You are right. But I wasn't talking about a ramjet. I was talking about a rocket that brings all the fuel and propellant it needs.
I'm not sure what you mean by electromagnetism being near-frozen? Doesn't electromagnetism also travel at the speed of light?
It's sort of funny, but dozens or hundreds of orders of magnitude below, the same sort of dynamics are at work in air-breathing ramjets. The impact velocity of the medium is starting to tell, and the exhaust velocity isn't particularly more energetic than what's threatening to ionize the air around your leading edges.
[1] Well, aside from the fact you're exceeding the average velocity of your exhaust mass