Racial divisions and hate will be a big theme of the upcoming US Presidential election in November.

The Republican Party is looking to take a “Big Tent” approach that will see it refresh and renew its membership and keep it viable for decades to come.

But many are not happy with that approach, they don’t want immigrants and minorities anywhere near the party

Last week’s Republican Party Convention (RNC) which saw the nomination of Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States saw presentations by people of colour, even IG star Amber Rose.

From Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Byron Donalds and Marco Rubio to Ben Carson—you have never seen so many coloured faces up on the podium at a Republican convention before.

Trump’s pick for vice president JD Vance’s wife Usha came up to introduce him.

She is a lovely accomplished lady of Indian descent and that seemed to upset members of the party.

Usha Vance was intelligent, articulate and appeared self-effacing up on that stage with the world watching her. She was not a lady who made it her moment in the sun. She talked about meeting her husband at university, she talked about his character and the man she fell in love with.

They have a family with three kids. She is a lawyer. She holds a Master’s degree in philosophy from Cambridge and went to Yale Law School. They married in 2014.

That would make bona fides and one would have thought that Republicans would be happy with the Vances but oh no.

It set them off on a rabid tirade. How can he have an Indian wife? 

Usha Vance is definitely “wifey” material and it is written all over her.

She is self-aware, decent, and a person of honour. She grew up in San Diego in a middle-class community with two loving parents and her sister. She is a practising Hindu who clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and worked for many years at the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson.

It has been said the best wives are those who knew you from your young adult days, particularly your university days. They are there with you on your arc. That appears to be the case with the Vances. The Vice President has a lovely accomplished Indian wife who is the mother of his children.

But this seems to unsettle some right-wingers with the Vance family facing online abuse.

“What kind of man marries somebody that isn’t a Christian? What kind of man marries somebody named Usha?”

Stew Peters wrote on X: “Trump VP nominee @JDVance1 and his Indian wife have three children named: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel. He’s not one of us.”

The hate is real.

Right-wing commentator Nick Fuentes said: “ Who is this guy really (J.D. Vance)? Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity? There is a white genocide going on in the world. White people are being systematically replaced in America and Europe through immigration and a lesser extent, inter-marrying. This guy has a non-white wife and a kid named Vivek. Is this guy going to be a defender of white identity? I don’t think so. Is this guy going to defend American identity? If he does, its going to be no better those other civic nationalists like Vivek Ramaswamy. How else can you countenance American identity if you have a mixed-up family like that?”

One can see where all this is leading and there are those in the Republican Party who will make things very uncomfortable for Usha Vance. Something tells me she is strong and confident enough not to allow the haters to deter her, not to allow them to second guess herself.

George Takei got it right, writing, “MAGA fans have racist meltdown after discovering JD Vance’s wife isn’t white.”

Right-wing commentator Daniel Horowitz took to X, posting, “A night of endless racial and ethnic pandering, union communism not just populism and a porn star. This is going to be a long haul.

What would have hurt the Vances was Adam Mockler’s barb, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a fat white guy with an Asian American wife and kids going on Tucker to complain about ‘The Great Replacement’ forever.”

Another Republican took to X with “Clearly he (Vance) doesn’t value his racial identity, his heritage. There is an obvious Indian coup taking place in the US right before our eyes.”

Yes, hate and racial prejudice are there, right before our eyes.  America will be going even further into the realms of racial tension under a Donald Trump administration, mark my words. Don’t be too surprised if he sends Jamaicans back on a plane, citing their illegal presence.

Trump was all set to face off against a decrepid Joe Biden whose cognitive abilities have been questioned. It now appears he may very well square up against Kamala Harris, a woman of colour. The race card is already being played. Does Kamala Harris have what it takes to defeat Trump?  Can she withstand what he will throw at her? Can she address the torrent of racial abuse people like Usha Vance will be subjected to?

Donald Trump has yet to chastise those who gave Usha Vance a hard time because she is of Indian descent. I wonder what her husband makes of that? Will he do a Ted Cruz and suffer the indignity of having his wife insulted by a man who may become the leader of the free world?