Prominent voices in the MAGA movement are calling for the deportation of FBI Director Kash Patel after the Trump appointee committed the apparently unforgivable act of celebrating Diwali.
Patel, who was specifically selected to gut the FBI's workforce and transform it into a "museum of the deep state," posted a cheerful "Happy Diwali" message on Monday, wishing followers well during the Hindu Festival of Lights. The gesture immediately triggered racist backlash from the same base that championed President Trump's sweeping executive orders eliminating all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the federal government.
"This is a Christian Nation. Check your foreigner stuff at the gate," wrote self-described "unapologetic Christian American" John McGlone, apparently forgetting that he spent January vigorously supporting the appointment of a man whose father fled persecution in Uganda and whose family maintains an 18-generation vanshavali in the village of Bhadran, Gujarat.
Political commentator Jeremy Carl, who describes himself as being "on the front lines in a war against secularism," reposted Patel's Diwali message as if it were a smoking gun. "Do you see the problem yet?" Carl wrote, his rhetorical question presumably directed at an audience still struggling to grasp that "merit-based hiring" means hiring qualified people regardless of what they pray to on Sundays.
The backlash arrives as a delicious footnote to Trump's January executive orders terminating "illegal and immoral" DEI programs, which the administration proudly declared would ensure federal employment "rewards individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work" rather than considering race, religion, or national origin. Patel, the first Indian-American FBI director, was confirmed by the Senate in February specifically because of his individual initiative, skills, and performance in promoting conspiracy theories about the deep state.
"Not compatible with American tradition," added Johnny Blacksmith, whose bio boasts he was "right wing before it was cool," apparently unaware that American tradition has included non-Christian FBI directors since at least Tuesday.
Trump's executive orders placed thousands of diversity officers on administrative leave and required federal contractors to immediately terminate all equity-related positions. The orders emphasized that hiring decisions must never consider an individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin — a principle MAGA supporters enthusiastically embraced right up until the moment someone named Kashyap Pramod Patel mentioned the triumph of good over evil during a Hindu festival.
Marine veteran Jim Eagle responded to Patel's post with a curt "Shut the hell up," cementing what political scientists are calling "the fastest pivot from 'merit-based opportunity' to 'wait, not like that' in recorded history."
