The Democrats are gleefully celebrating their mid-term electoral triumph. Before they convince themselves that the US has embraced their progressive agenda, they should send the Republicans a thank-you note.
The Republicans had an opportunity to build a commanding majority around economic growth, competent government, and frustration with the excesses of the far Left. Instead, they pandered to their own extremists and handed the Democrats their heads on a silver platter. MAGA turned potential allies into reluctant Democrats or people who simply stayed home.
I was one of those who could not bring himself to support the extremes on either side.
For Indian-Americans, the Republican failure is particularly frustrating because they talk about merit, hard work, family values, and enterprise. They should be championing people like us, who study hard, build businesses, create jobs, and give their children a better future. Instead, arguments about H-1B visas became attacks on our accents, food, religion, and loyalty.
People who had spent decades contributing to America were told they did not belong. The Republicans betrayed the very principles that could have built them a lasting majority.
The Democrats should not confuse this alienation with enthusiasm for their policies. Many of the policies being marketed as “progressive” look horribly familiar to those of us who remember socialist India: Government-directed investment, wealth redistribution, and ration shops. We recognise the furniture, even if someone has changed the curtains.
Being driven away by hateful politics doesn’t mean we have accepted these regressive policies. American politics now resembles two pendulums swinging towards opposite extremes. One side scapegoats immigrants, while the other wants government to direct more of the economy, redistribute more wealth, and drag families into endless cultural battles.
The example that troubles me personally is that of Congressman Ro Khanna, a rising political leader I have long known and respected. Representing Silicon Valley, Khanna understands technology, entrepreneurship, and American competitiveness. He has thought seriously about how to revive manufacturing and bring opportunity to communities left behind. He knows that businesses create the wealth that politicians promise to distribute.
He is right that Silicon Valley’s prosperity has not reached everyone. But his remedies sound just like those that kept India mired in poverty. He calls this “progressive capitalism”. He has proposed a 5% tax on billionaire wealth alongside Bernie Sanders. He has also proposed a national industrial bank, with legislation directing up to $15 billion annually from existing China tariff revenues into loans, grants, and equity investments in manufacturers.
Using tariff revenue does not make the money free; we still have to pay for it, and the government gets to decide what business to fund. India’s Licence Raj taught us what happens in this scenario: Entrepreneurs compete to cultivate officials rather than gain customers, and bribery becomes a norm.
The wealth tax creates another problem: A founder’s wealth typically comes from ownership in a company rather than cash sitting in a bank. Taxing that ownership changes the incentives to invest in, build, and hold assets. India spent decades treating private success with suspicion, then wo dered why so many of us fled the country.
Khanna should understand the difference between making more people prosperous and reassigning prosperity.
Then there is Zohran Mamdani, a brilliant communicator and inspirational political figure whose affordability agenda includes establishing municipal grocery stores and freezing rents on apartments. His grocery proposal brings back memories of India’s ration shops. Affordable essentials were the promise — yet poor-quality grain, missing supplies, and food diverted before reaching families were the realities. Stamping a government-determined price on food did not ensure that it reached the person desperately waiting for it.
New York can give the idea a fresh coat of paint — but still has to explain how its stores will avoid the nightmares that Indians remember.
Then, there is rent control. You can freeze the rent, but the plumbing, insurance, and repair bills keep increasing. If controls make rental housing less attractive to maintain or provide, the family already inside gets relief while the family searching for a home faces fewer choices.
The common mistake is to focus on controlling prices and distributing existing wealth while neglecting the incentives to produce more. Governments end up distributing poverty rather than sharing wealth. India’s liberalisation showed what becomes possible when the economy is set free. The lesson was simple: Remove the obstacles to creating wealth before expanding the bureaucracy that decides how everyone should share it.
All that is missing in the Democrats’ progressive agenda are the five-year plans that India long abandoned. The good news is that politicians, in America as in India, always discover pragmatism when they actually have to fulfil campaign promises. Governing has a way of introducing slogans to arithmetic.
Even Mamdani’s grocery plan relies on experienced outside operators. Fortunately, the Democrats’ huge congressional majority gives them room to implement sensible policies without listening to their most extreme members. And voters often show more common sense than politicians: Deep-blue California rejected a proposed tax on billionaires’ wealth.
I even expect my friend, Ro Khanna, to return to the centre. He understands innovation and knows that the US needs more people creating wealth, more businesses growing, and more families sharing in the gains.
The Republicans have an equally important lesson to learn: You cannot build a lasting majority by driving away people who share the values you claim to defend.
America has given both parties another chance to find some balance. The Democrats should remember who handed them this victory, and the Republicans should remember why.
Vivek Wadhwa is CEO, Vionix Biosciences. The views expressed are personal