| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Ella Creamer, Rishika Dugyala, Jesse Naranjo, Ife O. Olatona, Kacie Yamamoto and Teresa Wiltz
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POLITICO illustration/Photo by Francis Chung/POLITICO | Vivek Ramaswamy, like all Republican White House hopefuls not named Donald Trump, is desperately trying to gain traction in the race for the GOP nomination. The loquacious first-time candidate bristles at being lumped with other Republicans, namely Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He’s vying to be this cycle’s most ardent anti-woke culture warrior. (He even launched an anti-woke investment fund.) So he’s pivoting even harder to the right. “I think of myself as more of the unapologetic nationalist in this race,” Ramaswamy says, before doubling down. “Call me a nonwhite nationalist if you want.”
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Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old Indian American who made his fortune as the founder of the biotech firm Axovant, says this framing — which he tried to walk back a touch by saying the nonwhite descriptor was “tongue in cheek” — is in fact an optimistic view.
These comments were made during his opening remarks in an on-the-record conversation with more than a dozen editors and reporters at POLITICO’s Rosslyn, Va., headquarters late Monday morning. “Why do I call myself an American nationalist? I am proud of that. I will not apologize for it. And I want to revive that.”
|  Ramaswamy visits POLITICO's offices in Arlington, Va., June 5, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | He says the nation is in a “1776 moment,” one where we must collectively decide if we will “embrace the radicalism of the ideals that actually unite us” or allow that window to close — hinting that the nation faces peril without a proven leader to navigate the country through what he sees as a dark period. When reminded that while the nation was built on rule of law and self-governance, it also was built on the practice of slavery, he pushes back by asking and answering his own rhetorical question: “Is America hypocritical? Yes.” But as he sees it, America is getting a bad rap for that, compared to say, China or Iran or Pakistan. “I will be … among the first to admit our hypocrisy because I think it's our best evidence of the fact that we are a nation founded on ideals. And most nations are founded on ethnicity, monarch, language, religion — not America.” OK, but what about this embrace of being a nationalist… a nonwhite one at that, particularly when the Republican Party is already seen by many as embracing white nationalism? He admits this posture may alienate some voters initially, but he, as a candidate, is unphased.
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Ramaswamy speaks during the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off, Saturday, April 22, 2023, in Clive, Iowa. | Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo | | “Do I have a consciousness that in the short run, that's going to make some people uncomfortable? Absolutely.” But as he sees it, Americans must learn to recalibrate, noting that we must get “comfortable with that discomfort, so we can be stronger on the other side of it.” Ramaswamy, the author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam” and “Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence,” is part of a growing GOP field that is the most diverse in modern history. It includes former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and syndicated conservative talk show host Larry Elder. Haley, like Ramaswamy, is South Asian, while both Scott and Elder are Black. All are attempting to win over a largely white Republican primary electorate that, at this point, heavily favors the former president — or prefers DeSantis as the chief alternative. None of the GOP candidates of color are polling above 5 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight average. Ramaswamy is hovering at 3.4 percent. But all have to varying degrees railed against “woke” ideologies and policies, which has become a catch-all phrase to describe culture war battles over diversity, equity and inclusion efforts aimed at rooting out systemic inequities from virtually every aspect of American life.
|  Ramaswamy visits the 3rd Phase Barbershop in the South Shore neighborhood on May 19, 2023, in Chicago. | Scott Olson/Getty Images | Interestingly, Trump during a campaign stop in Iowa last week said he doesn’t like the term “woke”, adding: “It’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.” For his part, Ramaswamy largely stayed away from criticizing Trump, though he alluded to the former president as passé, someone who leaned into a “retrospective grievance” that played well with the electorate, and perhaps one that was needed in 2015, but not today. He predicts that it will take a landslide election, like Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1984, to unite the country. “I think we need to move and graduate beyond … celebrating and sometimes fighting and obsessing … over our skin-deep diversity and differences,” he says. |  Ramaswamy speaks during Sen. Joni Ernst's Roast and Ride, Saturday, June 3, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. | Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo |
“What we need to reawaken is what we actually share across those differences in common, because without that, we're really just back to being those bipedal higher mammals, with a bunch of different genetic attributes walking some geographic space that we call a country.”
As always, we’ll be watching to see how things play out in the ever-growing GOP presidential field. All the best,
The Recast Team
| | | THE SHRINKING GENDER GAP
|  Gen Zers are the most diverse voting bloc in the country. | LM Otero/AP Photo | For years, there’s been a gender gap at the voting booth. Women tended to vote for Democrats, while men voted for Republicans. But as Milllennials and Gen Zers have come of voting age, that gap has “virtually disappeared,” according to researchers at the Brookings Institution. American voters are divided, perhaps more than ever. But among young voters, there’s more of a political consensus. During the 2022 midterms, only 31 percent of older white men voted for Democrats, while 41 percent of older white women did, while younger white men voted for Democrats at about the same rate as younger white women. The gender gap among older Latinos is about the same as that of older white voters — and among younger Latinos, the gap is virtually nonexistent. There’s also no gender gap among younger Black voters. (Their research didn’t track voting trends among Asian American voters.) The gender gap is disappearing at a time when society is changing rapidly and traditional gender roles are being transformed, Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies program, tells The Recast. She says the absence of a gender gap within the voting demographic under age 45 “was a surprise” — likely due to the different experiences young people have today compared to older generations. “There’s a different experience for younger men and younger women, and all of these different societal experiences have a political fallout to them,” Kamarck says. Demographics are a big part of this generational shift in attitudes. Gen Zers, for example, are the most diverse voting bloc in the country. “The younger voters are a very diverse generation, and they live it. They’ve incorporated these values,” Kamarck says. “The diversity issue makes an enormous difference. It’s probably the biggest difference between the age groups.” Young voters are also the fastest growing sector of the electorate. By 2028, young voters will make up the majority of the electorate, according to the Brookings Institution. During the midterms, voters aged 18-29 had the second highest turnout since 1994, according to Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. As the 2024 election cycle kicks into gear, expect young voters to have an outsize impact. “When a generation has a distinctive culture and politics and is really big,” Kamarck says, “it really does have a huge impact on politics,” she said.
| | | CORNEL WEST WANTS YOUR VOTE
|  Cornel West, pictured speaking at a 2020 Bernie Sanders rally in New Hampshire, announced a White House bid this week. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo | File this next item under, WTF or SWDSC – (S---t We Didn’t See Coming). Renowned philosopher/political activist/college professor/singer/rapper Cornel West dropped a video on Monday announcing he is embarking on a run for the White House — no, seriously. “I enter into the quest for truth, I enter into the quest for justice and the presidency is just one vehicle to pursue that truth and justice that I’ve been trying to do all of my life,” West says in his campaign launch on Twitter. Part of West’s presidential platform will include fighting to end poverty and mass incarceration as well as promoting far-left planks of making health care, education, living wages and housing guaranteed for all Americans. It is notable that West, a staunch progressive, is not seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge President Joe Biden, like Robert Kennedy Jr. Instead West is running as a third-party candidate with the People’s Party, which advocates ending American involvement in wars across the globe and “Medicare for All.” (Also notable: The People’s Party doesn’t have ballot access in a majority of states and has never fielded a political candidate.) While this campaign launch was met with more than a few raised eyebrows, at least one leading Democratic pollster is weighing in with his displeasure. HIT Strategies co-founder Terrance Woodbury, a 2023 Recast Power List pick, called the move “outrageous,” adding that: “Dr West will never be POTUS so this is just a vanity exercise that puts actual lives in danger….I just lost a tremendous amount of respect for you sir.” As POLITICO’s Kierra Frazier notes, West is a prominent figure in academia, but not one without controversy: West first left a Harvard position in 2002 amid a series of disputes with then-university president Lawrence Summers, joining Princeton University instead. In 2021, West again left a Harvard post over a tenure dispute, accusing the school of “intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of deep depths.” West currently serves as the Dietrich Bonhoeffer chair at Union Theological Seminary.
| | | ICYMI @ POLITICO Don’t Call It A Comeback — Former New York Rep. Mondaire Jones makes it official: He’s looking to make another run for Congress after being “bigfooted out of office in 2022 by his party’s campaign committee chair after a prolonged redistricting saga, ”POLITICO’s Ally Mutnick reports for Congress Minutes. Hail To The Chiefs — WATCH: Biden welcomes Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs to the White House
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| Her Seat at the Table — Over the weekend NBC announced that the network’s chief political analyst, Kristen Welker, will replace Chuck Todd as anchor of the Sunday flagship politics program “Meet the Press.” POLITICO’s Kelly Garrity has more.
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS In S. A. Cosby’s new book, “All The Sinners Bleed,” Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff of a small town with plenty of secrets rippling beneath the surface. It’s out today. Lexi Underwood plays exchange student Isabella in Season 2 of “Cruel Summer,” a Y2K-era soap opera centered on a mysterious disappearance, streaming from today on Hulu.
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| The short film “Foreign Uncle” dramatizes the true story of Sining Xiang who passes off his American boyfriend as just a good friend to his family during a trip to China. Many of Xiang’s family members — including the American beau — play themselves. It’s Black Music Month — Celebrate with a career-spanning NPR Tiny Desk concert by R&B legend Charlie Wilson. Stray Kids’ explosive video for “특(S-Class)” is packed with attitude, action and outfits.
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| TikTok of the Day: Fit check
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