The second placed contender in the race for the Republican nomination echoed the slogan of thevote Leave Brexit campaign when he called for citizens in the US and western democracies to “take back control” of the economy from “woke corporations”.
Vivek Ramaswamy was speaking to a major conference in London of international figures from the centre right of western politics and warned that “woke capitalism” was the biggest danger faced by democracies today.
The businessman has passed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in some polls to go second behind Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination and is one of the favourites to be Trump’s running mate next year.
Ramaswamy was speaking to the Alliance of Responsible Citizens via videolink from the back of his battlebus as he toured Iowa on the campaign trail.
And he called for an “uprising” by citizens in the style of the 1776 US revolution which led the the Declaration of Independence and end of the reign of George III in the 13 colonies.
He said: “We the citizens will take back control from this merger of state power and corporate power that together is doing what neither one could do on its own.
“I think that we live in one of those moments today. To be alive in the spring of 1776 of the United States.
“It was an exciting time to be alive. I think we live in one of those moments.
“Now it’s up to us to take the kind of the Founding Fathers of the nation that are looking to lead in the United States, a great uprising.”
Mr Ramaswamy comments come in the wake of the banking scandal uncovered by Nigel Farage where corporate banks have been closing people’s accounts because they do not agree with their politics.
In Farage’s case, Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest, threatened to close his account with a subject access report revealing that it was because of his political views.
The scandal led to the resignation of NatWest chief executive Dame Alison Rose after she leaked details of Mr Farage’s financial status to the BBC.
Mr Ramaswamy warned that corporate financial centres had adopted wokme policies as a means of holding on to their wealth after the 2008 bank collapses.
He told the conference that the origins of “woke capitalism” came in the aftermath of the financial crash in 2008.
In response to the Occupy Wall Street movement to “redistribute the money of city fatcats” he said that Wall Street and other financial centres “made a clever choice”.
He explained: “Wall Street said ‘we will adopt certain of the norms of that left wing ideology – climatism, COVIDism, racialism, whatever the idea that was of the day.’
“‘Token minorities on your boards, music about the racially disparate impact of climate change, after flying on that private jet dominance, we will do these things as financial institutions, we will implement agendas through the back door that government couldn’t quite implement, such as the cultural agenda.
“‘But we won’t do it for free. We effectively expect the Occupy Wall Street movement to go away.'”
He went on: “And then it turns out that other institutions and corporate life began to be scared – Silicon Valley around the same time was facing calls for breaking up big tech.
“But Silicon Valley was able to make a similar ruling saying that we will censor hate speech and misinformation through the back door, as governments, at least in the United States could have done better.
“But they didn’t do it for free. They expected that the new left look the other way when it came to the Silicon Valley’s monopoly power.”
He warned: “Responsibilities are delegated to a small group of private autocrats in the back of corporate boardrooms which is equally a threat not just to capitalism, but also a threat to democratic self governance.
“A small group of market actors have a unique responsibility to decide, again, through the backdoor, what citizens cannot decide to go work on the front door.”
