Vivek’s MAGA triumph, Kash’s bourbon trouble, and more
Today’s edition looks at the Indian-origin figures making news across politics, power and possibility: Vivek Ramaswamy’s attempt to turn MAGA suspicion into electoral strength in Ohio, Kash Patel’s latest Washington headache over a missing bourbon bottle, and a group of Brampton students with Indian-origin members who beat 23,000 competitors to design a future space settlement near Mars.
THE BIG STORY
Vivek Ramaswamy’s MAGA test
Vivek Ramaswamy’s rise in Ohio has become a revealing test of Indian-American power inside Trump’s Republican Party: how far a brown, Hindu, son of immigrants can go in a movement that celebrates meritocracy, but still carries deep suspicion of immigration, race and religious difference.
Driving the news:
Ramaswamy is now the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, surviving the backlash that followed his Boxing Day broadside against American culture and its alleged “veneration of mediocrity”. That post angered sections of MAGA, especially the nativist right, which turned him from anti-woke hero into “Indian elite” villain almost overnight.
Why it matters:
For Indian-Americans, Vivek’s campaign is bigger than one state race. If he wins, he could become the third Indian-origin governor in US history after Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley. But unlike them, he has not softened his identity through conversion or cultural camouflage. He has kept his Hindu name, leaned into his overachiever biography, and tried to sell Indian-American excellence as a MAGA virtue rather than a liberal diversity story.
The big picture:
• Ramaswamy survived because he understood MAGA’s central law: never cross Trump. He angered nativists, H-1B restrictionists and anti-Indian voices, but Trump’s endorsement gave him permission to exist inside the Republican base.
• His Ohio pitch translates his national anti-woke brand into state politics: lower taxes, school choice, deregulation, cheaper energy, industrial revival and a promise to restore competence.
• Vivek’s innovation is that he does not ask America to be more tolerant. He asks America to be more worthy of people like him. That makes him both useful and threatening to MAGA.
• His campaign will show whether Indian-American conservatism can move beyond being symbolic and become electorally powerful in Trump’s America.
NRI WATCH
Kash Patel’s bourbon trouble
Indian-origin FBI director Kash Patel is facing another uncomfortable round of headlines after a report claimed he threatened staff with lie-detector tests when a bottle of bourbon allegedly went missing from his personal stash during a training seminar at the FBI’s Quantico facility.
According to the report, Patel and his team had brought bourbon to the event, where UFC athletes were training FBI personnel in mixed martial arts. When at least one bottle allegedly disappeared, the incident reportedly escalated, with multiple agents seeking legal guidance over concerns that they could be polygraphed or prosecuted. The report also claimed Patel has gifted personalised whiskey bottles bearing his name, though the FBI reportedly said the practice predates him.
For one of the most high-profile Indian-origin figures in Trump’s Washington, the story adds to a growing portrait of a combative, theatrical and controversy-prone power player. In the old Washington, scandals came with tapes, leaks and subpoenas. In the new one, apparently, they can also come with branded bourbon.
OFFBEAT
Brampton students shoot for Mars
A group of Grade 12 students from Brampton’s Central Peel Secondary School has done what most school projects do not: escape Earth’s atmosphere.
The team, which included several Indian-origin teens, won the grand prize at the 2026 Gerard K O’Neill Space Settlement Contest, beating more than 23,000 students from 31 countries. Their project, titled Saoirse, imagined a self-sustaining settlement for 10,000 people at the Mars-Sun L2 Lagrange point, a stable region in space where habitats can operate with relatively low energy needs.
This was not a cardboard volcano with ambition. The proposal covered residential zones, agriculture, renewable energy, transport, radiation shielding, artificial gravity and long-term sustainability. In short, the Brampton teens designed a future colony while the rest of us were still trying to remember where we kept our chargers.
The win also marked the first time a Canadian team has taken the contest’s top award, making it a milestone for both Canada and its Indian-origin student community.
DID YOU KNOW?
NRI SPOTLIGHT
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Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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