
Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy announced in a Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had quit Instagram and X after facing attacks for being Indian.
Ramaswamy previously wrote in a Dec. 17 New York Times op-ed that his âsocial media feeds littered with hundreds of slurs ⌠about âpajeetsâ and âstreet shittersâ and calls to deport âback to India,ââ despite being born in the United States and never living elsewhere. He wrote in the WSJ piece that what he saw on social media did not reflect his real-world experiences.
âIn 2025 I saw a spate of shocking racial slurs and worse on social media. Yet that same year I visited tens of thousands of voters across all of Ohioâs 88 countiesâfrom inner cities to farms, union halls to factories, Republican rallies to one-on-one discussions with protestersâand I didnât hear a single bigoted remark from an Ohio voter the entire year,â Ramaswamy wrote.
Ramaswamy noted that quitting social media was his New Yearâs resolution for 2026.
âIf my current New Yearâs resolution resembles past ones, I might be back to scrolling X by March,â he wrote. âBut for now Iâm running the experiment, and I invite my fellow Republicans to join me. Who knows, it might be the extra X-factor that helps us secure victories in 2026.â
Nick Fuentes has also attacked Ramaswamy over his heritage and took credit for his social media departure in a Monday X post.
Nearly half of the reposts on Fuentesâ six most viral posts â three before Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirkâs assassination and three after â allegedly came from foreign accounts, according to the Network Contagion Research Instituteâs December report in partnership with Rutgers Universityâs Social Perception Lab.
Ramaswamy referenced the report in his WSJ op-ed.
âA recent report revealed that engagement with the X account of the now-notorious white nationalist Nick Fuentes shows signs of being âunusually fast, unusually concentrated and unusually foreign in origin,ââ Ramaswamy wrote.
President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk endorsed Ramaswamy in his governorâs race in February 2025. The Ohio Republican Party endorsed him in May 2025.
Ramaswamy was originally slated to work with Musk to jointly run Trumpâs Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but as the president began his second term, he instead pivoted to running for governor. He has a narrow lead over his Democratic opponent, former Ohio Department of Health director Amy Acton, according to the RealClearPolling average.
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