Working Assumptions Super PAC HQ
Your Silicon Valley Indian woman reporting for duty, armed with fresh memes
Forgive me. This newsletter isn’t on the topic of work and our identities this week — in the theme of the “personal is political,” I have personally been at home sick with Covid and therefore politically engaged with the memes that have been everywhere. While sick in bed, I have been a major contributor to every group chat.
It is worth noting that I am not interested in national politics, as a rule. The last time I cared was in 2012, the first time I was allowed to vote. I typically care much more about San Francisco elections. But I find this particular national election interesting.
This time around, I have seen a lot of political fracturing in my social circles. This is new. Ever since I graduated college, it has felt like my social circles had homogeneous political beliefs. Now, Indian Americans are fracturing. Silicon Valley is splitting. My friends are single issue voters and find themselves on different sides of the fence.
It’s also an interesting election because Indian Americans are in the spotlight: Kamala Harris (half Indian), Charli XCX (half Indian), and Usha Vance (fully Indian, married to JD Vance) are main characters, not side characters. Vivek Ramaswamy was an RNC speaker. Lina Khan, especially related to the FTC’s views on tech firms and acquisitions, is in the news constantly. I do not think my racial identity has a meaningful bearing on my politics, but it’s very unusual that South Asians are having a huge cultural moment.
I’m not going to make a habit of US political commentary — don’t unsubscribe! I’ll get back to regular programming soon, I promise. But as we wrestle with work and who we are, it’s not like we just fell out of a coconut tree. We exist in the context of what’s around us and what came before.
Here’s some of what I’ve read that’s interested me:
Inside the New Right: The name Curtis Yarvin, or Mencius Moldbug, is probably familiar to many of you. It’s because he’s long been a philosopher of sorts associated with the Thiel-verse. It turned out that I might have been familiar with the name, but not the specifics of his ideas. Yet, these ideas are the foundation of the New Right, also known as the future of the Republican party. It’s the weird mashup of social conservatism and pro-entitlements, pro-minimum wage-increase views that Hawley, Vance, and Cotton wing of the Republican party have started to champion. It is a big contrast from the Reagan to Romney fiscal conservatism. As the party starts to shed the old guard, the RNC is clearly ready to replace their Reagan ideology with this new one. This explains why there was a Teamster’s Union speaker at the RNC convention, which absolutely blew my mind.
Ezra Klein Interview with Oren Cass: Ezra is one of the best interviewers I have ever seen. In this podcast, Oren Cass (Romney economic advisor, author of the “labor” section of Project 2025) and Ezra discuss policy at a detailed level. I love the breakdown of their views on tariffs as an illustrative example of the differences between Democrat and “New Right” views. For those of you who know the details of semiconductor manufacturing (or have at least read Chip Wars), you’ll find this especially entertaining.
The Coconut Tree Meme: This meme is so strange — it has created an organic moment for Kamala Harris, who has until now been a candidate ruled by their “tangibles” (resume, record) instead of their intangibles (vibes.) The clip was actually found by RNC Research (it was oppo!) and tweeted by them. From there, it went viral. As someone said in a comment: “she's using a real mix of politician folkism (what your mom used to tell you) + lawyer-almost-pastorly oratory style + ACTUAL WISDOM (!).....like, both are actually true and wise statements! We love context! So it's both mildly making fun of a certain style while also embracing a politician that says things that make sense.” I like all the riffs on this meme — ft. Dwarkesh Patel! What appeals to me is that the metaphor of the coconut tree is so South Indian — my grandmother used to rap our heads with her knuckles and ask if we “had coconut water in there” whenever we were dumb.
J.D. Vance and the GOP's Bid to Beat Its Human Capital Problem: “Republicans offer a sort of Faustian bargain to ambitious anti-woke secular sorts: make your peace with the evangelicals, pander to social conservatism, and gain sway in a coalition crying out for policy competence. More than a few will take that bargain. People are drawn to power voids.” An interesting essay explaining the right’s engagement with the Silicon Valley elite. You should also read the NYT rebuttal. (What an age, where the NYT opinion page is rebutting random anon Substacks. We are in Ender’s Game world where online commenters rule the government.)
Indian Americans are having a political moment: Indian Americans are the largest political cohort amongst Asians. The largest!! This is why I absolutely do not understand why skilled immigration isn’t an issue for BOTH sides of the aisle, Indians have the power (and should be!) pushing this more than anything. It’s incredibly frustrating that they’re not. Immigration, science research, expand the number of residency seats, allow lower healthcare costs via foreign doctors, and expand NP’s scope of practice, no matter what the AMA says. (Working Assumptions Super PAC will fund these issues!)
The Evolution of Usha Vance: What even is this incredibly awkward piece on Usha Vance, that talks about her makeup and outfits (and the contrast to Ivanka and Kimberly Guilfoyle) instead of any substance?! She’s probably one of the top 50 most elite-educated women in the country, do they not have anything else to say?
Why my parents don’t like Kamala Harris: This article is about why Indians, especially Tamilians, like Kamala Harris and feel proud of her. Yet, my parents are also Tamilians and absolutely do not like her. It has nothing to do with her policies, and everything to do with her perceived denial of her Indian heritage. “She doesn’t talk about being Indian,” they say. They felt the same way about Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal. Notably, they do not feel the same way about the Vances. “Kamala won’t be able to get a word edgewise with JD Vance. JD became vegetarian for his Telegu wifey!” said my mother. Nevermind the fact that this is not true — in her speech at the RNC, Usha only said that JD “learned how to make Indian vegetarian food” for her mother. It’s as if JD Vance made Indian vegetarian food for *my mother*, the way she’s acting. Whomever that speechwriter is, hats off to you, seriously. My mother, as I remind myself regularly, remains a Singapore citizen and can’t vote.
Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel Internal Emails: It is insane the extent to which this and this and even this was all Peter Thiel’s genius idea. The man is 100% right in this little email exchange that was made public thanks to some court case (thanks, discovery processes!) I love so many things about this email exchange, but love nothing more than exactly how hapless Nick Clegg is in the face of Peter’s emails, Mark’s instructions, and then the pièce de résistance of handing off the work to a junior colleague on the grounds that he, Nick, is not a millenial. Truly beautiful; VPs gonna VP. It’s a positional incompetence! This quote, however, is about Mark’s rebrand:
I believe that we might be better served by…trying to think about what it would mean for Mark to think of himself as a Millennial spokesman... and perhaps to contrast this with what I take to be our current policy (at least implicitly) — of Mark as a Baby Boomer construct of how a well-behaved Millennial is supposed to act. If forced to make a choice, I would always rather win popularity contests with Millennials than with Boomers!
CNN tries to be “brat”: You all must know how much I love Charli XCX. I love the brat memes. But, the right strategy for Kamala would have been to NOT acknowledge the brat memes. Once the Gen X adults became aware of it, it made the memes feel lame again. This CNN clip perfectly encapsulates that lameness. My opinion, if I were Charli’s PR director, is that “brat” is too young of a meme to be examined this way, it’s barely gotten its chance to breathe. Charli started this exposure of “brat” to the “mainstream” with her tweet, and it snowballed from there. It it quickly became more about Kamala than about Charli XCX and her followers. As a friend accurately stated, “now, my edgy friend from Bushwick with brat nails looks to the world like she’s a primarily a Kamala supporter, which is not what Charli XCX should want. It explains why Taylor Swift is so loath to endorse a political candidate — it makes it so that the artist is not centered in the narrative.”
Lina Khan: Ok, so this particular issue has a lot of links (not just one!) Lina Khan has been an extremely opinionated and wide-reaching FTC chair. She’s noted for her anti-Amazon stance, and her paper on how Amazon has to do more than simply please customers in order to avoid antitrust accusations. Khan has been accused by many in tech and biotech of “anti-trust overreach” and has given no sign that this will abate. Recently, she came out in favor of a more open-source oriented AI approach in a YCombinator/Bloomberg event (video to come soon!) JD Vance came out for it. As for me, I think I’m quite against Lina Khan’s breakup of Big Tech in general — I do not think her approach gives startups enough exit opportunities. Some companies build things that are really valuable as a part of a larger company but are not viable as a standalone firm. If acquisitions are impossible, how will those startups ever get funding to start? Big IPO exits can’t be the only path. I don’t think her approach will produce the competitive environment she desires.
I’m not about to become a political expert — listening to Ezra Klein rattle off arcane congressional and budget procedures with the names of key bills makes me realize I have a long way to go. But this election is going to be interesting, that’s for sure. Ok, back to regular programming after this!