Former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joined in the calls from former President Donald Trump, who was nearly assassinated on Saturday, and former first lady Melania Trump for unity by making historical comparisons to America’s Civil War and declaring that the enemy is not the Democrats but a “poisonous ideology.”

“The truth is, I think we were a hair’s breadth away from a civil war just a few nights ago,” Ramaswamy said on Monday. “And the difficult part about it is, we are in the middle of a kind of war in this country, but our enemy is not the Democrats.”

He added, “Our enemy is an ideology, and our task ahead is, how can we defeat that poisonous ideology while still viewing our fellow citizens as our neighbors who deserve to be liberated from that ideology? We’re not going to win this election and we’re not going to revive this country, I believe, by just lambasting the other side.”

Ramaswamy’s speech on Monday was at the Heritage Foundation’s Policy Fest in Milwaukee during the first day of the Republican National Convention.

The tech entrepreneur also made the comparison between Donald Trump and President Abraham Lincoln, who had been called a tyrant, despot, and dictator.

“They called him a dictator, said it would be the end of the United States of America as we know it, and that we would be the laughingstock of the global stage,” Ramaswamy said. “And it was shortly after that that an assassin shot the president with a bullet. In this case, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. Actually, I’m talking about Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, back in 1865.”

He continued, “He was the person who had this convention, the Republican convention, about 160-plus years ago warned that a house divided cannot stand on the nation — on the brink of a civil war for our country.”

The former Republican candidate has previously shared other anecdotes about Lincoln and slavery in a recent interview on The Breakfast Club.

Ramaswamy’s calls for unity echo those from the former president, who will be speaking at the convention later this week. Donald Trump had said in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Sunday evening that his new planned speech will “bring the country together.”

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, he said, “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United.”

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Melania Trump wrote on social media that politics is creating division in our country.

“Let us not forget that differing opinions, policy, and political games are inferior to love. Our personal, structural, and life commitment — until death — is at serious risk. Political concepts are simple when compared to us, human beings,” she said. “Dawn is here again. Let us reunite. Now.”