Does Usha Vance Deserve Our Sympathy?

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I CAN’T HELP BUT PUT MYSELF IN HER SHOES. As an Asian American woman who’s also married to a white man with roots in Ohio, I keep wondering what exactly is going through Usha Vance’s head these days as she watches her husband go out of his way to defend racists.

JD Vance has displayed a pattern of lending comfort and aid to racists. Still, two recent incidents make me wonder how much more of this nonsense Usha can stomach.

In a now deleted post on X that was uncovered by The Wall Street Journal, Marko Elez, one of Elon Musk’s minions in DOGE (the so-called “department of government efficiency”), proudly celebrates racism. In July, Elez declared: “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.” Then, in September, he posted, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.” In another post, he wrote: “Normalize Indian hate.” And as recently as December, he boasted: “I just want a eugenic immigration policy, is that too much to ask.”

This was not a one-off rant of a teenager (Elez is a 25-year old) but the manifesto of a serial racist. But instead of condemning Elez, JD flipped the script, blaming—who else?—sleazy journalists. He tweeted on X:

I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.

We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.

So I say bring him back.

If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.

In my book (and I hope in most Americans’), a self-declared racist is, by definition, “a bad dude” who’d be a “terrible member” of any team. And while I’m all for second chances, why does this guy, who’s expressed no contrition, deserving of a job that wields outsize power to fire federal employees and reshape our entire government? (The better question is why anyone on Musk’s team should have such powers.)

Racists aren’t the problem but those who call them out:

But what’s most striking was JD’s refusal to make him accountable, even though Elez attacked his wife and his family. When asked on X by California congressman Ro Khana, an Indian American, whether he’d demand that Elez apologize for his “normalize Indian hate” tweet, JD threw a hissy fit: “Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children.” Later, Vance concluded his exchange by telling Khana, “you disgust me.”

You tell ‘em, JD! Racists aren’t the problem but those who call them out!

What an impressive, gallant defense of his Asian wife, his bi-racial kids, and his own interracial marriage. Usha certainly hit the jackpot picking JD as her knight in shining armor. The most generous spin I can offer is that JD assumes his family is somehow shielded from racism’s brutality because he’s so important and powerful. Perhaps Usha and the kids now have official honorary white status.

The mystery, of course, is how Usha views this exchange. On some level, she must be bothered that her husband is defending a racist jerk at her expense. Yet, there she is, smiling at her man, as if this is how a loving husband behaves — as if it’s all perfectly normal. The only question is how long she can keep the lid on.

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Vivia Chen writes “The Ex-Careerist” column on Substack where she unleashes her unvarnished views about the intersection of work, life, and politics. A former lawyer, she was an opinion columnist at Bloomberg Law and The American Lawyer. Subscribe to her Substack by clicking here:

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