Vivek Ramaswamy draws online flak for saying that American culture praises “mediocrity over excellence”

Vivek Ramaswamy defends top tech companies for hiring foreign-born workers on Twitter. This long-winded rant met backlash from Trump supporters, who accused him of resenting American culture.

Ramaswamy wants America to return to exceptionalism by focusing on STEM education from a young age. He wrote on Twitter, “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” Ramaswamy thinks that celebrating prom queens and jocks, essentially, popular kids, over nerds “will not produce the best engineers.” Additionally, he also promoted more science competitions, more books—less leisure time for children.

This was surprisingly seen by the MAGA crowd as an attack against American culture. One Twitter user replied, “This is thinly veiled ethnic resentment masquerading as cultural analysis. Your argument is that having a social life in high school means worshiping mediocrity and that Americans deserve to be replaced because their parents watched the wrong television reruns.” Many of the replies share the same sentiment, thinking that Ramaswamy shouldn’t be attacking Americans for laziness. Most of them think that tech companies hire migrant workers so that they can pay them less for longer working hours.

Nevertheless, it’s important to note that many of the replies parrot hatred for immigration. Some replies are even racially pointed against Ramaswamy, a child of Indian migrants.

Pick a struggle

Ramaswamy has been sharply against the Department of Education. Although he wants a highly competitive workforce and the idealization of nerdiness, he also wishes to abolish the Department of Education. He wants a culture of excellence, but he wants to gut the same government department in charge of fostering academic competence. He and fellow tech billionaire, Elon Musk, may do so through their DOGE project. The irony couldn’t be more glaring.

There is nothing wrong with promoting STEM or even pushing students to be better at school. Not everyone has to be mathletes like Ramaswamy wishes, but a better educated populace will always be a net benefit for society. Nonetheless, Ramaswamy is paying the price for joining a campaign against migration and educational institutions.