GOP Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Wants Real-Life Starship Troopers
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy thinks young people should earn the right to vote by joining the army, like in the sci-fi classic Starship Troopers. It’s a political nonstarter, but it says a lot about how conservatives see the world.
A still from Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 film Starship Troopers. (Tristar Pictures / Touchstone Pictures)
If you don’t know who Vivek Ramaswamy is, I don’t blame you. He’s currently hovering around third place in polls on the race for the Republican presidential nomination behind Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis — but it’s a distant third. And he’s been so reluctant to criticize the front-runner that I can’t help wondering if his real goal is to become Trump’s running mate.
Like Trump himself was in 2016, Ramaswamy is a wealthy businessman with no political experience. Like the rest of the Republican field, he wants to invade Mexico. The most distinctive thing about Ramaswamy is a policy position so extreme that his own campaign staff reportedly hates it. He wants to raise the minimum age for automatic voting rights to twenty-five.
That’s obviously pretty eyebrow-raising in itself, but what really caught my attention about Ramaswamy’s proposal is that it would allow some eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds to get back their right to vote. They could earn it back by passing a civics test, becoming first responders, or joining the military.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.