A major conservative gathering in the United States, intended as a solemn memorial, spectacularly imploded into a public display of internal Republican Party warfare, with Indian-American politician Vivek Ramaswamy becoming an early casualty for speaking out against racial slurs.
Ramaswamy's Stand Against Hate Sparks Nativist Backlash
The scene was the Turning Point USA conference, a key event for the MAGA movement, held over a recent weekend. The conference was originally billed as a tribute to its founder, Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in September 2025. However, the atmosphere quickly turned from one of homage to one of "mutual bloodletting" among Trump devotees.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur turned Ohio gubernatorial candidate, took the stage and delivered a stern lecture on the rising anti-Indian sentiment within the movement. He directly challenged the fixation of some MAGA supporters on "heritage Americans," calling the concept "loony as anything the woke left has actually put up."
He specifically came to the defense of Usha Vance, the Indian-American wife of Vice-President JD Vance, who has been subjected to slurs like "jeet"—a derogatory term for Indian-Americans—from extremist corners of the movement. Ramaswamy argued that American identity is rooted in ideals like merit and free speech, not ancestry. In a pointed remark seemingly aimed at the Vice-President, he declared, "There is no American who is more American than somebody else... It is binary. Either you're an American or you're not."
The reaction from the MAGA base was immediate and vicious. Online, nativist voices demanded his deportation, with one telling him, "You know nothing about this country... You and the rest of your tech bros can f--- right off." Tarred as an outsider by the very voters he seeks to win over, Ramaswamy was left politically wounded.
A Conference Descends into a Cage Fight of Conspiracy and Insults
Ramaswamy's experience was merely the opening act in what became a "feast of fratricide." The memorial event degenerated into a reality-TV-style spectacle of conspiracy theories and character assassination, resembling a cage fight more than a policy conference.
Leading MAGA influencers turned the stage into an audition for who could land the most brutal verbal blow. Ben Shapiro, a prominent conservative commentator, unleashed an attack on former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for interviewing white nationalist Nick Fuentes, branding Carlson a "Hitler apologist." Shapiro then turned his fire on his former colleague, Candace Owens, accusing her of "conspiracism and dishonesty" for promoting wild theories about Charlie Kirk's killing.
The drama escalated when media personality Megyn Kelly entered the fray, accusing Shapiro's pro-Israel camp of policing opinions and pressuring allies to denounce Owens. She publicly announced the end of her friendship with Shapiro, reminding everyone she had "helped make him a star."
Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, appearing disheveled, dismissed Shapiro as a "cancer" on the movement. He accused Shapiro of attempting a hostile takeover of Turning Point USA and of prioritizing Israel over America as part of a 2028 power grab.
The Movement Begins to Devour Itself
Throughout the event, the toxic vocabulary once reserved for Democrats—parasite, cancer, coward, antisemite—became standard issue within the MAGA tent itself. Even loyal attendees expressed exhaustion, lamenting the "distraction" and "infighting," describing it less as a debate and more as an "autoimmune apocalypse."
The conference laid bare a fundamental shift. A political movement long fueled by outrage and the thrill of attacking external enemies has, for now, run out of targets. The inevitable result, as witnessed in Washington, is that it has begun to devour its own. The spectacle marked a significant moment of public fragmentation within one of America's most powerful political blocs.
