the young Democrat votes. Or moderates, at least. Or moderates, yeah. Undecided, independent, whatever. Ander, let's get into some Asian talk here. Somebody said, how come Vivek is considered Indian, but Nikki Haley is not considered Indian? Oh my God. This is actually a really good question because, Ander, this is my theory. In America, it pretty much just goes off how you look. And Nikki Haley does not look like an Indian person to most people. Yes, Nikki Haley is white passing. Her name is white passing because she doesn't use her full Indian name, which is Nimrata. And I believe she married into a Christian family. Right, okay. So she's, although she definitely is of Indian background, I'm not taking that away. Right, right, right. Yeah, so real quick, if you guys are confused at all, I had to look into this, Ander. Apparently, there's like three major looks in India. One is like Dravidian, one is Indo-Aryan, and one is Erotic Indo. So Vivek and like Aziz Ansari would more fall into the Dravidian look? Probably Dravidian mixed with like Indo-Aryan. And then I guess like Nikki Haley, if you made me guess, is more like Erotic. Like in terms of maybe have a bloodline trace back to Iran. Sure, sure. Right, and people from Iran can look more white. I don't know, man. Ander, how much do you think it is a big deal because Vivek doesn't try to really like play it up that, Ander, he is actually a Hindu vegan who speaks Tamil fluently, but he does not like show that off? No, I don't think he's trying to. I don't think that's going to get him a lot of votes. Right, because people will feel like it makes him too foreign, right? Yeah. I think that it's really interesting though. Do you think at some point the Republican base will be like, what, you ain't Christian? You're still Hindu? You didn't convert like Bobby Jindal? Oh, that's interesting. I think he's really going to try to not talk about his religion. But I think at the end of the day, he's ready for people to point it out. He's going to be ready for people to point out pretty much any diss they have on him. Right, you're saying that he's ready if he's got to go head up with Trump and Trump goes, Oh, Vivek, which religion do you subscribe to? Which God do you believe in? Yeah, I don't know. What do you think about this argument about from the whole POC angle that Republicans are against POCs, so why is he running as a Republican? And it's like, this guy said, does he not realize that not a single person in that room would ever care about him or be by his side if he wasn't a strong contender in the Republican field? Basically, if you weren't a strong batter for your squad, they wouldn't inherently care about you at all. I think that's just a lot of Asian Republicans or minority Republicans have already dealt with that question. You know what I mean? Right, you're saying like, if you weren't a good soldier for that squad, that squad wouldn't like you, right? Because the Republicans have such a pro, I guess like Anglo-Saxon. Yeah, I think a lot of POC Republicans actually understand that or they've already decided where they fall. They're like, I'm okay with it. Yeah, and I think honestly, it comes down to priorities where they would be like, yeah, there might be that slight identitarian like slice in the pie chart, but they'll be like, but all these other pie slices are more important to me and my platform, right? Some people call them the Asians got our own new Ben Carson now. Andrew, what do we think, man? I mean, we could go on forever. I'm like sifted through like thousands of comments. My brain is like going crazy. This is not something I spent a lot of time thinking about politics. Like what's going on right now? I think he's following in somewhat of the footsteps of what Andrew Yang did. Andrew Yang kind of broke it open for a younger techie guys who came out of nowhere to have to to kind of dominate the internet and dominate interviews and come up with good ideas. And I think Vivek is not going to win the GOP candidacy. Of course, he's way too far. It'll probably be Trump, you know, but I think that it's interesting and it's engaging. And I think it's engaging a lot of younger people, a lot of moderates, young Republicans, even some young Democrats are kind of interested to see what he says. I think Andrew, he might be the only candidate where young people are tuning into his interviews. Yeah, but here's the truth. Here's the truth, David. For him to even have a shot, he's still going to have to say all the old Republican talking points that everybody says. Yeah, I don't even think he probably believes in him. I feel like deep down, he's probably a contrarian, capitalist, libertarian, but he's just like, he wants to win, you know? Yeah, yeah. And do you think it is one of those situations where it's like, even if he doesn't win, he's going to get way more rich, way more famous and like cement his place in like American history because of this run? Like regardless of even if, let's say, for example, Trump picks Nikki Haley or somebody else to be his VP. Yeah, I honestly think that Nikki Haley has a really good shot of becoming VP and getting chosen by Trump to do that because she's a woman and two, I feel like she's going to play better even with Trump. Like she's going to more buy into whatever Trump is doing while Vivek seems sharp enough that he might like maybe talk too much in the meetings. Yeah, right, might subvert Trump, right? Like Trump might feel like Vivek thinks he's smarter than him, which I think a lot of people would agree Vivek might be smarter than Trump, you know, just as far as a brain, you know, so I think that he poses more of a threat to Trump in the cabinet. Right. That's what I think. I guess my last point is, Andrew, Indians really like politics. Kamala Harris is half Indian. Nikki Haley is Indian, even though, like we said, it probably doesn't really look Indian. Vivek Rishisunak is the prime minister of the UK right now. I feel like we got to just say it as Chinese guys, like Indians apparently are better leaders in the Western world. It might not even be close, bro. There's like four or five standard deviations between all the CEOs that get hired. OK, and we did a whole video about this. All right, you guys can look it up why there's so many Indian CEOs. There's a lot of reasons. But regardless, there are a ton of Indian CEOs. There are a ton of Indian politicians, and some of them are climbing up there in the globe. So I think it's really, really interesting, guys. And I'm not it's, you know, maybe just go watch our video again. I think it's safe to say, Andrew, no matter which side wins, there might be some Kalabjaman in the White House at some point. I'm just saying, man. All right. If Kamala is in there again. Yeah, I don't know, man. All right, everybody. Let us know in the comments down below what you think about the current political race. Are you just done with politics? Are you curious about Vivek Ramaswamy? Do you support him? Do you not like him? Let us know in the comments down below, because he is a full Indian guy with an Indian name, with an Indian wife. He speaks Tamil. He's a vegan. He's Hindu. He's Indian. Yo, man. Let us know what you think in the comments section below. Until next time. We're the Hop Out Boys. We out. Peace.