IndiaFest Republicans

The Online Right sees Indian immigration as a major threat, but Republican politicians still celebrate it

Knoxville’s IndiaFest last weekend thrilled Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett. He sent out not one, but two X posts declaring he had a great time at the event. The posts drew fierce criticism from the denizens of the Online Right. They couldn’t believe a conservative congressman would celebrate Indian migrants. But Burchett doubled-down on his support for the South Asians.

“The Indian Community believes in family, capitalism, hard work and America. Those are 4 pretty cool things in my opinion,” he said in response to the backlash.

Burchett is one of the most right-wing members of Congress. Amid his enthusiasm for IndiaFest, he called for the hanging of a foreigner named Mohamed Mohamed who was arrested for raping a woman to death. On most issues, Burchett is a reliable bulwark. Highly Respected has praised him in the past for his honesty about school shootings. He is far better than cucks like Thom Tiillis and clowns like Nancy Mace.

Burchett’s enthusiasm for Indians is cringe, yet typical among many Republicans. They see Indians as the “good immigrants” and as potential voters. For most Republican lawmakers, the problem with immigration is the illegal aliens and potential jihadis among refugees. While an increasing number of Republicans turn on legal immigration, many GOP politicians still think it’s awesome. They point to Indians as proof.

This diverges sharply from the Online Right. The internet sphere sees legal immigration as one of America’s greatest threats and points to Indians as proof. They warn of how the South Asians take white collar jobs, buy up businesses and make them worse, practice rank ethnic nepotism, engage in anti-white racism, don’t properly assimilate, exhibit extremely distasteful behavior, build gigantic statues to foreign gods in the heartland, vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and transform elite institutions to suit their whims.

But that hasn’t translated to Republican politicians and many of its voters—at least, not yet. They share Burchett’s naive view that Indians are freedom-loving capitalists who make America stronger.

This is evident in the response towards Indian Republicans. Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the most hated Republican figures among the Online Right. His pro-H1B posts where he castigated American culture and implied Asian superiority forever tarnished his image on X. However, those posts apparently made no impact on ordinary GOP voters. Despite many viral xeets calling for a more right-wing challenger, Vivek has effectively secured the party’s nomination for Ohio governor without a fight. The only possible challenger is former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, who would run as a dull moderate, not as a fire-breathing nativist. Conservative crowds go nuts for Ramaswamy on the campaign trail and there appears little opposition towards him on the grassroots level.

We’ve had previous Indian Republican governors. Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley both won multiple terms each in deep-red southern states. The only difference between them and Vivek is that they’re both Christian (Ramaswamy is still a proud Hindu) and adopted easier-to-pronounce first names. (Haley also has the advantage of passing as white.) In 2020, an Indian came fairly close to being the GOP nominee for senator in Tennessee. Manny Sethi ran as the conservative insurgent against the more establishment Bill Hagerty in the GOP primary. He earned the endorsement of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and other prominent conservatives. He earned nearly 40 percent of the vote. It wasn’t enough to win, but it did show a lot of Republican voters will cast their ballot for a South Asian.

This doesn’t mean regular Republicans love Indians. The popularity of Indian hate on social media indicates a lot of Americans are annoyed with them. But it’s hard to translate this annoyance into real-world politics. Indian hate comes off as “prejudice” to sensitive normie ears. When railing against immigration, politicians have to dress up the arguments for public consumption. One can’t run for office and say you don’t want these immigrants because they’re non-white. That worked a century ago, but not in our age. The three most effective ways to persuade an audience to oppose an immigrant group is to say they’re criminals, terrorists, or take working-class jobs.

It’s hard to make an anti-Indian migration case with these three claims. They’re not known to form gangs or commit gruesome murders. While some Sikhs in the New World have terror ties back to their homeland, they don’t do terrorism here. Hindus are certainly not known for terrorism. Indians of course take a lot of white collar jobs, but they’re aren’t seen as threats to blue collar labor. Threats to white collar labor are not as potent of a political issue. It makes for a better campaign ad to show factory workers or truck drivers laid off in favor of cheap foreign labor. The Great Replacement of IT departments doesn’t have the same resonance. There are also certain elements within the GOP coalition that want white collar workers to lose their jobs and be forced to do manual labor. Some voices argued for Trump’s tariffs on the grounds it would achieve this dream. Overall, the working class focus of the new GOP makes it less inclined to care about white collar jobs. Many Republicans want American kids going to trade school, not college.

Indian success makes them more likable to ordinary Republicans. Normie conservatives love the idea that anyone can come here and prosper. They don’t see Indians taking over elite universities and major corporations as a dangerous trend. In their naïveté, they see it as proof the American Dream is alive and well. Indians running all the gas stations and hotels just shows off their entrepreneurial spirit.

The standards for assimilation are not high among much of the public. As long as an immigrant speaks English, makes money, doesn’t engage in crime, and has citizenship papers, they stand as “Americans” in the eyes of the ignorant majority. Indians, for the most part, satisfy this low criteria.

For politicians, Indians represent votes. By nature, they’re reluctant to criticize a big voting bloc—even if it primarily votes Democrat. The Indian lobby is well-organized and capable of serious influence. Many elected Republicans fall prey to it.

It would be easier to make Indians a political issue if we suffered a crime wave at the hands of the Krishna Disciples or had to worry about Hindutva terror. But we don’t, and thus the challenge we face.

But the present situation isn’t bound to last forever. The growing numbers of Indians isn’t going to make middle Americans love them. They will start to share the Online Right’s concerns. Unlike what liberals claim, contact with other groups usually creates tension and conflict. We can see that in places where mass Indian migration has already had an impact.

Republicans have gotten somewhat better on the Indian issue. GOP lawmakers no longer waste political capital on trying to eliminate the country caps on visas that would allow Indians to monopolize green cards. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s a small step in the right direction.

The criticism Burchett faced could be dismissed as just the rumblings of an online fringe. That’s a mistake. It could be a preview of right-wing politics as more Americans interact with South Asians.

They won’t fall in love with the local IndiaFest, to say the least.