The Trump Fiasco

The Naturalization Act of 1790 set the rules for the granting citizenship for the United States of America by naturalisation limiting the same to, “free white person(s)”, thereby excluding native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks and even Asians. Much later, the Naturalization Act of 1870 used coded language to revoke citizenship of Chinese and Japanese by excluding, “aliens ineligible for citizenship”.

It was not until 1940 when “descendants of races indigenous to Western Hemisphere” allowed descents from the Philippines, China or even “persons of races indigenous to India”. Contrary to popular perceptions, institutionalised racism and discrimination is not a thing of the distant past but of recent correction – therefore its residual effect can be up close and personal for the ‘others’ (read, non-White).

‘Whiteness’ is still a subliminal cancer that lingers and impacts. Barriers to equal opportunities are still high and it is the deep-rooted racism (not legally sanctified anymore) that perpetuates disparities and disallows actualising the American Dream, equitably. It is this dark and often unseen lay of the land that the likes of Donald Trump tap into, to inflame, polarise and divide societies, to his electoral advantage.

In Trump’s world, race is a favourite tool to ‘Un-Americanise’ a rival. He has mastered fear mongering with a toxic combination of lies, inflammatory contexts, dog whistling and unwarranted aspersions that appeal to the basic instincts of his core constituents.

For Trump, racism was obvious in his business days and during the ‘Apprentice’ show where he made his white-preference, amply clear. He ignited and mocked blacks with comments like “laziness is a trait in blacks”, “I would love to be a well-educated black”.

He equated Mexicans with criminals and “rapists”. He called for an “total and shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”. He insinuated that immigrants from Haiti, “all have AIDS”.

He suggested that the four Democratic congresswomen of minority denomination should “go back” to “the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came from”. The list of his pathetic and racist commentary can go on and on.

Admittedly, Indian-ethnicity in America or India per se, was spared the standard no-holds-barred vitriol that defined Trump’s spiel, because it didn’t exactly fit the electoral calculus, as well. His purported ‘bromance’ with the Indian Prime Minister who more than indulged Trump’s vanity with the unprecedented endorsement with the “Abki baar Trump sarkar” campaign, helped.

But it wasn’t as if Trump was genuinely fond of Indian identity, but just that it was a growing and affluent constituency that was up for grabs due to outcomes of his foreign policy, pet societal peeves and above all, with little or no risk emerging from people of Indian ethnicity.

Conflating the rise of rightwing politics in India, many prominent Non Resident Indians had publicly thrown their weight with Trump’s campaign, and he was more than willing to bank their serendipitous enthusiasm, and also funding.

But off course the bonhomie wasn’t permanent as the unhinged Trump wouldn’t shy from threatening India or mocking his one-time confidante Nikki Haley by calling her ‘Nimbra’ (her original name, before adopting ‘Nikki’) – as in his eyes, he could diminish her ‘Americanness’ by dialling up her Indian identity. In the world of Donald Trump, everything and everyone could be sacrificed, so long as it furthered his ambitions.

Now, as he sizes-up to the renewed threat of Democrat Kamala Harris for the 47th President of USA, he invokes his favourite ethnicity-card, once again. Kamala’s biracial identity as the daughter of an Indian immigrant mother and a Jamaican immigrant father offers Donald Trump that irresistible opportunity to slice-and-dice ethnicities to his advantage.

Now, with Indian Americans only constituting 1.3% of the total population, as opposed to 14% for African American or Black – it makes for a great electoral strategy to push/insist that Kamala Harris is ‘Indian’, as opposed to ‘Black’. Why should ethnicity matter at all, is not even the question with Donald Trump.

Either way as the proverbial ‘other’, drumming up the same is Trump’s way of ‘Un-Americanising’ his rival’s credentials. That insistence of her Indianness may additionally make her less naturally drawn to African Americans (questioning ‘is she is ‘Black’ enough’?) is collateral and additional benefit. He remains the master of the maxim ‘if you can’t convince, confuse’!

For someone who has been in the public domain for a very long time, it is a known fact that Kamala Harris has primarily identified as a black woman (without ever denying her Indian mix). Her Indianness is definitely a cultural and personal part of her, and it comes through especially, whenever she engages with India.

She had consistently expressed her tribulation as a black woman in American politics as opposed to belonging to a “model minority” a la Vivek Ramaswamy. Even in her autobiography, ’The Truths We Hold’, Kamala had written, “My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women”.

But all this did not stop Donald Trump for raking ethnicity with his patent insincerity, “She was always of Indian heritage. She was only promoting Indian heritage, I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” and went on to make his final and incredulous query, “So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

So, if his tact was about the infamous and untrue “birther” movement (along with the deliberate dial up of ‘Hussein’ as the middle name) with the first black President of USA, Barack Obama - it is now about “Indianness” with regards to Kamala Harris.

Somehow in the convoluted world of Donald Trump, patriotism and fidelity to America is the exclusive preserve of White Americans and not by ‘others’. There are obviously shades and levels of dislike reserved for the laundry list of ‘others’, but make no mistake, each one of them is equally dispensable (without exception) to be ridiculed and mocked without any compunctions.

Somehow the domestic politics in India leads many to make-cause or get enthralled by Trump’s boorishness and histrionics as the ‘enemy’ may seem common in many cases – but with Trump it doesn’t take a second to diss someone’s ethnicity (even if it were to be Indian) if so required, ask Nikki Haley, who sheepishly endorsed Donald Trump owing to her own compulsions.

Lt. Gen. Bhopinder Singh is the former Lieutenant Governor of The Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Pondicherry and an Indian Army officer who was awarded the PVSM. Views are the writer’s own.