While defending Trump, Ramaswamy rattles off right-wing conspiracy theories

Vivek Ramaswamy’s defense of Donald J. Trump during Wednesday’s debate quickly turned into a laundry list of far-right conspiracy theories.

After attacking his opponents for turning on Trump after supporting him, Mr. Ramaswamy took aim at “the deep state” as the real enemy of the American people.

That amorphous entity, Mr. Ramaswamy claimed, clearly played a role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“Why am I the only person, at least on this stage, who can say that January 6 now looks like it was an inside job?” said Mr Ramaswamy. (Dozens of criminal charges and bipartisan investigations in Congress refute Mr. Ramaswamy’s argument.)

While Mr Trump has sought to turn those convicted of crimes into political martyrs for their actions on January 6, the claim that the riot was somehow an “inside job” is more often confined to the fever pitch of conspiracy theories .

As if reading a far-right message board, Mr Ramaswamy continued, claiming that the 2020 election had been stolen by ‘big tech’ (various intelligence agencies called it “the most secure in American history”) and that the 2016 election, which Mr. Trump won, was also “stolen from him by the national security establishment” because of the investigation into allegations that his campaign had colluded with Russia.

And Mr. Ramaswamy claimed that the “great replacement theory” — the racist idea that minorities, sometimes manipulated by Jews, want to replace white Americans — was not a conspiracy theory but instead a “fundamental statement of the Democratic Party platform.”

The “Great Replacement Theory” has crept into the conservative mainstream, popularized by hosts like Tucker Carlson, and has been referenced by several mass shooters.