Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Friday likened some progressives to “grand wizards of the modern KKK,” Huffington Post reports.
The biotech millionaire investor, who is Indian American, called out Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and author Ibram X. Kendi in particular in Iowa in response to a question at a campaign event from an attendee over whether the long shot candidate expected liberals to accuse him of being a “white supremacist” or “what adjacent” race traitor.
“The greatest racism I’ve experienced ― and I have experienced racism ― comes from the modern left at a scale unimaginable,” Ramaswamy said.
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“Because I think they feel a sense of betrayal, saying that, ‘You’re not speaking in the tone that you’re supposed to.’”
He added: “So the other side will gaslight you when you’re saying this stuff, ‘Oh, you’re just making that stuff up.’…These are the words of the modern Grand Wizards of the modern KKK.”
The report indicates Ramaswamy toned down his remarks in response to questions from reporters, suggesting instead that Pressley, Kendi and the broader progressive movement would make the KKK “proud.”
“The fact that we’re taught to see one another on the basis of our genetic attributes is something that would make the old wizards of the grand KKK proud,” Ramaswamy said. “I think there is no better way to disempower someone in this country, as a kid, than to say that you can’t get ahead because of the genetics that you’re born with.”
He added: “I would say in recent years, probably the last decade, it’s come from the left. And I think it says a lot about the decay in our culture."
“From the likes of the modern evangelists of this modern religion would certainly make, in some ways, the old generation of KKK grand wizards very proud, in a certain sense of that word.”
