Antani to Haley to Jindal, Indian Americans loathe the hatemonger Trump.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: It was stunning news, perceived as a publicity stunt, when Padma Shree awardee Dr. Sudhir Parikh, a wealthy, well-known allergist with a string of clinics in the New York Tristate area, community leader and publisher, came out in support of Dr. Donald Trump through a Political Action Committee (PAC), in January of this year. Trump had already declared in his candidacy for the White House that he would not take monetary support from PACs. So, it was a puzzle as to what exactly the PAC which had Parikh’s name as a founder, along with three other local Indian Americans, wanted to achieve.
But Parikh, perhaps stung by the growing criticism directed at the super bullying tactics of Trump, tired of Trump’s loathsome behavior and reprehensible comments at minorities, increasing apathy towards migrants of color and vitriol against even friendly democracies like India, in an about face, withdrew support for Trump abruptly, last week.
Parikh released a short statement through news agencies, to substantiate his decision to withdraw support for Trump and disassociate himself from the PAC: “I allowed myself to be identified with that group because some members of the group are friends of mine. I wish to clarify that I no longer belong to the group and I do not support the candidacy of Mr. Donald Trump.
“For over three decades I have supported both Democrat and Republican candidates based on their individual merits and their commitment to the interests of the Indian-American community and US-India relations. I remain committed to this course,” Parikh added.
Parikh is in good company when it comes to prominent Indian Americans withdrawing support for Trump, or just dismissing the larger-than-life businessman outright as being totally incompetent for the job of being president of the US.
Earlier, former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was conflicted with his own identity as an Indian American, didn’t have any qualms in berating Trump as a “madman”. Jindal blasted Trump in not so endearing terms. Here are some of the choice words Jindal came up with in just one brief narrative explosion for his fellow Republican Party colleague, as reported by the Huffington Post: “non-serious, unstable, substance-free narcissist.” If those sound rather sedate when compared to Trump’s offensive bombast, take into account these expressions and words too Jindal had in store for Trump: an “egomaniac,” a “carnival act,” “shallow,” “insecure,” “weak” and of course, a “madman.”
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has been desperately swinging from one anti-Trump limb to the other, with support shifting from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, had in the past remarked on Trump’s character and qualities: “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president.”
Ohio state Rep. Niraj Antani, the youngest legislator and the first ever Indian American Republican elected to the state house, and who supports Gov. John Kasich, had in an interview revealed that he was inspired to politics by Sen. John McCain’s 2008 campaign. NBC reported Antani was turned off of Trump by the billionaire’s stupid comments about McCain’s service during the Vietnam War.
This is how Antani reacted to Trump’s hate mongering rhetoric, after a rally earlier this month in Chicago was canceled by Trump due to likely mob violence: “Shock. Disgust. Someone high up told me, ‘this would never happen at one of our events.’ Civil discourse means exactly that: civil.”
Trump would in fact be the last person in the country to be labeled as a polite man, with civility and chivalry as his mantra for success. He is, in fact, the opposite of all that: a crude reality TV buffoon, who knows how to antagonize people and communities, incense them with rabble rousing, crass talk and uncouth behavior, especially if twitter is to be considered a medium for ugliness too. All with the intention to keep intact his base of school and college drop-out, lowly educated Caucasian voters.
It’s not surprising educated and erudite personalities like Jindal, Haley and Antani have derided Trump in words they would have never used before to describe a fellow politician. It’s been hard for Parikh to do an about face, caused him embarrassment already. But Parikh and others like him who have distanced themselves from Trump have all done the right thing. Trump is exactly the kind of terrible politician who have repulsed Asian American voters over the years and forced them to turn to Democratic Party in overwhelming numbers.
In the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama won 73 percent of the Asian American vote. That exceeded his support among traditional Democratic Party constituencies like Hispanics (71 percent) and women (55 percent), reported The Washington Post.
But here’s the surprising news for voters who are just coming of age: 74 percent of the Asian American vote went to the Republican presidential candidate just two decades ago. The Democratic presidential vote share among Asian Americans has steadily increased from 36 percent in 1992, to 64 percent in the 2008 election to 73 percent in 2012.
The far right American Enterprise Institute has expressed surprise that Asian American voters should not adhere to GOP conservative values, concluding “something has happened to define conservatism in the minds of Asians as deeply unattractive.”
In the book “Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do,” Andrew Gelman and his co-authors make it clear that rich voters prefer Republican. Voters like Parikh, in fact. Asian Americans’ income is, on average, higher than any other ethnic group in the United States, reported the Post. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2009, the median Asian household had a higher income ($65,469) than the median white household ($51,863). Median black and Hispanic household incomes were $32,584 and $38,039, respectively.
The Post reported that one of the reasons, as explained by researchers Alexander Kuo and Neil Malhotra is that the feeling of social exclusion stemming from their ethnic background might be pushing Asian Americans away from the Republican Party. Also, according to a 2005 study by Sapna Cheryan and Benoit Monin, Asian Americans are right to feel excluded. The study shows Asian Americans are seen as less American than other Americans. A 2008 study by Thierry Devos and Debbie Ma found that in the mind of the average American, a white European celebrity (Kate Winslet) is considered more American than an Asian American celebrity (Lucy Liu).
But while Asian Americans are perceived as less American by other ethnic groups, Cheryan and Monin found that Asian Americans are just as likely as white Americans to self-identify as American and hold patriotic attitudes. This makes attacks on their identity as Americans hurtful, reported the Post.
As the nomination campaign goes on for both parties, it’s also becoming clear in polls that Trump – with or without nude photo of his wife Melania Trump out in the open on social media and in campaign ads as a choice for ‘First Lady’ – is slowly being bogged down nationally with his lack of penetration with ethnic-origin and minority voters. Polls also suggest a widening gap between a general election matchup against Hillary Clinton, with the former Secretary of State easily beating Trump.
Former Mitt Romney strategist Stuart Stevens surmised this for the Daily Beast last week, according to Nola.com: “In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 56 percent of white voters and won a landslide victory of 44 states. In 2012, Mitt Romney won 59 percent of whites and lost with 24 states. The simple truth is that there simply aren’t enough white voters in the America of 2016 to win a national election without also getting a substantial share of the non-white vote.”
Trump should realize that Asian American voters – the erudite ones with keen analysis, and also those voters who emigrated here as taxi cab drivers and computer programmers, who never really integrated into American society as they didn’t go to school or college here, and perhaps love their country of origin more than even America, but still know they don’t deserve to be hated in the country they now call home – will matter a lot in these elections. They will vote anybody but Trump.
Face it Trump: nobody really wants to vote for you except for white American voters who like your particular brand of racist bigotry and divisiveness.
(Sujeet Rajan is Editor-in-Chief, The American Bazaar. Follow him @SujeetRajan1).