GOP presidential candidate vows to cure 'cultural cancer' plaguing U.S.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy spoke to the New York Metropolitan Republican Club last week, vowing to cure the U.S. of a "cultural cancer" that was threatening the American dream.

Ramaswamy started a biotechnology firm at the age of 29 that ultimately produced a drug for treating prostate cancer. He asserted, however, that the cancer affecting the nation differed from the one he has previously worked to fight.

Ramaswamy is the child of immigrants from India.

"Not a biological cancer, but a cultural cancer that threatened to kill that dream that Martin Luther King had 60 years ago, that threatened to kill the dream that allowed me to achieve everything I ever had in my life," he said, according to the Epoch Times.

"Pick your favorite ‘-ism’: woke-ism, transgenderism, climate-ism, COVID-ism, globalism—whatever it is, you think it’s an accident that these things cropped up at the same time? It’s not. It’s a symptom of a deeper identity crisis," he added.

A non-traditional candidate, Ramaswamy has attracted considerable media attention since declaring his campaign despite his generally being labelled a longshot.

The biotech mogul announced his candidacy on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" in February, at which time he also mentioned the national "identity crisis" that has become a fixture of his campaign.

"We are in the middle of this national identity crisis, Tucker, where we have celebrated our difference for so long that we forgot all the ways we are really just the same, as Americans bound by a common set of ideals that set this nation into motion 250 years ago," he said. "I think we need to put 'merit' back into 'America' in every spirit of our lives."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.