00:00We shall see what is in store for Kamala Harris, while she didn't make it to that top slot.
00:07It's not unheard of for legislators to ultimately go and seek another office somewhere else.
00:13Clearly, there's some split-ticket voting as well that's going on, so much to unpack
00:19in the coming months, and no doubt a whole lot of soul-searching for Democrats moving
00:24forward.
00:25Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket was unable to garner that support.
00:29Now, is that going to be something that's going on for some time, if this is a new trend?
00:34Or was it something just to do with Kamala Harris, or the fact that there wasn't a primary?
00:43Hello, I'm Prerna Shandil and I've been joined by Sara Sardwani, an assistant professor of
00:47politics at Pomona College in Southern California.
00:51She's also a senior researcher at AAPI Data, a group that provides information about Asian
00:57Americans.
00:58Welcome, Sara.
00:59Thanks so much for having me.
01:00Now, Sara, the one question that's on everyone's mind is that how the next four years are going
01:05to unfold, now that President-elect Donald Trump has already started making his cabinet
01:10appointments.
01:11And it's very evident that he prefers loyalty over experience.
01:18So what do you think of the next four years of Trump era, now that they have a supermajority?
01:23They have a House, the Senate, and of course, the Oval Office.
01:26Yeah, that's right.
01:28And having all of those branches of government, we would often refer to as unified government.
01:33And in such an instance, there's not much of a check from the other party, from the
01:38Democrats on the president's agenda.
01:41So he will have full steam ahead to advance his agenda, which appears he has a very clear
01:49mandate from the American people.
01:52It was a very solid victory for Donald Trump.
01:57He has made a lot of promises throughout the campaign cycle.
02:00We shall see which ones of those he actually wants to advance or what happens in that first
02:07hundred days of the presidency.
02:09I have to note, though, I think an interesting development just this week, the Senate, Republicans,
02:14of course, hold the majority there and choose the Senate majority leader.
02:19And just this week, they elected John Thune, largely seen as an institutionalist.
02:26Really the protege of Mitch McConnell, who gave some pushback to the last Trump administration.
02:35They weren't exactly best of friends.
02:38So that came as a bit of a surprise to some who saw the Trump administration asking them
02:45to support instead Rick Scott, who's really seen as a loyalist to Donald Trump.
02:49So much to be seen whether or not some of those more establishment Republicans within
02:54the Senate, as well as within the House of Representatives, they have not been immune
02:58to turmoil amongst their own ranks as well over the last several years.
03:03So to what extent there will be some pushback towards the president's agenda.
03:07Right.
03:08And talking about Donald Trump's policies and the pushback, he has, you know, spoken
03:13about mass deportation.
03:15He has spoken about making some of the visas like H1B, O1 stricter.
03:19And of course, you know, ending the birthright citizenship.
03:24What do you think of these policies?
03:26Are they doable in the next two to three years or are they going to attract any kind of legal
03:31or constitutional hurdles?
03:34I think certainly they will attract some legal response, depending on which of the policies
03:39we're talking about.
03:40For birthright citizenship, maybe let's start there.
03:43That's been quite settled in American constitutional law, that if you are born here in this nation
03:49and you are an American citizen, even the Supreme Court has has reiterated that back
03:55when we were doing the census in 2020, also under the Trump, the first Trump administration.
04:02So I think it'll be really challenging for him to move that forward on deportations,
04:09mass deportations.
04:10You know, there's approximately it's estimated about 11 million undocumented immigrants
04:15here in the United States.
04:16And while, you know, most presume that that is predominantly people from Latin America
04:21or Mexico, and that certainly might be true, there are certainly Indian Americans amongst
04:27their ranks.
04:28And over the course of many, many years, we've heard a whole lot of stories about undocumented
04:33Indian Americans as well.
04:35So certainly the community would also potentially be affected if if he were to move forward
04:40with mass deportations.
04:42That being said, to do so would be larger than the scale of the roundup prior to the
04:50Holocaust in Western Europe.
04:53It would send shockwaves through communities and would not look so great.
04:58I mean, at the end of the day, while Americans might say that they want these deportations,
05:03actually seeing mothers and children being rounded up most likely will pull on the heartstrings
05:10of Americans.
05:12So I don't anticipate that as well as from an economic perspective.
05:16Donald Trump has also talked about lowering the cost of everyday goods, of foods, of services.
05:23Undocumented immigrants are certainly a part of the U.S. economy.
05:27So if you want to lower the cost of food, you don't round up the essential workers who
05:32are working in the fields, picking many of our much of our produce.
05:37In the case of H-1B visas, really interesting.
05:41We'll have to see what happens there.
05:43He has talked about a desire to decrease H-1Bs in the past as well.
05:48I don't see how you do that without making further investments, long term investments
05:54in the educational setting, right, in terms of science, technology and STEAM.
05:59I'll be really curious to see how that moves forward.
06:05Elon Musk, of course, is one of his greatest supporters and advisors at this point in time.
06:11He most certainly hired plenty of H-1B visa holders to build up many of his science and
06:17technology companies.
06:20Let's see where that lands.
06:21It would be interesting to see how they, you know, implement the H-1B visa.
06:25I'm not talking about, you know, another promise that Donald Trump made was to get rid of the
06:32federal Department of Education.
06:34Now, you being a professor, how do you see this?
06:38And you know, how is it going to affect the students?
06:40Just talking from a layman's perspective, if this is, you know, if this goes forward,
06:44how is it going to affect professors and students in general?
06:48It's hard to say.
06:49The Department of Education has been an institution here in this country for many, many decades.
06:54So hard to see how that actually plays out again, whether or not a Republican-led House
07:02and Senate would actually approve of such a move is unclear.
07:08So much to be seen there on whether or not he would actually be able to pull off cancelling
07:15the Department of Education.
07:17Right.
07:18Now, you know, shifting attention to Vice President Kamala Harris, there are people
07:24who are saying that this election has led to the end of Kamala Harris's future in politics.
07:29And you know, some are in fact suggesting that she should become a public speaker or
07:33join SCOTUS as a justice.
07:36What do you think of her future in the U.S. politics?
07:40Certainly she should do all of the speaking that she can or wants to do.
07:44And no doubt that there will be an audience for that.
07:47That being said, you know, I'm here in California, her home state already.
07:51People are talking about whether or not she should run for the governor's race.
07:54There's a governor's race coming up in just two years here.
07:58So we shall see what is in store for Kamala Harris.
08:03While she didn't make it to that top slot, it's not unheard of for legislators to ultimately
08:10go and seek another office somewhere else.
08:12Certainly that was the case for Mitt Romney, who went back and ran and won and was successful
08:17in the state of Utah.
08:19Right.
08:20Now, talking about the voters and election, there were a large number of Hispanic, Asian
08:26Americans and even Gen Z population and Latino voters who voted for Donald Trump in this
08:31election.
08:32Now, you being part of AAPI and researching about voter outlook, what do you think went
08:39wrong with the Democrats in this election?
08:42Because these communities are majorly Democratic voters.
08:45Yeah, you're right.
08:46I mean, over the course of many years, we have certainly seen that trend towards the
08:50Democratic Party and this election.
08:53It very much looks like there's some movement back and away from the Democrats.
08:59Much to be seen as we get more and more of the survey data, as we are able to examine
09:04more of the results.
09:05We still have ballots coming in here in California, so it might be a little bit early to exactly
09:12tell you what's going on here.
09:14There's a number of races here, especially in Orange County, where Asian Americans were
09:19vying for seats.
09:21There's one that still hasn't been called that includes the Little India neighborhood
09:26in Los Angeles, as well as Little Saigon.
09:29So much to be seen about what's actually happening in these communities.
09:33That being said, it's quite clear that at least this time around, Kamala Harris at the
09:39top of the ticket was unable to garner that support.
09:42Now, is that going to be something that's going on for some time if this is a new trend?
09:47Or was it something just to do with Kamala Harris or the fact that there wasn't a primary?
09:51And certainly many are saying Biden should have gotten out of the race sooner.
09:55There should have been a primary.
09:56We can come up with a host of different reasons why that might be.
10:00But we can also look to many states that elected Democrats statewide and yet still went to
10:07Trump.
10:08So clearly there's some split ticket voting as well that's going on.
10:12So much to do, much to unpack in the coming months.
10:17And no doubt, a whole lot of soul searching for Democrats moving forward.
10:20Right.
10:21Now, talking about Kamala Harris's chances of winning this election, now there are, you
10:26know, certain population in America who thinks that it is her gender that persuaded some
10:32of the Americans to vote against her and not make her the next president of the United
10:37States.
10:39Do you think her gender played a role or was it purely based on her policies?
10:44You know, interestingly, prior to the election, we were seeing in survey data evidence actually
10:50of a gender gap, that more women were preferring Kamala Harris to Donald Trump.
10:56In some of our work at AAPI data, notably, we actually had some findings that were profiled
11:02in Times of India that Asian-Americans were actually more excited about Kamala Harris's
11:09gender than her race, despite the fact that she's an Indian-American.
11:14So we were we were interested, certainly, to see that that didn't appear to play out
11:19in the data, that we have certainly a whole lot more survey data and exit polling that's
11:24going to come in in the coming months.
11:26And we'll really be able to get a better sense of to what extent and to what role gender
11:32was actually playing in this election.
11:35Right.
11:36Now, we'll have to wait and watch how this next four years turn out to be.
11:40Sarah, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your insights.
11:43Of course.
11:44Thanks for having me.
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