Ramaswamy in Italy: Conservatives Must Offer Platform of Sovereignty to Win ‘War’ for ‘Soul of the West’

Entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called on his fellow conservatives to offer a multi-layered vision of sovereignty to win the “war” for the “soul of the West” during a speech in Italy over the weekend.

Ramaswamy shared his vision for the conservative movement in the West while speaking at the Identity and Democracy Party’s Winds of Change event in Rome on Saturday. He contended that cornerstones of Western values like family, faith, patriotism, and hard work have “disappeared” from society, and left-wing and globalist ideologies are filling the void:

I’ll share with you the words of Blaise Pascal, European scientist, who famously said, “if you have a hole the size of God in your heart, and God does not fill it, that means something else will instead.” If you don’t pledge allegiance to the flag of your nation, you will pledge allegiance to a different flag instead: the transgender flag, the flag of a different nation, the flag of a union of nations.

It’s a need we have as human beings to pledge allegiance to something greater than ourselves, and yet when we lose faith, family, patriotism, hard work, that is when wokeism, transgenderism, climatism, Covidism, globalism fill that void. We are hungry for purpose and meaning that is what’s going on in our generation.

And while Ramaswamy believes the majority of American and Italian citizens are on his side, he said the left is “still winning” the battle and conservatives must offer a vision people can run towards as an alternative to merely running from radical leftist policies.

“But if we are to achieve victory in this war, and a war it is for the future soul of the West, then we have to offer a vision of our own,” Ramaswamy said before detailing a platform of “sovereignty” at the individual, family, and national levels.

This begins with recognizing and respecting the sacredness of individual agency as a counter to “riding the tectonic plates of group identity,” which the left offers.

“I am an agent put here to achieve the maximum of my god-given potential with my own hard work, my own commitment, my own dedication – that is the sovereignty of the individual over group identity,” Ramaswamy said.

He sees the family as “the greatest known form of governance to mankind” and the foundation for the greatest nations and countries throughout history.

“The nuclear family – not something we apologize for, but something that we fight to preserve for the preservation of a great country,” Ramaswamy said.

Finally, he detailed the third pillar of his vision, sovereignty at the national level:

The sovereignty of the nation: that I am a citizen of a nation – that I am proud of that – not some nebulous global citizen fighting climate change from the mountaintops of Davos, no; that I’m a citizen of this nation, in my case, the United States of America – in your case a citizen of Italy, and that you are proud of it; that the nation-state gives us our sense of purpose and meaning; that a nation without borders is not a nation; that nationalism does not have to be a bad word, but something that can embrace positive values of who we are and what we will actually stand for.

The former Republican presidential candidate, whom former President Donald Trump called a “dynamo,” believes that a platform prioritizing the “individual, Family, nation, God will forever beat race, gender, sexuality, and the climate.”

Ramaswamy doubled down on his call for nationalism in a statement to Breitbart News on Monday.

“Advancing your nation’s interests isn’t in tension with making the world a better place, it’s how you actually do it. The word ‘nationalism’ has negative historical connotations, but it doesn’t have to be that way,” he said.

The 38-year-old also appeared at the EU-US Forum’s inaugural event on Saturday with other prominent American and European conservative leaders, including Portugal’s Chega Party leader André Ventura and Italian deputy prime minister and Lega Party leader Matteo Salvini. Both men were also at the Winds of Change event. Those who attended the forum participated in a discussion around “the danger of the far-Left policies emerging from the EU and how they can work together to fight back,” according to the newly-minted nonprofit’s website.

Matt Mowers, who served as a senior White House Advisor at the U.S. State Department during the Trump administration, is an EU-US Forum founding board member. Joseph Grogan, who was a former director of the White House Domestic Policy Council during Trump’s term, is a senior adviser to the group.

“I appreciated meeting European leaders like Salvini and Ventura who are grappling with issues like mass illegal migration and threats to free speech, just as we face in the United States,” Ramaswamy told Breitbart News.