Vivek Ramaswamy & Culture of Success: Right and Wrong

Like many normal people, I was off Twitter/X for much of the period surrounding Christmas. But according to an X post Vivek Ramaswamy issued during a Yuletide intra-MAGA immigration brouhaha, “normalcy” is something we have too much of in America today — and it’s hurting us. Since I missed this particular social media moment, and such moments are inherently ephemeral, it didn’t seem necessary to weigh in. But since comments Ramaswamy and others in this debate became a topic of conversation on the first episode of The Editors this week, I thought it worth clarifying what Ramaswamy got right and what he got quite wrong.

Ramaswamy laid out his full argument on X. The essence is that “our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.” He treats normalcy and mediocrity as synonyms. Thus, “if you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve,” which “doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent.” We need “a culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.”

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Jack Butler

Jack Butler is a former submissions editor at National Review.

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Like many normal people, I was off Twitter/X for much of the period surrounding Christmas. But according to an X post Vivek Ramaswamy issued during a Yuletide intra-MAGA immigration brouhaha, “normalcy” is something we have too much of in America today — and it’s hurting us. Since I missed this particular social media moment, and such moments are inherently ephemeral, it didn’t seem necessary to weigh in. But since comments Ramaswamy and others in this debate became a topic of conversation on the first episode of The Editors this week, I thought it worth clarifying what Ramaswamy got right and what he got quite wrong.

Ramaswamy laid out his full argument on X. The essence is that “our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.” He treats normalcy and mediocrity as synonyms. Thus, “if you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve,” which “doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent.” We need “a culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.”