Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy laid out his vision for what it means to be an American during his remarks Friday at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, encouraging conservatives to embrace ideals and not “lineage.”Ramaswamy rejected what he called the race- and identity-obsessed vision of the “woke left,” as well as what he called certain quarters of the “online right” that link American identity to heritage.”I think the idea of a heritage American is about as loony as anything the woke left has actually put up,” he said at Turning Point’s conference in Phoenix, Ariz. “There is no American who is more American than somebody else… It is binary. Either you’re an American or you’re not.”Rather, Ramaswamy said, it was believing in ideals that made someone an American, calling himself the proud son of “legal immigrants.”ERIKA KIRK SHARES UPDATE AFTER PRIVATE IN-PERSON MEETING WITH CANDACE OWENS”What does it mean to be an American in the year 2026? It means we believe in those ideals of 1776,” he said. “It means we believe in merit, that the best person gets the job regardless of their skin color.””It means we believe in free speech and open debate,” he added. “Even for those who disagree with us, from Nick Fuentes to Jimmy Kimmel, you get to speak your mind in the open without the government censoring you.”Ramaswamy linked far-left and far-right figures to one another, saying there was no room in the conservative movement for progressives who believed in racial quotas, but also…
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