Vivek Ramaswamy, conservative challenger of 'woke' ESG business practices, considering White House bid

A number of Republicans have been rumored to be considering joining former President Trump in the race for the White House in 2024, and the latest is businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy has been making the rounds in Iowa, delivering a message against the invasion of woke liberal ideology in the business world, according to a new Politico report. He has also appeared in New Hampshire – with plans to return to the home of the nation's first primary later this month – and has been assembling a team of GOP operatives and former campaign advisers.

"Yes, I am strongly considering it," Ramaswamy confirmed to Fox News Digital. 

So far, he seems confident in his chances of success.

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"You know, maybe all of this is ill-advised and I’ll fall flat on my face," he told Politico. "I don’t think that’s gonna happen."

Fox News Digital reached out to Ramaswamy for comment, but he did not immediately respond.

Ramaswamy has been taking on the current trend of ESG – the influence of environmental, social, and governance factors in business practices and investing. The ESG principles have become increasingly prevalent in measuring whether a company merits investment dollars, but Ramaswamy believes politics should stay out of the market. He is reportedly testing whether his message will resonate among Iowa voters. 

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While it was enough to make his book, "Woke Inc: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam," a bestseller, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is not convinced his constituents are on board – yet.

"Knowing the problems that this ESG thing is causing for agriculture, I consider him a breath of fresh air and a real person needed to bring common sense to this whole discussion," Grassley told Politico, while noting that Iowans may not really care about the issue "for 10 years until it starts affecting them."

Ramaswamy, the executive chairman of Strive Asset Management, is also evolving his message into a larger-scope philosophy that with a free market should come a more meritocratic system. He is reportedly hoping that this broad endorsement of working hard for the American dream will strike a chord with the electorate and give the Republican Party a centralizing theme going into 2024.

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"I think the GOP has a historic opportunity to answer the question of what it means to be an American at the moment where we lack a national identity," Ramaswamy told Politico. 

That question is one that Ramaswamy says his fellow millennials do not have an answer to, but he is looking to provide it.

"If you ask most people in my generation what it means to be an American, you get a blank stare in response," he told Fox News Digital. "I’m on a mission to deliver an answer to that question. We need to revive the basic ideas that set this nation into motion nearly 250 years ago."