Ramaswamy promised to set the world on fire. He barely made a sound

Vivek Ramaswamy tried to rile the masses through a 2024 presidential campaign punctuated with brazen claims and flashes of cash, but he ended up without a crowd at all.

The entrepreneur dropped out of the race after racking up less than eight per cent of the Iowa caucus vote. Ahead of the caucuses, the Republican candidate encouraged his followers to “stick it to the media and shock the world.”

His campaign seemingly hinged on providing shock value.

Mr Ramaswamy has promoted baseless, bombastic claims throughout his campaign.

The entrepreneur wondered aloud whether “federal agents” were on the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers on 9/11. He labelled the January 6 Capitol riot an “inside job.” He called the “climate change agenda” a “hoax.” He claimed that the 2020 election was stolen by “big tech.” He referred to a sitting Congresswoman as a one of the “modern grand wizards” of the KKK.

Several of his campaign promises were also jarring.

Mr Ramaswamy proposed raising the voting age to 25. He proposed deporting children of undocumented immigrants who were born on US soil. He proposed cutting the federal workforce by 75 per cent, including eliminating the FBI and the Department of Education.

Even the money he spent on the campaign trail was staggering.

The millionaire spent gobs of money throughout his campaign. The Washington Post reported that the Ramaswamy spent $4.6m on advertising by the end of December. Notably, at the beginning of that month, his campaign spent $200,000 on TV ads — but that amount dropped to just $6,000 by the month’s end, NBC News found.

But the turnout wasn’t shocking; Donald Trump proved to be the clear favourite in the nation’s first nominating contest. Mr Ramaswamy wasn’t shocking either