Vivek Ramaswamy, rising in the polls and buoyed by the first Republican primary debate this week, was barnstorming through central Iowa on Friday with a trademark smile and a remarkably bleak generational diagnosis of what ails younger America.<\/p>\n
Millennials like himself, the entrepreneur and political newcomer explained to an overflowing audience in Pella, Iowa, \u201care starved for purpose, meaning and identity\u201d; robbed of those anchors that made America great \u2014 \u201cfaith, patriotism, hard work, family\u201d; and stumbling from one cult to another \u2014 race, gender, sexuality and climate activism. The government \u201csystematically lies to us,\u201d he said. He told another gathering in Indianola, \u201cWe face a nonzero risk that the United States of America could cease to exist,\u201d obliterated by the blossoming alliance of Russia and China.<\/p>\n
Young Americans, he concluded, have \u201ca black hole in our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is hardly Ronald Reagan\u2019s shining city on the hill, Bill Clinton\u2019s bridge to the 21st century or the countless evocations of American exceptionalism that have buoyed politics for decades now, including those offered by some of his 2024 rivals. And yet somehow his evocation of a generational malaise seems to resonate, at least with the crowds that are packing the restaurants, cafes and even larger venues in the state that will cast the first ballots this January for the Republican presidential nomination.<\/p>\n
Noticeably, however, those crowds don\u2019t seem to include many young voters. And many of his views are out of step with those of his generation as well as with the one below it, particularly his positions on climate change \u2014 he loudly rejects prescriptions for combating it, like eliminating, or even reducing, the burning of fossil fuels \u2014 and the voting age, which he wants to raise, unless young voters can pass a civics test.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ramaswamy, 38, has never held elective office or worked in government, and he is competing for the presidential nomination in a party whose most loyal voters are baby boomers and Gen Xers, not millennials. (The Pew Research Center defines a millennial as anyone born between 1981 and 1996.)<\/p>\n
Yet in national polling averages, he is running second in the primary fight, far behind the front-runner, Donald J. Trump, but overtaking the man who was supposed to be Mr. Trump\u2019s biggest threat, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Ramaswamy has pitched himself as the Republican future, a conservative in Mr. Trump\u2019s image who holds forth at campaign events near a large list of commandments he\u2019s labeled \u201ctruth.\u201d<\/p>\n
His rhetoric in recent weeks has become increasingly strident, though he still delivers those lines with the calm tones and seeming intellectualism of the Harvard debater he was. He speaks now of \u201crevolution\u201d and his own \u201cradicalism.\u201d On Friday, he condemned Representative Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts; the author Ibram X. Kendi; and other avatars of what he called the \u201cracism of the left\u201d as \u201cthe modern grand wizards of the modern K.K.K.\u201d<\/p>\n
But most of his proposals have not changed for months, including eliminating the Department of Education, the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service; firing 75 percent of the federal work force; ending all aid to Ukraine and freezing the battle lines where they are (\u201cThose would be real wins for Putin, I admit that,\u201d he allowed in Indianola); ending birthright citizenship; and using the military to attack the drug cartels in Mexico.<\/p>\n
His positions have simply gotten the attention of opponents who until now have declined to take him seriously. Former Vice President Mike Pence called him a \u201crookie\u201d on Wednesday night. Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, accused him of sounding like ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have no foreign policy experience,\u201d said Nikki Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, \u201cand it shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
But at his events, Iowa voters are clearly with him on policy. Their qualms lie elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s too young for the country,\u201d said Kevin Klucas, 55, of Oskaloosa, Iowa, not for me, but the country tends to vote for older presidents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside the Fireside Bistro in Indianola, Dan Bailey, 67, and Pat Hoppenworth, 70, agreed that Mr. Ramaswamy, along with the other candidates not named Trump, were all auditioning to join Mr. Trump\u2019s ticket, and that Mr. Ramaswamy had won them over. But they could not agree on the order of the ticket: Ms. Hoppenworth thought the younger man should be president, with the former president by his side; Mr. Bailey said Mr. Ramaswamy would be vice president.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never give up on Trump,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ramaswamy\u2019s views of American society, especially youthful society, could be politically risky. He doesn\u2019t exactly deny the established science of human-made climate change, but he says climate change policy is a \u201choax\u201d and that \u201cclimatism,\u201d what he calls the youth-driven activism seeking to reverse global warming, is a cult \u2014 a position that seems guaranteed to alienate young voters.<\/p>\n
He has proposed a constitutional amendment that would raise the legal voting age to 25, though 18- to 24-year-olds would retain the right to vote if they passed the same civics test that naturalized citizens must pass.<\/p>\n
More than anything, he has portrayed his generation and younger ones as empty souls living meaningless lives. \u201cThere\u2019s more to life than the aimless passage of time, which is what we teach 18-year-olds today,\u201d he said on Pella\u2019s central square, to an audience at the Butcher\u2019s Brewhuis that was so large dozens had to be turned away.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ramaswamy\u2019s views seem to strike a chord with the bulk of his audiences, who are older and unindicted by his observations. Rick Giarusso, a 61-year-old retired Army officer from Carlisle, Iowa, spoke of his 29-year-old son and his son\u2019s 26-year-old wife, who he said are both \u201cwell-educated professionals\u201d but with \u201ca sense that something is missing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The younger members of his audiences, a small minority, are more divided. Alex Foley, 32, a Pella resident, asked Mr. Ramaswamy a pointed question on his \u201ctruth\u201d that \u201cGod is real,\u201d and how he could unite a country where the idea of God inspires so many different beliefs. For Mr. Foley, who said he \u201cloves Jesus intensely,\u201d the notion of a young generation devoid of spirituality seemed alien. His own journey led him from drugs and clerking in a video store to a commitment to the Bible, hardly a path followed only by millennials.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I consider myself, aimless, purposeless, meaningless?\u201d Mr. Foley said. \u201cOf course, no one would like to consider themselves such thing. But do I feel like my generation has a particularly increased struggle to find what it is they should be fight for? I would say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor Harrison, 22, a Canadian from Alberta, and Drew Johnson, 24, from Pella, both members of Generation Z, saw the commotion at Butcher\u2019s Brewhuis and packed in to see what Mr. Ramaswamy was all about.<\/p>\n
\u201cAimless and soulless, I wouldn\u2019t say,\u201d Ms. Harrison objected. She said her peers felt more that they had been dealt a bad hand, \u201cso we\u2019re not quite sure what to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat sells on the news is just what\u2019s wrong with everything,\u201d Mr. Johnson chimed in. \u201cNobody wants to point out the good. No one wants to show the good things that are happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Austin Alexander, from Nashville, Tenn., was passing through Iowa and tracked Mr. Ramaswamy for much of the day. Mr. Alexander, who at 42 is a millennial, didn\u2019t mind Mr. Ramaswamy\u2019s portrayal of younger Americans, though he was quick to say that there were \u201ca variety of faces in our generation.\u201d Still, he said, he is old enough to remember when Lee Greenwood\u2019s country anthem \u201cProud to Be an American\u201d won over even young listeners. Now, he said, younger Americans are more likely to identify with the critique of violence, greed, nihilism and racism in Childish Gambino\u2019s \u201cThis Is America.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he accurately diagnoses the lack of identity and purpose that some \u2014 many \u2014 in my generation and younger struggle with,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially with the identity of our country, there\u2019s been a shift during my lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n