Sunday, November 06, 2022

Whitewashing

I have been a political junkie right from a young age, and have been bugging people about politics throughout my life.  Blogging has saved many people from being forced to listen to me, and it has also saved me from coming across as a nutcase at gatherings who goes on and on about political issues.  A win-win-win, the third win coming from me reaching people who read my blog!

Let me tell you about Hill Billy Elegy Vance's wife, Usha.

Actually, let me start with a guy whose name you have perhaps forgotten by now even if you knew it a few years ago: Bobby Jindal.

Jindal was a governor of Lousiana, before which he was one of the state's representatives in Congress.  Now, Bobby and Jindal do not necessarily come across as names from India, but a son of Indian immigrants he is.  His parents did not name him Bobby.  He was Piyush before he became a believer in Jesus and the Republican Party. 

Bobby Jindal  with his brown skin, good looks, and elite educational credentials were enough to tempt the GOP to designate him as the party's person to respond to President's Obama's first State of the Union Address. You know, counter a brown President with a brown person.

Jindal bombed.

He tried to create buzz for himself as a Republican contender in the presidential primaries.  Thankfully, he became buzzkill instead!
There is another Indian-American in the Deep South who also saw Jesus and the GOP as the saviors.  Even if you are not a political junkie, you know her: Nikki Haley.

Nimrata Randhawa, as her parents who immigrated from India named her, decided that she needed to be a White American.  Nimrata became Nikki and she took on the last name Haley when she married Michael.

Nikki Haley too became a governor--of South Carolina--and, unlike Bobby Jindal, played within the party establishment.  She was tRump's ambassador to the United Nations.  I suppose he figured that a person with roots in a shithole was the best one to talk to a world body in which there were too many people from shitholes.   And boy was she happy with the racist-in-chief!
By playing her cards well, Nikki Haley, unlike Bobby Jindal, is very much alive and well in Republican politics.  Don't be surprised with a DeSantis-Haley ticket in 2024.

Usha Vance is a contrast to Bobby and Nikki.  Usha did not change the name that her parents gave her.  While J.D. Vance is vocal about his faith in Jesus, especially after jumping to the Catholic lane, it does not seem that his wife has adopted Christianity. 

It is totally understandable that Republican voters do not care.  They didn't even care that their Dear Leader tRump and his third trophy wife are not church-going believers.  Power and defeating liberals are the only things that matter.

So, how does Usha Vance smile and nod when the trumpist Republican Party has associated itself with White Supremacy?  How does Usha Vance make peace with herself and the political world when tRump openly mocks her husband that JD kisses his ass in order to get elected?
Now, think about the contrast that Kamala Harris offers in how she warmly embraces her Indian and Jamaican roots, or how Barack Obama openly talked and wrote about his Kenyan father and experiences in Indonesia. 

I wonder what makes the Ushas, Nikkis, and Bobbys associate themselves with the current GOP!
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