NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Americans must “breathe life back into the ideals of 1776,” entrepreneur and Trump surrogate Vivek Ramaswamy said Friday night during the Buckley Institute’s annual conference.
Ramaswamy, a Yale University law school classmate of JD Vance, delivered the keynote speech at the conservative group’s annual dinner. The College Fix attended the dinner and speech. There were around 360 people registered for the event, the Buckley Institute told The Fix.
The Buckley Institute describes itself as “the only organization dedicated to promoting intellectual diversity and free speech at Yale. Every year, [we] expose students to perspectives they won’t hear in the classroom, offer exclusive access to political and intellectual leaders, and provide a forum where students can speak freely about issues that matter.”
In her opening remarks for the 2024 conference, Lauren Noble, Buckley Institute founder and executive director, said that “Waving a flag in protest? Freedom of speech. Stabbing someone in the eye with said flag? Not freedom of speech,” highlighting the importance of free and quality speech on Yale’s campus and the mission that the institute is dedicated to.
Ramaswamy, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, opened his keynote address by discussing the futures of the Democratic and Republican parties.
It is evident from the last four years that the progressive agenda has failed, Ramaswamy said. Democrats have gone from being the party of the working class, championing economic equality, to erroneously pushing individuals into jobs and positions based on race and or gender, to the detriment of the American public and economy. Thus, the Democratic Party must truly look at and examine themselves over the course of Trump’s next presidency.
Republicans must also formulate a vision for the future, Ramaswamy said.
“It is no longer time to be on the attack [against the Democrats], but ask what we the conservative movement are truly about now and will become.” This, Ramaswamy believes, is what William F. Buckley Jr. would be asking at this critical juncture point Republicans, and the nation, are facing.
While broadly supported during his speech to audible cheering throughout his remarks, Ramaswamy was not unchallenged throughout the night. The most aggressive of these pushbacks was the proposal of mass deportations in response to the flood of illegal immigrants that happened across the Biden administration. Ramaswamy’s comments earned a chorus of boos that were quickly subsumed by cheers. This lended credence to the assertion that the conservative movement is not exempt from internal factions as Ramaswamy urged to forge an identity against.
Of great focus of Ramaswamy’s speech was if the Republican Party still believes in the principles of liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of excellence, and if such are achieved via the usage of big or small government.
When pushed on this further, of how universities can be cultivating “great” individuals to continue this vision of the American legacy, Ramaswamy answered that we must “cultivate, not stifle, excellence in young people, as we currently are.” K-12 schools and universities should encourage meritocracy and excellence, Ramaswamy said.
He said the most pressing concern to the conservative movement is how to use its power.
He favors cutting down the bureaucracy instead of using it to advance conservative goals.
Of the most pressing concern to the conservative movement,
“You risk cutting so much fat you lose muscle, but this is an easier fix.” This points to a “deeper question of what it is to be American,” he said, as the Republican party must answer this question of if a vision of large or small government is in its future. Ramaswamy said that while Republicans have a huge current political victory, these questions of identity must be answered.
Ramaswamy concluded his remarks with the call that America “can still be a nation on our way up, becoming a vision of a city on a hill.”
He said American excellence is still strong and encouraged those cautious of the coming Trump presidency to “make a time capsule of your worst fears right now, and in four years, you’ll find none of them have come to pass, and we are in fact in a better place as a nation.”
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IMAGES: Raleigh Adams for The College Fix; Bill Morgan Media/Buckley Institute
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