The Republicans will never get credit with liberal/Democrat news outlets for having a presidential field with diversity — the Indian-American woman, the Indian-American man, a Latino man, and three black men. Instead, the “Asian America” section of NBCNews.com bizarrely connected Vivek Ramaswamy to the talking points of “neo-Nazis.” The headline over the story by NBC reporter Sakshi Venkatraman (NYU graduate, 2021):
Vivek Ramaswamy celebrates his immigrant family while pushing far-right border policies
“It is deeply distressing to see that a child of immigrants, himself a person of color, would be lifting talking points from neo-Nazis,” one expert said.
Venkatraman found “experts” that favor untrammeled immigration to take offense that this immigrant is for border control:
Terms like “invasion” have been rising in popularity on the right since Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Ramaswamy, who closely aligns himself with the former president, is riding a harmful nationalist wave, immigrant justice leaders say.
Using terms like “invasion,” an expert said, inherently feeds white supremacism.
“It is deeply distressing to see that a child of immigrants, himself a person of color, would be lifting talking points from neo-Nazis,” said Kica Matos, the president of the National Immigration Law Center. “It legitimizes that kind of dangerous talk. It gives a sense of normalcy and permission for white supremacists to advance their deeply repulsive beliefs.”
Matos added “It seems like this is a real example of them pulling up the ladder behind them,” she said. “They benefited from opportunities offered to immigrants, and now … they are stomping on other immigrants.”
Any statement about limiting immigration seems to be “white supremacy” and “stomping on immigrants.”
In the second hour of the debate, when asked about American support for Ukraine, Ramaswamy proclaimed “I think that this is disastrous that we are protecting against an invasion of somebody else’s border when we should use those same military resources to prevent across [sic] the invasion across our southern border of our own United States of America.” Then he said something weird about other Republicans on the stage who will “make a pilgrimage to Kiev to their pope, Zelenskyy” but not to go to Maui or the south side of Chicago.
Venkatraman also included anti-Ramaswamy (and anti-Republican) commentary from Karthick Ramakrishnan, “the founder of AAPI Data,” who felt the need to insist Indian Americans largely immigrate legally, but some are “undocumented.” And Pawan Dhingra, a professor of American studies at Amherst College, who said Ramaswamy is telling Republicans “I’m your kind of immigrant.”
None of the experts is identified as “left” or “far-left.” They’re just “experts.”
PS: Sometimes in Ramaswamy coverage, someone else is tagged as the racist. Also on Thursday, Venkatraman devoted a story to Ann Coulter making “racist comments” for tweeting that debate squabbling between Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley was “Hindu business.” Ramaswamy, who makes “Pope” jokes, is Hindu, while Haley grew up in a Sikh family but identifies as a Christian.
