Vivek now wants to stop focusing on “identity politics”

Plenty of ink has already been spent on this today, but apparently, in the aftermath of last night’s horrific results for Republicans, Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to quit focusing on “identity politics.”

“Our side needs to focus on affordability. Make the American dream affordable, bring down costs: electric costs, grocery costs, healthcare costs and housing costs. And lay out how we’re going to do it,” he said.

“Number two, cut out the identity politics, it doesn’t suit Republicans, it’s not for us, that’s the woke left’s game, not ours,” Ramaswamy went on.

“We don’t care about the color of your skin or your religion. We care about the content of your character, that’s who we are,” he said.

I mean, yes. OK. We agree. Obviously.

But it is worth noting that this is a guy who basically ran a stealth Trump campaign in the 2024 primary before Trump actually got into it, and Trump has always been about identity politics. It’s just that he’s been mostly about white, working class identity politics. Which is what we used to call, you know, the Democratic Party’s bread and butter.

Sure, Ramaswamy was probably disturbed into this position not just by last night’s results, but also by this year’s experience of watching all the Trumpers he used to count as his fans go totally nuts about high-skilled immigration from India, engaging in constant bashing of tech-minded people who have decided to make America their home after departing the Subcontinent and, natch, “displacing” lots of white workers (many of whom sadly do lack the skills, education and work ethic required to do some of the jobs in question).

Good. We welcome it.

But it would have been nice if he’d gotten there, I dunno, maybe 36 months sooner.