President Donald Trump speaks before signing the Executive Order Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America during a roundtable with farmers in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, April 25, in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images) (Siliconeer graphic)

@siliconeer #siliconeer #DonaldTrump #NikkiHaley #AjitPai #SeemaVerma #USHealthcare #USImmigration #USTaxCuts #Medicare #Medicaid – Desis have become the most visible ethnic minority of the Trump administration – snagging up top posts like the UN envoy, chair of FCC and head of Medicare and Medicaid Services. Time to uncork the champagne? Not so fast, writes Ashfaque Swapan.

The nation, along with the rest of the world, is reeling from Trump’s bizarre stylistic flourishes, his swagger and his penchant to give free rein to an adolescent urge to badmouth every critic with petty, sophomoric comebacks. 

Even the Wall Street Journal, an indefatigable supporter of all things conservative, is fed up. “Yet the President clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims,” it remarked in a blistering editorial.

It must be said that notwithstanding its extraordinary socio-economic standing, the desi community is only beginning to make its presence felt in the American political firmament.  Therefore, just as we celebrate a Satya Nadella heading Microsoft or a Sundar Pichai leading Google, it is incumbent upon us to take note every time a desi lands a big political appointment.

Given the president’s erratic diplomatic gaffes – to date, he has hung up on the Australian prime minister, angered China by cozying up to Taiwan, and made the Mexican president mad enough for him to cancel a U.S. trip – Haley has her work cut out.

Ajit Pai, who was a commissioner before he became chairman last month, is trying to wipe away net neutrality rules put in place by Tom Wheeler, the former chairman, to prevent broadband companies from creating fast and slow lanes on the internet.

What is certain, unfortunately, is that financial constraints will be used as a useful subterfuge to cut off as many people from Medicaid as possible, a goal dear to Republicans.  Remember that these are the most vulnerable Americans. It is entirely likely that Verma will be a willing, even enthusiastic, accomplice.

Give the devil its due. U.S. President Donald J. Trump has been true to his word. He promised during his campaign that he was going to be “terrific.”

He has indeed been terrific. As in terrifying.

The nation, along with the rest of the world, is reeling from his bizarre stylistic flourishes, his swagger and his penchant to give free rein to every adolescent urge to badmouth a critic with petty, sophomoric comebacks.

Trump is ideal for the modern age. His attention span and grasp of issues give new depth to the word “shallow.” No wonder he is so comfortable with Twitter.

Here’s what we have seen Trump achieve in his first 100 days.

  • A Muslim entry ban that’s been stuck in court twice.
  • A national security advisor who was forced to quit in disgrace after lying about contacts with Russia.
  • An FBI investigation, as well as a House and Senate probe, into a sitting president to establish whether there’s a nefarious Russian connection.
  • The embarrassing collapse of a half-baked Republican healthcare plan that would throw tens of millions people out of insurance. Trump backed the plan, but it was so overwhelmingly reviled across the political spectrum that it was hastily pulled away from a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
  • A White House West Wing that seems like a fractious medieval court riven by bitter factions, brimming with anonymous sources eager to spill the beans, to the glee of journalists.
  • And to top it all – his non-stop, outrageous mendacity characterized by eye-popping, false or unsubstantiated statements. This includes claims that millions of illegal voters gave Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton a nearly three-million popular vote edge, that more people attended his inauguration than former President Barack Obama’s, and his claim that Obama had wiretapped him.  When both the U.S. Senate, House and the FBI said they had no evidence of a wiretap, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said people should look at reports suggesting Obama had taken help from British intelligence agency GCHQ.  An outraged GCHQ said the claims were “nonsense, utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”

Even the Wall Street Journal, an indefatigable supporter of all things conservative, is fed up. “Yet the President clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims,” it remarked in a blistering editorial.

“If President Trump announces that North Korea launched a missile that landed within 100 miles of Hawaii, would most Americans believe him? Would the rest of the world?” the Wall Street Journal editorial asked.

“We’re not sure, which speaks to the damage that Mr. Trump is doing to his Presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods.”

Presidential historians are appalled.

“This is the most failed first 100 days of any president,” historian Douglas Brinkley told The Washington Post. “To be as low as he is in the polls, in the 30s, while the FBI director is on television saying they launched an investigation into your ties with Russia, I don’t know how it can get much worse.”

Desi Allies

“Indian-Americans are the most prominent ethnic minority in President Donald Trump’s largely white, male administration,” says a McClatchy wire service report.

This brings up a question for South Asians to ponder: When a South Asian is given a prominent position in any U.S. administration – should we uncork the champagne regardless of the circumstances?

Notwithstanding its extraordinary socio-economic standing, the desi community is only beginning to make its presence felt in the American political firmament.  Therefore, just as we celebrate a Satya Nadella heading Microsoft or a Sundar Pichai leading Google, it is incumbent upon us to take note every time a desi lands a big political appointment.

While the Democratic Party remains the natural home for the overwhelming majority of desis – given its commitment to diversity and social justice – there should be no partisan litmus test. After all the first ever Congressman of South Asian descent, Rep. Dalip Singh Saund, R-Calif., was a Republican and a friend of President Ronald Reagan. Joy Cherian, also a Republican, served in the Reagan administration as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Having said that, appreciation should not be – and cannot be – unconditional. The political context of the appointments matters enormously, as does the policy priorities of the nominee.

A McClatchy wire service report says: “With Nikki Haley as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Ajit Pai as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and Seema Verma nominated to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Indian-Americans have key roles in shaping administration policy, from international relations to internet access to health care.

“Another Indian-American, Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco trial lawyer who’s a member of the Republican National Committee, is a top candidate to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

It’s not clear that providing an ethnic-minority fig leaf to an administration notorious for its race-baiting campaign is a great place for desis to be.

Be that as it may, let’s take a closer look at each of the appointments.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 27. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

Nikki Haley

Trump named Nikki Haley U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Given the president’s diplomatic gaffes – to date, he has hung up on the Australian prime minister, angered China by cozying up to Taiwan, and made the Mexican president mad enough to cancel a U.S. trip – Haley has her work cut out.

As governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley has drawn admiration for her success. Yet a closer look gives cause for skepticism.  It’s not Haley’s fault per se, it’s just the nature of South Carolina politics in particular and Dixie in general.

If the desi tendency is to identify with a national U.S. identity that is inclusive, humane, sort of a rainbow-colored family, the South does not provide the best political environment for that.

Crippled by an ugly, vicious history of racism – with good reason to believe that a residue of that animus still lurks underneath the façade of progress, the South is the antithesis of a plural identity.

It’s interesting that the only desis ever to occupy a U.S. governor’s mansion ended up winning in Southern states. Former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and South Carolina’s Haley did manage to win in the insular, race-conscious South, but the uncomfortable fact remains they both happened to be Christian converts – and in the South, that matters.

Jindal’s gubernatorial run ended in disgrace. His mindless tax cuts left a huge hole in the budget, and his popularity tanked precipitously at the end of his term.

In South Carolina, Haley’s record is more mixed. She has been politically savvy, and has managed to maintain a degree of popularity. That’s not necessarily a good thing – remember, it’s South Carolina.

That means she denies climate change, opposes a woman’s right to choose, and supports the egregious voter ID laws that disenfranchise minorities.

However, she deserves credit for bringing down the Confederate flag following a killing of African Americans in Charleston in June 2015. She has also refused to back calls to curb transgender bathroom rights.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai speaks during the 2017 NAB Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center on April 25, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Ajit Pai

Ajit Pai has been appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission by Trump. He is the first Indian American to hold this position. He became an FCC member in 2012, as a Republican nominee appointed by President Barack Obama. A smart, suave, lawyer, the Harvard-educated Pai previously worked as counsel for FCC, as well as for Verizon and the U.S. Senate.

Unsurprisingly for a Republican, Pai uses the ruse of the free market to back policies that undermine the public interest. The New York Times wrote in a recent editorial:

“Ajit Pai, who was a commissioner before he became chairman last month, is trying to wipe away net neutrality rules put in place by Tom Wheeler, the former chairman, to prevent broadband companies from creating fast and slow lanes on the internet. Mr. Pai has scrapped a proposal to let people buy cable-TV boxes instead of renting them at inflated prices from companies like Comcast. Many of Mr. Pai’s moves would hurt the people who have the least power. For instance, he has backed away from rules to lower the exorbitant rates for prison phone calls. And he has suspended nine companies from providing discounted internet service to poor people through a program known as Lifeline.”

It gets worse.

Pai backed a recent Republican resolution in Congress to roll back Internet privacy rules.

Following a party-line vote in the Senate, the House has approved a resolution to overturn an FCC broadband privacy regulation. That rule requires cable and phone companies to obtain consent before using information like which websites people visited to show them customized ads and to build detailed profiles on them.

“Republicans just made clear how little they care about protecting the privacy of Americans by letting companies like Verizon and Comcast sell advertisers the internet browsing histories and other personal data of their customers without getting permission,” the New York Times wrote in another editorial. “The move could bolster the profits of the telecommunications industry by billions of dollars.”

Pai apparently doesn’t have any problem with that.

Seema Verma testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on her nomination to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., Feb. 16. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Seema Verma

Trump has appointed healthcare consultant Seema Verma to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a trillion-dollar agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

A staunch conservative (no surprise), Verma has closely consulted with former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to set up the Medicaid program in the state.

“Indiana’s unique Medicaid expansion was designed to appeal to conservatives,” National Public Radio reports. “(The plan) asks covered people to make a small monthly payment to access health insurance. A missed payment can result in six-month lockout from insurance coverage. Those provisions aren’t allowed under traditional Medicaid, but Indiana got a federal waiver to implement them.”

There are two ways to look at it. One way is to say that Verma’s changes helped make Medicaid expansion palatable and available to conservative states. But another way would be to question, as many have, whether the requirements are too stringent.

In Indiana, if people on Medicaid earning between $11,000 and $16,000 don’t pay their premiums, they can be locked out of the program for up to six months, a provision even commercial insurance does not impose.

“If someone can’t scrape up the money for premiums for two months, they get dis-enrolled, and they get locked out for six months,” Andrea Callow, a policy analyst at Families USA, a not-for-profit organization focused on consumer health, told The Guardian. “Then say they get cancer, they get hit by a truck, they have an accident. They have absolutely no place to turn for health coverage.”

Even some top Indiana Republicans aren’t comfortable with the policy.

“I have no problem with the personal responsibility features to the extent that they improve outcomes,” said Ed Clere, former Republican chair of the Indiana House public health committee. “One of the big questions going forward, both for Indiana and now for the country, will be: is there a link between these personal responsibility features in the way of financial participation and improved healthy outcomes?

“I haven’t seen any evidence.”

What is certain, unfortunately, is that financial constraints will be used as a useful subterfuge to cut off as many people from Medicaid as possible, a goal dear to Republicans.  Remember that these are the most vulnerable Americans. It is entirely likely that Verma will be a willing, even enthusiastic, accomplice.

A Final Word

Whether you call America a melting pot or a salad bowl, there is no gainsaying the fact that this country’s formidable economic prowess and stature as the world’s biggest superpower has been powered not just by European immigrants, but also by the contributions of immigrants from all parts of the world.

Some started in modest circumstances. Think of the Chinese immigrants who helped build the railroads, or the Mexican immigrants who continue to toil in the vast swathes of American farmlands. Others had a head start.  The wave of Indian American immigrants who came to the U.S. after immigration laws were eased had a disproportionate number of college-educated arrivals, many headed for graduate school.

So, it should be no surprise that the community built by desis should be disproportionately highly-educated and affluent.

This has led to – let’s be honest about it – a conservative, racist narrative of the so-called “model minority” that many Indian Americans have happily, if somewhat naively, embraced. Under the broader rubric of the Asian model minority, Indians along with Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigrant groups are a favorite example for conservatives who imply that the sorry state of some minorities – African American, Latinos – is their fault. Just look how well the model minorities are doing, they like to point out. Talk about blaming the victim.

It is incumbent upon desis to keep these troubling socio-political considerations in mind before bringing out the champagne.