Since Donald Trump launched his political career on the racist birtherism attacks on President Obama, racism and white supremacy have defined the MAGA movement. That racism has had violent consequences. Who can forget Trump’s vile and violent tweets targeting Asian Americans, and the resulting massive spikes in hate crimes? Perhaps this is why JD Vance himself condemned Donald Trump when he said in a now deleted tweet, “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. God wants better of us”
I guess God doesn’t want better of us, according to JD Vance? Now as the “American Hitler”—as Vance likes to call Trump—taps Vance to be his VP, Vance’s wife Usha Chilukuri Vance comes into the spotlight as the potential future Second Lady. Usha is a Yale Law graduate. She clerked for Justice Roberts, then Justice Kavanaugh, and is now an accomplished corporate lawyer. She even, as the NY Times put it, “helped Mr. Vance organize his ideas about social decline in rural white America.” By all accounts she’s been vital to advancing not only JD Vance’s racism and claims of white grievance, but intimately supported a rogue MAGA Supreme Court rife with corruption to advance Project 2025. Usha should be a MAGA hero for advancing the MAGA agenda of racism and white supremacy.
There’s only one problem for the MAGA crowd—she’s not white. Usha is an Indian American and daughter of Indian immigrants. And the grotesque racism and white supremacy that has defined the MAGA movement, is now coming for her.
Let’s Address This.
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No sooner did Donald Trump tap JD Vance to be his VP but the MAGA racist outrage machine went into overdrive—led by none other than avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Fuentes, you’ll recall, is the white supremacist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, xenophobic extremist who visited Mar-a-Lago and had dinner with Donald Trump. Trump never disavowed him, nor has the GOP. Fuentes now complains about JD Vance,
Who is this guy, really? Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?
Even prior to accepting a spot on the ballot for VP, the MAGA crowd condemned Vance for daring to have “mixed race children with Indian names.” See Exhibit A
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And MAGA white supremacists have not been subtle about their hatred of Usha Vance either, specifically because she is Indian American and the daughter of immigrants. See Exhibit B, Exhibit C, and Exhibit D.
And these are but snapshots of an avalanche of hate directed at Usha Vance because she is not white. Frankly, I find it helpful that MAGAs are now openly acknowledging that the Republican plan is to “destroy” anyone nonwhite, because at least now we can drop the pretense that their policies are based on some sort of noble values, but instead recognize that they are in fact based in overt fascism. It’s no surprise therefore, that other MAGAs are trying to ‘make eugenics great again,’ claiming that maybe Usha is acceptable because she has “more European physiognomy.” See Exhibit E.
And to be sure, Usha Vance isn’t the only Indian woman berated for the ‘crime’ of being Indian. Sikh American Harmeet Dhillon is a known loyal GOP operative with bonafide MAGA credentials. In 2020 she led the MAGA charge to sue California over mask mandates during the COVID pandemic. She served as an advisor to Donald Trump’s 2020 Presidential campaign. She even ran for chair of the Republican National Committee. But just like Usha, Harmeet suffers from the fatal flaw of not having the complexion for protection.Subscribe
The Daily Wire journalist Ben Zeisloft referred to her remarks at the RNC as “prayer to a demon,” and berated fellow Republicans for not openly ostracizing her. Zeisloft of course faces exactly zero backlash for his grotesque and xenophobic comments. But even if he did, it does not change the fact that the knee jerk MAGA response to seeing someone brown is to engage in racism and white supremacy. See Exhibit F.
Joining Ziesloft was 2020 Delaware Republican nominee for US Senate and QAnon extremist Lauren Witzke. Witzke berated Dhillon’s prayer invocation as engaging in “witchcraft”, and demanded Dhillon “get deported, you pagan blasphemer.” That’s right, white MAGAs want to deport brown MAGAs because they’re…brown. Definitely nothing racist about that at all. See Exhibit G.
And while I’m probably just piling on at this point, none of this was unpredictable. Indeed, who can forget just a few months back when conservative far right racist Ann Coulter said to Vivek Ramyswamy that the single reason he wouldn’t get her vote is because he is Indian.
And while it would be easy to disregard all of the above as kooks wearing the MAGA label, the truth is they’re simply reflecting official MAGA policy. The aforementioned extremists have become indistinguishable from mainstream elected MAGA politicians. As the Jewish organization IfNotNow points out, mainstream Republican politicians took to the RNC stage to promote the white supremacist and antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory.” They tweeted:
The “Great Replacement Theory” alleges a conspiracy between Jews, Democrats, and the “deep state” to “replace” white Christian Americans with a new voting public made up of immigrants. This “theory” inspired the Tree of Life synagogue shooter and the Buffalo supermarket shooter, and is what the Charlottesville neo-Nazis were referring to when they chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Simply put, it is an incitement to mass killing. Sen. Rick Scott (FL), Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY), Rep. Steve Scalise (LA), and Senate candidates Kari Lake (AZ), Bernie Moreno (OH) spouted this noxious call for violence. Not to mention, both Donald Trump and JD Vance have done the same in the past.
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This is why I say as a south Asian American myself, it is truly a shame to watch south Asians debase themselves at the alter of MAGA white supremacy. Usha Vance has arguably done more than most anyone to flex her MAGA credentials. She diligently worked for a corrupt MAGA Supreme Court that has repealed Affirmative Action, undermined abortion access, devastated environmental policy, decimated democracy with expanded Presidential immunity, and helped get her husband elected to the US Senate on white grievance, while he was funded by corrupt billionaires who have made no secret about advancing white supremacy. Yet, none of that matters to MAGAs who see her skin color as an unforgivable obstruction to “white identity,” and her mixed children as open attack on “white posterity.”
For people of color in the MAGA movement, and for white allies looking to do better and be better, let these examples serve as a reminder that since its racist founding on birtherism, the MAGA movement is and always will remain as long as it exists, a racist white supremacist movement. The only difference between the 2016 election and the 2024 election is there’s no longer any pretense left of their intentions to “destroy” anyone nonwhite. If we hope to preserve our democracy, secular governance, and truly build a more perfect Union for all people in this country, it is imperative we reject this MAGA hate and intolerance because nothing good can come of it. As JD Vance once reminded us, “God wants better of us.”
At least on that one thing we agree.