The daughter of middle-class Indian immigrants, a trial lawyer, and until 2014, a registered Democrat: Will Usha Chulikuri Vance be a moderating force on her husband J.D. Vance, the new Republican candidate for vice-president?
Vance can’t be that extreme, after all—look at the diverse and highly educated woman he married. (He wore a bindi and a South Asian outfit for their 2014 wedding ceremony, which was officiated by a Hindu priest; during a speech Usha made Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, she noted that the “meat and potatoes kind of guy” had adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food for her mother.)
The couple met while at Yale Law School, where he was mentored by law professor and “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua who encouraged him to prioritize his relationship with Usha; Vance has credited his wife with helping him navigate the elite institution.
We might assume that Ivy League-educated, professional women are liberal, wanting control over their bodies and the right to decide when to have kids—and wanting other women to have those rights, too. But could Usha be the one pulling the populist strings?
J.D. Vance speaks to supporters with wife Usha Vance in November 2022.
Andrew Spear
Many people ultimately make decisions based on what preserves or advances their power rather than what serves the common good. Proximity to power, meanwhile, brings together people who otherwise don’t even like each other—imagine what it can do for those both ambitious and aligned in their personal lives. (Interestingly, during her RNC speech, Usha claimed that her husband’s greatest ambition was “to become a husband and a father and to build the kind of tight-knit family that he had longed for as a child.”)
We are assuming that Vance himself is the one so craven with ambition he has bent to Trump’s will. But what if his spouse, say, urged him to rethink his former concerns that Trump could become “America’s Hitler” and instead suck up to his party’s standard-bearer? As the potential second lady, she has fallen into lockstep with well-resourced threats to immigrant communities, LGBTQ communities and all women.
Still, while political commentators and the American public might speculate about Usha Vance’s character, it’s not so much who she is as what she (potentially) enables that we should be paying attention to. Yes, we should be afraid.
The plans by the architects of Project 2025 and others are likely infinitely more harmful to many freedoms and government institutions we take for granted. We have already been witnessing the demise of some—take, for example, the appointment during Trump’s first administration of three Supreme Court justices (one of whom, Brett Kavanaugh, Usha clerked for) whose votes helped bring to pass the fall of Roe v. Wade and more recently a decision on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.
How could Usha Vance abide by these outcomes? “It’s safe to say that neither J.D. nor I expected to find ourselves in this position. But it’s hard to imagine a more powerful example of the American dream,” she said in her RNC speech, having claimed that her husband has always sought “to keep people safe, to create opportunities to build a better life, and to solve problems with an open mind.” She failed to acknowledge the dissonance, apparent to many, between these words and what her husband actually stands for from a policy perspective.
But it would be a waste of time to understand the motivations and thought process of any enabler. Not all patriarchs are men, just as not all feminists are women. Just because she’s a minority doesn’t mean that she will stand up for the rights of minorities. Just because she’s on the board of the Cincinnati Orchestra doesn’t mean she’ll question her husband’s sharp criticism of classical music.
Tom Williams/Getty
Before we let women soften men in the public eye, we should consider the role they might be playing behind the scenes. Samuel Alito’s wife Martha-Ann and Clarence Thomas’ wife Ginni have proven to be cut from the same or harsher cloth as their husbands; Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s wife Erin was part of the legal team that argued for Roe’s reversal at the Supreme Court. Even Dr. Jill Biden’s influence has been widely cited in recent weeks as a key factor in whether (or not) President Biden stays in the race.
When Ivanka Trump was asked in a 2017 interview on CBS’ This Morning program whether she had been complicit in her father’s misdeeds, she deflected the question. She seemed not to understand the meaning of the word.
Usha Vance has chosen silence for now, but when the question inevitably comes her way, will she be able to feign such ignorance?