My 10 truths for the 2024 campaign
This entire presidential campaign is about speaking the truth.
Especially when it’s hard, when it’s uncomfortable.
There’s no “your” truth or “one” of “many truths.”
It’s just the TRUTH. An undeniable reality.
I’d rather lose this race and speak truth at every step than win by saying what I’m “supposed to.”
When I penned these “10 Truths” in a notebook months ago on a flight from New Hampshire to Ohio, I drew inspiration from Thomas Jefferson’s original words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.”
- God is real.
We come from different walks but are bound by a common creed.
One of my favorite scientists, Blaise Pascal, said it best: If you have a hole the size of God in your heart and God doesn’t fill it, something else will.
That’s how you get climatism, COVIDism and transgenderism.
We all bend the knee — if not to God, to false idols instead. We must restore what is real over what is artificial to revive this nation.
2. There are two genders.
There are two sexes.
If you have XX chromosomes, you’re a woman.
If you have XY chromosomes, you’re a man.
Period.
Gender dysphoria is a mental-health disorder. Affirming confusion isn’t compassion. It’s cruelty.
3. Human flourishing requires fossil fuels.
Eight times as many people die from cold temperatures as warm ones.
The answer to all temperature-related deaths is more abundant fossil fuels.
In fact, thanks to these fuels, climate-related deaths dropped a staggering 98% over the last century.
We can unshackle the US economy by abandoning the climate cult: Drill, frack, burn coal and embrace nuclear energy.
4. Reverse racism is racism.
It’s wrong now just as it was in 1964. The “anti-racist” movement actually creates more racism.
There’s no greater way to fuel racism in our country than to take something away from someone because of his or her skin color, which is exactly what affirmative action, the single greatest form of institutional racism in America today, does.
As president, I will end it in every sphere of American life.
I’ll repeal Lyndon Johnson’s disastrous Executive Order 11246, which mandates that federal contractors — about 20% of the US workforce — adopt race-based hiring preferences.
Time to restore colorblind meritocracy once and for all.
5. An open border is no border.
The No. 1 purpose of the US military is to protect Americans from foreign threats on our own soil.
It’s shameful that we’re using hundreds of billions in military resources to stop an invasion of someone else’s border when we fail to protect against the ongoing invasion across our own southern border.
It’s not just illegal migrants, human trafficking and fentanyl, but even armed cartel gunmen are directly invading our homeland.
Fentanyl deaths among young people rose 1,000% from 2020 to 2023; they were 80% of fatal teen overdoses last year.
I refuse to be a passive bystander in the White House like President Joe Biden.
We should use our military to secure our border and annihilate the Mexican drug cartels if necessary.
If we’re ready to do it, the Mexican government will step up and regain its sovereignty. That’s how we solve the problem.
6. Parents determine the education of their children.
Parents know what is best for their kids, not the teachers unions, not the US Department of Education.
There is an inverse correlation between how much money a public school spends per student and the actual outcomes that school achieves for its students.
I will shut down the Department of Education without apology and use its $80+ billion budget on school safety, school choice and vocational programs instead of foisting toxic ideologies onto kids.
7. The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind.
A quarter of kids in America don’t have a dad in the house. Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor and 20 times more likely to end up in jail.
True “privilege” is not based on the color of your skin. It’s being raised in a stable family with two parents.
The federal government cannot on its own fix the fatherlessness crisis, but here’s what it can do: get the progressive boot off the family’s neck.
Stop using taxpayer money to pay mothers more to not have a man in the house and do the exact opposite of what’s likely to be best for them.
8. Capitalism lifts people up from poverty.
Black, white, gay, straight, Democrat or Republican, doesn’t matter: Capitalism has lifted more people up from poverty than any other system in the history of mankind.
We shouldn’t apologize for it. I won’t.
9. There are three branches of US government, not four.
The biggest open secret in modern America: The people we elect to run the government don’t actually run the government.
I will replace civil-service protections with eight-year term limits for bureaucrats.
Civil-service rules protect against individual federal-employee firings, but they don’t apply to large-scale reductions in force.
And mass layoffs are absolutely what I will bring to the Washington, DC, bureaucracy.
10. The US Constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedoms in history.
The division and challenges our nation faces to many seem insurmountable.
Though we are young, we are battle-tested. We have overcome hardship before.
In August 1943, more than 1,000 US airmen were killed or captured while flying missions over Nazi-occupied Europe.
Thousands of sailors and Marines died that same month to push the Germans out of Sicily and the Japanese out of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
They died to ensure America would remain safe from foreign aggression.
In the summer of 1863, tens of thousands of Union soldiers were laid to rest at Gettysburg.
In the words of Lincoln’s famous address, “They gave their lives that the nation might live.”
In South Carolina, the black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment led an attack at dusk on Fort Wagner. Only 315 men survived. They demonstrated through their valor that all men are created equal.
In the summer of 1783, British forces still occupied New York while John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay negotiated in Paris to bring our nation into existence.
When peace was achieved and the redcoats finally left at the end of November, George Washington resigned his commission, laid down his arms and went home.
His selfless patriotism protected the new nation from descending into dictatorship.
We are a young country — just three lifetimes separate us from the revolution.
Fourscore years from now, I hope 2023 is remembered as the beginning of a new revolution to ensure that once again the people of this country are sovereign.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a Republican candidate for president.
