Far-right political figure Lauren Witzke posted a video, which showed people dumping garbage into an already-heavily polluted river, ostensibly in India. “The Ohio river, circa 2028 under Governor Vivek Ramaswamy,” the picture was captioned. Ramaswamy, a Republican politician, who is a candidate for the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial election.
Witzke’s post received mixed responses. While some noted that the river had nothing to do with Ohio, and called out the racism in the post attacking an Indian American politician, others agreed with Witzke’s sentiments. “When Elon was talking about free speech, I didn’t know he was talking about racism,” one reply said.
“You realize that is the Ganga river. Are you intentionally trying to say something racist about him,” another user wrote. Other comments criticized Ramaswamy, with many echoing racist sentiments.
Witzke’s post showcases the rise in anti-Indian racism on platforms like X. Many of these racist narratives revolve around the debate over H-1B visas.
READ: Anti-Indian racism on X on the rise: Report (
The report, “Anti-Indian Racism on X: Causes, Trends, and Narratives,” released by The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) today documents a surge in anti-Indian racism on the American microblogging platform between July and September 2025.
The 680 high-engagement posts analyzed for this report amassed more than 281 million views, underscoring the scale of online racism targeting Indian communities, according to CSOH.
Notably, conservative Indian American politicians are facing racist attacks from their own base. Ramaswamy had faced racist and xenophobic attacks over seemingly innocuous posts. Earlier white nationalist Nick Fuentes criticized conservatives for “selectively targeting non-white political figures.”
“When conservatives attack Zohran Mamdani for being a foreigner, I just want them to keep the same energy with Vivek Ramaswamy and Usha Vance. Let’s be consistent,” Ramaswamy responded by saying “it’s a shame to watch the race-obsessed fringe of the right try to outdo the race-obsessed woke left.”
READ: Vivek Ramaswamy to spend $30 million in Ohio’s race for governor (
Ramaswamy had previously downplayed the presence of racism and white supremacy in the U.S. In 2023, he stated that racism was not a “top 50 problem in the United States of America.”
Lauren Witzke is an American far-right political activist, known for her “anti-LGBTQ views and promotion of QAnon,” according to Wikipedia. She was also the Republican nominee in the 2020 United States Senate election in Delaware, which she lost to incumbent Democrat Chris Coons.
Witzke had previously been embroiled in numerous controversies. In 2023, a gay couple from Texas sued Witzke after she accused the two men of human trafficking and pedophilia in response to the men posting about the birth of their surrogate twins on social media. She has also been accused of pushing “antisemitism, flat earthism, and 9/11 conspiracies.”