Racist remarks, anti-India discourse & MAGA: Why Trump ally Dinesh D'Souza is shocked
The resentment may not always be seen since Donald Trump has tapped into the Indian-American demographics many times, including with high-profile appointments.
Dinesh D’Souza, a bestselling author, filmmaker and one of Donald Trump’s early defenders, is known for his controversial remarks on everything from race to same-sex marriage. He is also the face the Republican establishment often turns to when accused of racism. Now, D’Souza has found himself on the receiving end of bigotry accusations and racist remarks.
It began when D’Souza responded to an X post from former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, who criticised Trump for what he was “doing to the White House” and said that he “can’t tear down walls”.
“No president should be able to do what Trump is doing to the White House right now. He doesn’t own the place. WE do. It’s OUR house. We’re just letting him live there for four years. He can’t tear down walls and shit. It’s OUR house,” Walsh said.
In response, D’Souza reiterated that America is “also OUR home”. In his trademark rhetoric — filled with capital letters, populist fervour and grievance — he wrote:
“America is also OUR home. WE live here, under laws that WE made. Didn’t Biden and the Democrats ignore those laws, tear down the walls and let millions of home invaders in? Where were you when all that was happening?”
Racist remarks and anti-India rhetoric
However, it wasn’t until a MAGA supporter, using the handle Ribbert231167, replied to D’Souza that the Trump ally faced overtly anti-India rhetoric.
The supporter wrote:
“You’re Indian, you made nothing, you are nothing, and devoid of creation. Your ilk has been a race of slaves for hundreds of years, and even after being given a chance, you prove what worth you are, devoid of actual thought. Your existence causes me disgust.”
D’Souza expressed shock over the anti-India sentiments, saying:
“In a career spanning 40 years, I have never encountered this type of rhetoric. The Right never used to talk like this. So, who on our side has legitimised this type of vile degradation? It’s a question worth thinking about.”
A sudden encounter with MAGA’s anti-India views
Born in Mumbai, D’Souza moved to the United States in the 1970s and went on to become one of the most prominent immigrant success stories within the conservative establishment.
While D’Souza has only now directly encountered anti-India rhetoric within MAGA circles, he has long been known for his own controversial remarks on race, same-sex marriage, campus rape and other social issues.
The Hillary Clinton–hating documentary filmmaker became an even more prominent Trump ally after receiving a major career boost from the former president. In 2018, despite pleading guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution to a New York politician — and being sentenced to five years’ probation and a $30,000 fine — D’Souza was granted a full pardon by Trump.
Trump said at the time that D’Souza had been “treated very unfairly by our government”.
Since then, D’Souza has remained an omnipresent figure in right-wing media, often using his Indian-American identity to defend the Republican administration against accusations of racism.
'Loyalty not belonging, visible but not accepted'
But now he has reached the tipping point, finally realising that MAGA doesn't consider its most loyal immigrant as its own.
From constraints on H-1B visas to the green card lottery, MAGA has increasingly become hostile towards Indian-Americans. Even though some of the top offices in the Trump administration are led by those very Indian-Americans, such as FBI chief Kash Patel, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, and Sriram Krishnan as AI advisor.
The tone against Indians and Indian-Americans was set by the voices of those like Paul Ingrassia, a self-styled 'America First journalist' and Trump's White House Liaison for the Department of Homeland Security, who has called for the shutdown of the H1-B program until issues that prevent "flourishing of home-grown, American talent" are resolved. He has taken swipes at them for their DEI status, mocked Indian engineers and has made several posts on what he terms the "H-1B invasion".
Not to forget, slain conservative leader and Trump ally Charlie Kirk also entered the 'America First' debate and made several controversial and racist remarks.
Just a week before his death in September, Kirk had said that America does not need more visas for Indians, adding that the US was "full" and it was time to put "our own people first".
"America does not need more visas for people from India. Perhaps no form of legal immigration has so displaced American workers as those from India. Enough already. We're full. Let's finally put our own people first," Kirk had posted on X over the possibility of the US having to grant more visas to Indians if a trade deal were to be locked with New Delhi.
The 'ideal conservative immigrant community' of Indian-Americans was a demographic that Trump tapped into very well, with photo-ops, high-profile appointments within his administration and rallies like 'Howdy Modi' for the Indian Prime Minister.
Yet, the deeper resentment continues to lie beneath the surface, present in the atmosphere but not visible until looked at with a lens.
D'Souza's sudden discovery of this tragic truth shows that loyalty to the larger movement cannot be equated with societal acceptance. He asked who legitimised this "vile degradation". The answer? It was every other Indian-American, including himself, who misunderstood visibility for belongingness.
Telegram leak exposes Young Republican's mindset
Politico's recent expose of over 2,900 pages of leaked Telegram chats of the Young Republican National Federation - the GOP's "farm team" was a shocking revelation of the thinking that the supposed future Republican leaders harbour.
From referring to Black people as "monkeys" and "the watermelon people" to joking about gas chambers in connection to Hitler and Nazism and Jews, about raping their enemies, supporting slavery, and shaming Indians, the young Republicans did not leave even one problematic thing out of their private chat. They kept making such remarks despite fearing that if the chats ever got leaked, it would be the end for them.
The Politico's report mentioned that racial slurs were repeated more than 251 times, with a racial extremism expert saying that it can be a joke if it's said once or twice, "but you say it 251 times, it's no longer a joke". "The more we repeat certain ideas, the more real they become to us," the expert added.
In one of the instances from the chat, a young Republican leader, Bobby Walker, talked about how a mutual friend of some of the members of the chat "dated this very obese Indian woman for a period of time".
To which another responded that the woman "was not Indian".
Then came Samuel Douglass, a state senator from northern Vermont and the head of the state's Young Republicans, who then said, "She just didn't bathe often".
Amid the chat leak, the New York State Republican Party leaders last week voted unanimously to disband the Young Republican group.
The remarks in the group chat are just some of the examples of the shocking yet deeply-rooted and still prevalent anti-India rhetoric in the US, especially within the MAGA movement and the Republican atmosphere.
