Brian Stephens

EXPLOSIVE: An Ohio GOP insider reached out to me this week. They wanted to relay the following message, detailing the rise of the usurper that we know and successfully opposed. His name is Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamay. Here is the message, verbatim, titled The Golden Calf of the GOP: “The Ohio Republican Party, a consistently dishonorable organization, has squandered the good faith Ohioans felt towards it. It crowned a foreigner who had never held public office as its monarch. A monarch picked from a rival constituency, a hostile nation, foisted upon us by Donald Trump after a stint at ‘DOGE’ so brief he quit before the agency even launched. The subcontinental’s arrogance burned his DC bridge before the mortar dried. He was here, which he falsely claimed as his home. All involved in Ohio politics were told to fall in line, and most did. The voters did not. Praise be to God. The climax of this embarrassment was on November 3, when Ohio Republicans lost a governorship they had held for 16 years, in a state won two years ago by double digits. Amy Acton bested Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy 52.0% to 44.7%. But let’s trace this decision back eighteen months earlier, when the Ohio Republican Party cast, fashioned and adorned its golden calf before Ohio Republicans had any chance to choose one. When the party that’s supposed to represent the interests of White Christians betrayed God and committed political suicide down ballot as a result. In May 2025, the Republican State Central Committee endorsed Ramaswamy 60–3, nearly a year before the primary. It was the earliest the party had ever endorsed a non-incumbent for governor, and unlike past endorsement votes, it happened in secret. Chairman Alex Triantafilou defended the closed session by arguing that public debate would only help Democrats. Not everyone agreed. Objections circulated within the party that taking sides so early was unfair, premature, or both. Gov. DeWine worked behind the scenes to deny Ramaswamy the endorsement and warned publicly that an endorsement a year out would be unprecedented. The committee disregarded DeWine, who is in fact a shell of a man, but whose political instincts are infinitely better than Ganapathy’s. Trump’s word would not be challenged, after all — who would deny the man with a seemingly Heavenly mandate, having recently survived an assassination attempt, a popular vote victory, control of both legislative chambers and the judiciary, as well as infinite cash through his alliances with Elon and Big Tech? God will. Trump’s endorsement did what it was built to do. It handed Vivek and his team the party’s statewide fund, voter database, and field staff, not to mention Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy’s ill-gotten fortune. The party cowered and froze out all competition. Dave Yost backed out. LG Jim Tressel, despite what was essentially begging from Mike DeWine, did as well. By primary day, Ramaswamy’s only opponent was a well-intentioned but politically unconnected car designer with an automotive YouTube channel. Primaries are stress tests that expose a candidate’s weaknesses to friendly voters before the general electorate finds them. Ramaswamy, who had never held office in Ohio, skipped that test. Even so, a warning sign appeared: he won only 82.5% against a little-known challenger, Casey Putsch. Nearly one in five Republican primary voters chose a protest candidate over the party's anointed nominee. Defenders will blame the midterm environment, which is true. Nationally, Trump's prioritization of Jewish interests and neglect of his base did cause the onslaught of the GOP. In Ohio, though, the ticket's own numbers undercut that excuse. Senator Husted, running in the same environment against former three-term senator Sherrod Brown, the strongest Democrat, lost 50.0% to 45.2%, a margin of about five points. Ramaswamy lost by 7.2 percentage points to Acton. The nominee with the party's full backing a year early ran more than two points behind an appointed senator facing a far better-known opponent. Ohio voters still approved Issue 3, a Republican-backed constitutional amendment on voter photo ID, by about 65% to 35%. Republican candidates lost, yet a conservative ballot measure won by nearly thirty points. Ohio did not simply vote against everything on the right. The damage did not stop at the governor’s race. Ohio’s down-ballot Republicans ran far ahead of their nominee and still lost by inches. Keith Faber lost the attorney general’s race 50.3% to 49.7%, a margin of about 28,000 votes out of more than 4.5 million cast. Jay Edwards lost the treasurer's race by about 50,000 votes, and Robert Sprague lost secretary of state by about three and a half points. Only Frank LaRose held on, winning auditor 50.8% to 49.2%, saved only by decent and somewhat favorable name ID. Faber and Edwards were running well enough to survive a bad Republican year. What they could not survive was a seven-point hole at the top of the ticket. Democrats had not won a statewide executive office in Ohio since 2006. Ramaswamy’s coattails ran in reverse, and they dragged three of the four offices down with him, not to mention the judges, state legislature, and local races. Ramaswamy never lacked money. By late October, ad trackers counted $204.2 million in ad spending on his behalf against $44 million for Acton, making Ohio's the most expensive governor's race in the country. His campaign alone spent nearly $80 million to Acton’s roughly $34 million, backed by at least $30 million of his own money. It closed the race carrying $41.3 million in outstanding debt. Allies added more than $100 million against Acton, including at least millions from Elon Musk, plus late rallies by President Trump and Vice President Vance. The image problem predated the campaign. On December 26, 2024, a day after Christmas, two months before he launched his bid, Ramaswamy defended tech companies’ hiring of foreign workers with an X post blaming an American culture that had ‘venerated mediocrity over excellence.’ A thinly veiled attack on White America in favor of his parasitic ethnics. Because of the early endorsement, no Republican rival ever made him answer for it in front of Ohio primary voters. He scoffed for the majority of the following nearly two years. His consultants, in his ear, said the online pushback was inorganic, the work of bots, or the phantasmal ‘Groyper.’ They were disenfranchised white men whom the Indian holds in contempt for their lack of izzat. Wrong. The average Ohioan’s detestation of Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy was real. For all the modern world’s faults, the Christian rejection of pride and disingenuousness held. The spending never repaired his false image. In August 2025, he led Acton by ten points. He fell continuously. The more you knew of him, the worse you thought he was. Early on, his favorability was soft, with polling showing him no different than other Republicans. A year of record spending later, Marist put him at just 38% favorable, with a majority unfavorable. The last big buy was the worst. In late October, the campaign put $4 million behind a minute-long ad starring Donna Arthur, Acton’s estranged mother, who told voters her daughter ‘lies about her past.’ Acton has not seen her mother since 1978. Arthur lost custody of her children after her husband, Acton’s stepfather, was indicted for raping Acton as a child. The ad left that out, and it insinuated that Acton has mental health problems. A campaign worth $80 million chose to spend its closing argument putting an abuse survivor's estranged mother on television, in defense of her rape. Could anything be more Third World than this? Many high-profile Republicans denounced the ad, but Vivek doubled down for a time before eventually pulling it. Nonetheless, no one truly distanced themselves from him. And they were forced to pay the price. ‘Victors, not Victims’ was his campaign motto. This reads like a simple embracing of merit. It never was. It was an endorsement of predation. Of pickpocketing. Weaponizing and exploiting the good-natured naiveté of White America. In his culture and mind, the victor is the predator. Ohio Republicans worshipped Mammon and colluded with foreign demons. There has been a calculated betrayal here and in D.C. that the average American sees right through. In Ohio, they threw away the state’s governance, many of their careers and their friends’ careers because of it. It is time we take it back, in the name of Jesus Christ.”