‘America seems to have overlooked Trump’s personal follies in favour of his America first campaign’

Mitul Iyengar, another Punekar currently living in the States, said the mood is kind of low in her immediate circle. “Conversations are about how terrified and upset everyone is about what the election results mean for the planet, climate policy and women’s health rights,” says the girl who is doing her Masters in Design Engineering at Harvard.

On campus, watch parties had been hosted the night before by different schools where, overwhelmingly, the crowd was liberal and cheering for Harris and Walz, she says. Iyengar and her friends had not anticipated the results and “are getting used to it now,” says the 28-year-old who grew up in Aundh and has been in the US for about 10 years. She moved there for her undergrads and worked for six years there, before going back to grad school.

Naresh Iyer, a Boston-based banking professional who moved to the US from Pune in 1995, said “The result is partly due to the anti-incumbency that has crept into the electorate. There is a very significant portion of the electorate that feels like it has been left behind, given that sentiment they wanted to gravitate towards a leader who talked about Making America Great Again (MAGA).”

Talking about how Indian-Americans vote in the US elections, he said, “Most Indians I know are more on the liberal side. I don’t know that they would have voted for Trump. But there is a growing number of Indian Americans, particularly once they get to a higher economic strata, they tend to vote for the Republicans. A Republican in office means tax breaks, so if you are rich, it’s wonderful.”

“I don’t know if there is going to be an increase in racism, but the fact that someone like Trump is in power shows that people are willing to look past his white supremacy and all the comments he’s made in the past. I’ve lived in the US for close to 30 years and I’ve never experienced racism. In rural America, it is a different story altogether and I’m sure there is discrimination and phobia against foreigners. Those are the folks that actually vote for Trump,” added Iyer on concerns that Trump’s rhetoric might play a role in racism.

Geetanjali Kenjale, a technical writer at Google, USA, who hails from Pune and is in the process of getting her green card, said, “Trump’s first presidency was tumultuous and full of controversies. But now America seems to have overlooked his personal follies in favour of his America first campaign. Immigration disasters all over the world (Canada and Europe especially), inflation in the US, wars in Ukraine and Gaza etc have put the Democrats in bad light.”

“As an Indian, not in line for any immigration process here, I think the Trump presidency would be favourable to India. We might not be best friends but he understands the “my country first” sentiment. He didn’t interfere in the abrogation of article 370 and has good rapport with Modi ji. For most part, he’d be more inclined to leave India alone, except where he wants to make money out of foreign and trade policies. Hope he stops the wars that are affecting the world’s economy and enhances trade ties with India,” added Kenjale.