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When it was first officially announced that Donald Trump had been elected to the White House once again, I knew it was only a matter of time before MAGA America started eating its own face — but I didn’t know the feast would begin before the president-elect was even inaugurated. It also wasn’t on my 2025 MAGA Manure BINGO card that the civil war in the white conservative party would revolve around which immigrants are OK to allow to take American jobs.
Yet here we are…
Last month, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Trump stooge (or puppet master?) Elon Musk, both of whom are Trump’s selected co-chairs of his forthcoming “Department of Government Efficiency,” took to social media to defend the American tech industry’s consistent hiring of foreign engineers with H-1B visas. The remarks by the two Republicans set off a heated debate between MAGA racists who hate the idea of any brown foreigner taking American jobs and MAGA racists who chose to suspend their racism long enough to stay on the Trump/Musk bandwagon. (And I’m sure some of them are very fine people.)
Now, the Indian community is weighing in on the controversy mostly to say that the anti-H-1B MAGAts are a bunch of racists, which, of course, is not news.
From the Washington Post:
“The rising power, wealth, and visibility of Indian-Americans made it perhaps inevitable that the nativist base would direct its anger at the Desi [Indian] community. What Loomer and her ilk have done is open the floodgates for this anti-Indian racism,” said an article in the Hindustan Times.In an editorial in its Saturday edition, the Deccan Herald slammed Trump’s supporters for not recognizing foreign contributions to the U.S. economy.“They respond to the call to make America great without, ironically, realising that it was the foreign talent at work in the US that had once made America great,” said the paper, which is distributed in southern Indian tech hubs such as Bangalore. “The H-1B visa is a tool and symbol of that idea.”
The Times of India and the Hindustan Times called the debate “a red-hot potato” and “a new chapter of racism against Indians” in their headlines and warned of its long-term implications for the relationship between the two countries. Digital news sites were less restrained and blamed “America’s corrosive politics” for the “explosion of racism.”
Look, it’s great and all that more demographics are being vocal about what rabid white nationalist members of the far-right are, but it’s interesting that it took the trending of the H-1B issue for that to happen. After all, Trump spent his entire campaign dehumanizing Black and Latino immigrants from the southern border. He repeatedly compared migrants to Hannibal Lecter, called them “animals” who are “not human,” claimed that their “genes” predisposed them to commit violent crimes, and declared that they are “poisoning the blood” of the country. (“MAGA” is the new “Heil Hitler.” Change my mind?)
Hell, even Musk is out here calling the anti-H-1B conservatives “hateful, unrepentant racists” as if he wasn’t giddily riding the Trump train the entire time Trump was spreading anti-immigrant hate speech from the pulpit. (Musk is also an anti-DEI propagandist and a person who thinks it’s “woke” if too many non-white people are winning Academy awards.)
The selective outrage is always astounding, actually. When it was announced that Republican Congressman JD Vance would serve as Trump’s running mate, it didn’t take long for racist conservatives to circle in on the fact that Vance is married to an Indian woman whom he has three children with, all of whom were given traditionally Indian names. The racist backlash was immediate, and so vile that even Vance referred to his detractors as “white supremacists.” And that might have been admirable if not for the fact that, weeks later, the vice president-elect was out here promoting lies about Haitian migrants abducting and eating pets and Springfield, Ohio, as well as spreading the falsehood that Haitian migrants are responsible for a steep increase in HIV cases in Ohio, which is refuted by the data on HIV stats in the state.
All I’m saying is, let us not only be outraged when the racism spreads to immigrants that (some) Americans find to be productive and respectful. It’s all racism. There’s no reason to be selective about calling it out.
SEE ALSO:
Why Trump’s Approach To Immigration Won’t Stop Migrants Trying To Enter The US
Trump Appoints Systemic Racism-Denying Ex-Cop And ICE Director Thomas Homan As ‘Border Czar’
