Unfortunately, MAGA Indian Americans Should Have Seen This Coming

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Musk came to Elez’s defense over the “inappropriate” posts and vowed to rehire him, seemingly at the suggestion of a poll posted on X. Vance—who is himself the husband of an Indian American woman and father of three half-Indian children—also defended the DOGE staffer in an X post, saying that although he disagreed with “some of Elez’s posts,” he didn’t think they should “ruin a kid’s life.” While vile, Elez’s posts and the reactions to them represent a pattern of anti-Indian racism that runs rampant throughout the GOP base and is winning out over traditionally pro–“model minority” Republicanism. His campaign walked that back just a day after the episode dropped, clarifying that a Trump 2.0 administration would express such generosity only after “the most aggressive vetting process in U.S. history” left standing “the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.” Just a month after that episode, when Trump announced that he would go with Silicon Valley favorite Vance as his running mate, the ex-president’s most racist supporters immediately bemoaned that the veep hopeful was married to an Indian American, Usha Chilukuri Vance. Sacks retweeted defenses of Krishnan and H-1B immigrants while claiming that he “completely trust” Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who’s rather pointedly not a fan of either Indian people or H-1B applicants. I Didn’t Believe Them—Until Now.” If Musk and his fellow Trump techies are now willing to excuse “social media posts,” they’ll likely brush off the president’s material actions against Indian immigrants.