Vivek Ramaswamy says America’s mental health epidemic is ‘spreading like wildfire,’ must come to an end

On Sunday, 2024 GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy expressed his desire to find "a solution" to the mental health epidemic plaguing the United States. 

In a video posted on Twitter, Ramaswamy noted he is "not angry with trans people," but that he's "frustrated with the culture that venerates a mental health illness that we should be treating, instead of actually throwing kerosene on and fueling to spread like wildfire across this country."

"I know you're not supposed to say many of those things out loud, but I just think it's important that we speak truth, because that's got to be the first step towards getting to a solution. And that's what I'm hoping to deliver," he concluded. 

In the Twitter post, Ramaswamy noted that "5% of American adults under 30 'identify' as trans. He added, "5 years ago, 0.6% of 18-29 year olds said they were trans. That’s not 'visibility.' This is a social contagion of a mental health epidemic."

In an interview on Fox Business earlier this month, he said young people are hungry for a cause. "So woke this or gender ideology, or the climate cult that will fill the void. But what we need to do for the next generation, Charles, is fill that void of identity with a vision of American national identity that runs so deep that it dilutes the woke agenda to irrelevance." 

In February, a Gallup poll showed that 7.2% of Americans identify as LGBT. The poll shows the phenomenon to be generational with 19.7% of Generation Z claiming an LGBT identity compared to 11.2% of Millennials, 3.3% of Generation X, and 2.7% of baby boomers. 

Of the total, 1.9% of Generation Z claimed a transgender identity, compared to 1% of Millennials, and .3% of Generation X. 

Ramaswamy is seen as a rising star in the Republican party. At just 37 years old, he is reportedly the first millennial to run for president as a Republican. 

Earlier this month, he announced that he had qualified to be on the GOP presidential candidate's debate stage after the Republican National Committee revealed its criteria. According to FiveThirtyEight, Ramaswamy is sitting in sixth place, earning a 2.5% average in major polling data.