The ultra left and Middle Eastern-influenced faction led by Bernie Sanders is running a propaganda against Indian Americans.
President Joe Biden is facing a new unique problem coming from within the Democrat establishment. Bernie Sanders played as a negative force against Biden especially with Biden nominees. Neera Tanden faced revolt from within the Democrats on account of her past social media tirades. The Democrat forces supported by Middle Eastern coalitions and PACs played an active role in rejection of Neera Tanden’s appointment. Earlier the Hillary Clinton faction of the Democrats played a negative role in opposing Tulsi Gabbard’s Presidential bid. The narrative against Indian American appointments in the Biden administration is led by the CAIR-funded Bernie Sanders faction of Democrats. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna also belong to the same faction of Democrats. While Ro Khanna has openly begun to voice his opposition to Biden policies, the others have been contained by the Obama faction of the Democrat establishment.
While Obama was successful in uniting all factions of Democrats behind the Biden Presidency until swearing in, however, the divisions are so large that these are beginning to show within 60 days of the Biden administration assuming power. It will need Herculean efforts by Barack Obama to keep all the three factions of Democrats together. While the Clinton faction has been the most financially potent, the Bernie faction has been the most vociferous and loud, dominated by Middle Eastern political interests, whereas the Biden-Obama faction has been the most influential. All these three factions are fighting for control within the Democrat establishment. Between the fight for supremacy between these three factions, the core essence of American democracy has been compromised within the Democrat party. While the party has done exceedingly well against Republicans at the polls, but they have been completely destroyed from within due to the political differences among these three factions. If it were not for Obama, the party would have lost to the Republicans in 2020. The Biden Presidency was decided way early in 2019 itself by the Obama faction of Democrats. Many analysts, who had good connections with the “establishment”, had predicted a Biden-Harris administration accurately.
The other two factions inside the Democrat party are fighting the ruling faction for control. The ultra left and Middle Eastern-influenced faction led by Bernie Sanders is running the propaganda against Indian Americans. Now you can easily identify the anti Indian-American politicians. The Bernie Sanders-controlled factions are promoting systemic Hinduphobia and anti India pronouncements. They also internally worked against Kamala Harris because they couldn’t accept someone coming from outside their influence groups. There was significant internal opposition from these camps when it became apparent that Kamala Harris would be the VP choice. However, her strong record and her mixed descent made them fall quiet. If it was purely her Indian American descent, probably she would not have been the running mate of Biden.
Indian Americans, who have voted Democrats, are probably at a disadvantage today because of the systemic racism against them by multiple factions from within the party. Indian Americans have a lot of hope from Jamaican-Indian American, Kamala Harris to give them a level playing field. Republicans have been wooing this Indian American community over the last three election cycles. In the 2020 elections, the Indian American community voted 27% for the GOP while the majority voted for the Democrats. That’s almost 11% more than any other previous election. Why? The left leaning Bernie Sanders moved more Indian American votes towards the GOP. It is wrong to say that Indian Americans account for 4-5 million votes. That is just Indians (Hindus) from South Asia. There are American Hindus, Jamaican Hindus and Hindus from other parts of the world who have settled in America and who all think in a similar way. The modern analysts forget that the entire yoga community in the US is also connected to the Indian American thought process. It is high time that Democrats reinvented themselves and not ignored the aspirations of Indian Americans.
Aditya Satsangi is the author of “The Making of a Statesman: Sattology”, and Chairman of Sentinel of Dharma.