From Macaca to MAGA: How one needling remark can become a political thorn for Donald Trump

TOI correspondant from Washington: Twenty years ago, a single word helped change the balance of power in Washington.In 2006, Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia was cruising toward re-election and was being talked about as a possible presidential candidate.Then, at a campaign rally, he pointed to S R Sidarth, a young Indian-American volunteer tracking his campaign for Democrat Jim Webb, and called him “Macaca” (monkey), before adding, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”The episode went viral, by the modest standards of the pre-TikTok, pre-X era, and transformed the Virginia Senate race. Allen's once-comfortable lead evaporated, and Webb eventually won by just 9,329 votes, giving Democrats the 51st seat they needed to take control of the Senate.Contemporary polling showed Allen's lead shrinking dramatically after the incident in a state with a significant Indian-American population adjoining Washington DC.The lesson was not that one offensive comment single-handedly decides an election (Allen was decidedly pro-India). It was that stray remarks and small events can have large consequences when voters are already paying attention.A seemingly inconsequential slight can become a symbol, particularly when it resonates with a community, in this case Indian-Americans, that feels it has been singled out, which is what appears to be happening in Texas.Karl Rove, the legendary Republican strategist who helped George Bush win the White House in 2000, says he will now do something he has done only once before in his life: vote for a Democrat.The immediate trigger was a social-media post last week by Republican candidate Bo French after a football game showing mostly Indian-origin students celebrating in the stands. Compounding his inflammatory rhetoric about race, religion, immigration and minorities, French suggested that the photo showed Americans had been “displaced by foreigners”, brown-skinned Indians.“These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I’ll have no part of it,” Rove wrote in oped on Friday, referring to French and his incendiary posts and comments. Other moderate Republicans, notably Senator John Cornyn, ousted by Trump, have also condemned French’s post that became a lightning rod for anti-Indian campaign among MAGA hardliners.All this is happening when the Republican relationship with Trump is acquiring something resembling buyer's remorse.There was a time when GOP candidates would have walked through fire for a photograph with the MAGA boss. Now, with the midterm elections weeks away, some appear reluctant even to walk into the same room.Among them is Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican and former Trump champion among Hispanic voters. In a campaign advertisement released this week, she told Trump that his immigration enforcement had “gone too far” and warned that Hispanics who helped return him to the White House in 2024 “feel betrayed.”Then there’s podcaster Joe Rogan, whose significance is not simply that he is another celebrity with a microphone. His podcast reaches an enormous audience and, in 2024, he endorsed Trump after interviewing him for nearly three hours, serving as an important bridge between Trump and younger male voters who had not traditionally been reliable Republican voters.This week, however, Rogan unloaded on some Trump supporters after they attacked comedian Jelly Roll over jokes about Trump. “Trump supporters are f***ing nuts, man,” Rogan said.“They’re rabid.” More and more Trump supporters are starting to distance themselves from the President even as commentators are finding new ways to say that he's basically unhinged.None of this makes a Democratic takeover of Congress inevitable. But if Democrats were to win both chambers, as some polls are suggesting, Trump's presidency would continue; what would change is his political operating environment, with greater congressional scrutiny, tougher confirmation fights and more contested battles over spending, trade, sanctions, arms and military policy.For foreign governments, that distinction matters. It could throw up a Congress much less willing to provide the president a blank cheque. Trump built his political career on the proposition that Republicans needed more Trump to win.The 2026 campaign is beginning to test that. As George Allen discovered two decades ago, campaigns sometimes learn the hard way that a small slight – or a scabrous social media post – can become a thorn that can cost the party the Senate.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.