(Elias Irizarry, Headline USA) With the Democrat Party imploding under the weight of its gerontocracy, led by 81-year-old presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, 38-year-old businessman Vivek Ramaswamy is on a mission to ensure that the GOP keeps its focus on the future, as well as the present.
The mood at the NatCon4 conference—sponsored by the Edmund Burke Foundation this week in Washington, D.C.—may have been on driven largely by anticipation and enthusiasm for the coming election after several years of dues-paying during the corrupt Biden administration.
Top conservative thought-leaders and policymakers led discussions on topics such as “revenge lawfare.”
Ramaswamy, on the other hand, declared in his keynote speech Tuesday that he came not to tell the crowd what they wanted to hear, but rather to challenge them.
He urged Republicans to start preparing for the future after Trump and explained what he saw as a growing rift in the GOP between what he described as “national protectionists” and “national libertarians.”
Although the two factions may be unified under a second Trump term due to the would-be leader’s unique charisma and cult of personality, the vaccuum that ensues in Trump’s eventual retirement might amplify the fundamental philosophical differences between them.
“Both reject the neoliberal consensus on foreign policy, on trade, on immigration, but for different reasons, and with very different implications for the future direction of America First policy,” Ramaswamy said.
Unlike the other candidates, President Trump didn't just blindly parrot the Republican party's orthodoxy with fancy verbiage. He offered a new worldview that shattered the NeoCon consensus.
He reimagined our relationships with other countries and looked at international… pic.twitter.com/rjZKstn0c2
— National Conservatism (@NatConTalk) July 9, 2024
Ramaswamy argued that national protectionists are too wary of international trade, and that the priority should be decoupling from China—which, he said, currently accounts for the export of 40% of the U.S. military semiconductor supply and could cut the plug in a time of war.
“If we’re really serious about reducing our economic dependence on China—not just talking about it, but actually serious about doing it—that necessarily means more, not less, trade with allies,” Ramaswamy said.
“But if your top priority is to protect American manufacturers from the effects of foreign competition, then that impedes our ability to decouple from China,” he added.
After speaking on foreign trade, he moved to the concerns of immigration by the two different wings. He said that there were three main priorities for national libertarians: “Protect national security, preserve national identity and promote economic growth—in that order.”
Neoliberals favor economic growth over everything, he pointed out. Meanwhile, national protectionists favor wage growth over the expense of other interests.
However, Ramaswamy argued that national identity should be just as important. He called for prioritization of quality over quantity when it comes to immigration policy.
In support of what he calls national libertarianism @VivekGRamaswamy calls for the end of of birthright and duel citizenship along with civic tests for citizens before voting but opposes protectionist immigration policies pic.twitter.com/5k24xLzjti
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) July 9, 2024
“The overwhelming majority of immigrants will have to be turned away,” he said.
“But it won’t be because domestic labor unions are scared of foreign competition,” he added. “It’ll be because we have national boundaries, a national identity, and a rule of law to preserve in America. Immigration should not be labor policy.”
Ramaswamy went on to warn that “national protectionists” were turning toward big government to reach their goals—a trend that he felt needed to be nipped in the bud.
“We don’t believe in reshaping the American regulatory state. We believe in dismantling the American regulatory state,” he said. “I don’t care to replace a left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state.”
