Elissa Devins

Apr 11, 2025

Dear Usha,

I recently had eggs at the Smith on the UWS with my longtime friends—two curly haired, close-in-age sisters who complete each other’s sentences and make me curse the fact that I was an only child who was forced to mumble late night confidences to my pet guinea pig, Chocolate Chip Little Nobie Hopkins Lubin (Nobie for short), or hide my friends’ shoes to delay their departure at the end of a play date.

During this raucous brunch of shared memories and giggles, the older sister (a brilliant Chicago art history professor and a funny, expressive soul) interrupted our conversational flow to, apropos of nothing, open her already large eyes, extra wide, and chime, “am I the only one obsessed with Usha Vance?” I assured her no. She wasn’t alone.

Though, before writing this letter, I wasn’t in fact, obsessed with you. You were, to me, a turncoat with a prestige resume, an eye for fashion and a good head of hair. (I rather liked that you showed up to your Republican Convention speech and Inauguration unafraid to let some gray strands poke through. A middle-aged, natural baddie of Asian persuasion! I wanted to admire you.)

But after reviewing articles and listening to a few of your interviews, I certainly don’t. My problem isn’t your flip to the Republican party or your messy political ideas, e.g, your past open admiration for Hillary Clinton and your alarm at the events of January 6th to clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Bret Kavanaugh. So be it. We can’t all be liberals through and through!

The problem started when you opened your mouth. The few interviews you’ve done and your recent statements to the press have made it hard for me to believe you are supposed to be the charming, socially adept one. On April 7, 2025, during this savage, unprecedented era of tyrannical, even Fascist leadership—immigrants swiftly imprisoned/ deported without due process and the rights of trans people and other minorities drop-kicked away—you uttered these words to the Free Press: “[t]o me, the highest priority right now is to be actually a normal person.”

Being a normal person is your highest priority these days? Gag me. Normalcy, Usha, is a relic of the past—only available to those like you who are insulated, powerful and seemingly blind to the reality of American life today. Though I have no claim on hardships these days, in my household, normal is watching my vibrant teenage son who is both trans and autistic read that our wacky, grossly ignorant Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy described the existence of an autism epidemic and claimed autism is a vaccine-caused scourge; in Kennedy’s own words: “They[kids] get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” (This statement is bananas on so many fronts but the idea that autism means your brain is gone, is not only wrong, it is harmful to Autistic people).

Normal is watching my son’s wan face as he reads news of anti-trans laws that tear through this alleged land of the free and the brave, only to realize, I have few words of comfort to offer him. Normal is sitting at our dining room table trying not to choke on my mediocre, dry pancakes as we read about a proposed a bill in Arizona that allows parents to sue hairdressers for giving gender-affirming haircuts to their kids, or learning that Texas has a glut of anti-trans laws and proposed bills, including a pending bill to make it a felony to identify as trans on any official document—jail time a possibility.

For minorities, particularly Trans and Black people in this country. normal is learning that the institutions that have protected them like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that investigates federal employment discrimination claims, have suddenly stopped taking (or de-prioritized) their cases, and instead, are hellbent on protecting the rights of those long suffering cisgender white people.

I take this moment to remind you that you’ve hitched your wagon to your husband’s horse by quitting your law firm job to be a political wife, and your hubby is lame. One day, you could be driven out of Washington— the memory of you as the wormy, head-bobbing Second Lady of the U.S.— undoubtedly faint. Then perhaps one day, your kids will come out as trans or develop some disability, and you’ll get to experience the botched-up normal that you helped create. Will MAGA still celebrate you? No. Their red carpet, they used to unroll for you, will be folded tight.

I understand that political wives like you have prioritized normalcy for themselves and their children. See Laura Bush decking the White House Christmas tree with old family ornaments and Michelle Obama taking her pup for a walk on the White House lawn. These were the days when political wives’ prioritization of normalcy above all else, wasn’t insidious. For these women, didn’t have husbands at the helm of a Fascist state. Their husbands weren’t ruling almost exclusively by executive orders. Their husbands weren’t targeting hard-working immigrants who’ve applied for ITIN numbers to pay into our tax system, for deportation. These men weren’t regularly deporting non violent refugees without due process or, holy shit, deporting green card holders for engaging in non-violent student protest. They weren’t (unlike your husband) spreading hateful and patently untrue lies to the media about immigrants eating cats that get passed along and regurgitated until people believe lies as fact. Relatedly, if you want to see a political family trying to live in oblivion during abnormal times, check out the chilling film Zone of Interest. Here, a Nazi during World War II tries to do domesticity—frolicking around their house that happens to border an active concentration camp. (Their attempt at normality is deeply sinister.)

So fuck your normal.

Let’s visit another jewel of a comment you made to the press recently. You breezingly said that the MAGA community has welcomed you and not made you feel bad for not looking like them. Well bully for you! Surely you’ve heard that other Indian-Americans who aren’t the Second Lady of the United States have been the polar opposite of warmly received by MAGA; they’ve been deported and handcuffed in military planes—Sikh passengers forced to take off their turbans.

If you looked around, you might notice that many Asian-American women aren’t feeling particularly welcome these days. One example, my Korean-American friend who is a particularly compassionate, gentle soul (and definitely not MAGA). She recently surprised me by telling me that she and her husband are getting gun licenses and that they spend their weekends at a shooting range. This makes some sense to me though; for immigrants of all varieties are being trash-talked (often by your husband, bull-horn in hand) and Asian Americans are still being targeted for hate crimes. (Even on the streets of NYC, I, as a Korean-American, am regularly subjected to anti-Asian comments and sometimes an aggressive physical gesture, e.g., recently a homeless veteran threw a glass bottle at my legs and yelled “go home Chinatown!”)

Nosy me, wants to know what you discuss with your husband after hours. I think of an interview, you did in August 2024 on Fox and Friends, in which the interviewer asked you if you and your hubby ever have political disagreements. You smiled and said, “We come to different conclusions all the time but that’s part of the fun of being married.”

Though your August interview happened before your husband’s inauguration, by the time you were interviewed, your life partner had already made some bonkers statements, e.g., lambasted the “childless left,” mocked Indigenous Peoples’ Day, proposed taking over left institutions to erase woke facts, advocated defying the U.S. Supreme Court, and said so many other outlandish, incendiary things that your sing-songy, pleased-as-punch statement about fun marital disagreements, made me blanche. (I imagine as you are a former clerk to Supreme Court judges, at least this proposal of your husband’s, must have raised an eyebrow?).

Perhaps this is just me, but when I think of “fun” marital debates, I think of my husband and I debating whether one can leave pepperoni pizza in a box on the dining room table for hours or arguing in bed how much of the blanket each person should take. I am certain if the two of us instead debated whether immigrants deserve due process before deportation, whether fabricating deviant immigrant behavior is a good idea or whether we should abort the friendly little trip to Greenland, that would be decidedly less fun.

In writing this letter to you I came across the words of Emmy Goring, the second wife of Herman Goring (the infamous Nazi leader who was the architect of the Nazi police state). In her autobiography, she wrote that a woman in love “thinks only of her partner’s success, and it is of little importance to her how he obtains it.” I’d like to think this isn’t you. Please don’t let this be you.

Frankly, it’s creepy that you seem to enjoy the Second Lady role with all its perks, i.e, custom-made Oscar La Renta dresses and the (no doubt) fleeting MAGA fan base. You’ve really leaned into the role of softening your husband’s ogre image. But I hate to break it to you- it’s a pitiable vocation and you stink at it. Take your husband’s complaint that the U.S. was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

In response to the fury that followed J.D.’s comment, you came up with one hell of an obfuscating take. First you dismissed his comment as a quip, which means “a witty remark.” Huh. (This tells me, as I suspected, that you don’t understand what’s funny.) Then you continued as follows:“What he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country, and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder.” This nonsensical interpretation of your hubby’s cat lady comment made me think of this silly kids’ game I’ve played with my family where one player says something while chomping down on a plastic mouth piece that is provided, and the others write down what they think the mumbles mean. The interpretations often have no overlap whatsoever with the original statement.

Frankly, I’m embarrassed that you are one of the highest profile Asian-American women in our country and you’re taking the submissive Asian female trope too far. I’m here to tell you, ‘tis not too late to straighten out of that deep bow. You’ve got a mind and years of schooling! But that’s all obscured when you get in front of a camera. See footage of yourself standing next to your husband —smiling and waving to non-existent crowds on a naval base in Greenland. Though you looked friendly and down-to-earth in your army green parka and smiles, many of us saw you for what you were in that moment: a dumb vessel of American hegemony. (I’m no rebel myself but if I was assigned this diplomatic mission, I’d have no qualms serving up a minor health-related malady. e.g, my tooth aches. my in-grown toenail. The sciatic nerve in my left butt cheek. It’d be my moral prerogative to shirk my duties. But you, more than showed up. You beamed on the landing. Gross.)

I can’t help but think of the women who served the Nazi party in Germany. Wives and girlfriends— often dolled up to look pretty — ensured good reception to Nazi speeches. Supposedly, Carin, the first wife of Herman Goring (the Nazi architect of the police state),who died, was an “an exceedingly charming woman,” who softened the image of her husband and the cause he served. These women, in my mind, were complicit in the crimes of their men—but possibly less so because the threat of death for any rebellion against the Nazis, was real. But you, I guarantee, will live if you publicly disavow any of MAGA’s practices/executive orders. (By golly, at the very least, take the easy road and perform your political duties like the First Lady Melania, in absentia. That’s better than what you are up to.

Just consider, even a Nazi wife (here or there) was capable of a modicum of bravery. Supposedly the second Frau Göring who’d worked in theater in her youth, and was married to Herman Goring, attempted to protect some of her former Jewish theater colleagues. Though I am not meaning to glorify a Nazi wife, I note she did what I only hope you are doing in the confines of your marital bedroom or other intimate spaces—appealing to your husband to have compassion for the vulnerable in our society and to change his conduct.

Maybe you are just a timid flower. When talking to the Free Press recently about how your husband often calls you from work, you said: “I don’t know that he’s asking me for advice so much as it can be a very lonely, lonely world not to share with someone.” My friends’ valid reactions to this comment centered on your lame attempt to paint your husband as a lonely victim but I dwelled on your passivity. You need not wait to be asked for advice dear, if you dissent to his words and actions in any way, just lean over and give him your mind. Giddy up!

In your marriage, I’m sure you’ve used your feminine wiles to curry favor—complimented him, shimmied over to him in a new slinky dress or offered him a pre-Cabinet meeting bj. Now is the perfect time to use your arsenal. After all, straight from the horse’s mouth (J.D.), you have a unique effect on him; slightly paraphrased (because I’m feeling too lazy to find the exact quote), your husband once explained that you are uniquely able to contain his volatility. Use that power.

Now I concede, as my husband pointed out after I told him I was writing you a letter, that you are possibly the least of the evils in a ruinous cabal. Sure, it’s true that most VPs are patsys without real power. But your husband is not your average V.P. He’s got Dick Cheney-level ambition with more hostility towards the downtrodden. See your other half’s inordinate hunger to make hateful, spurious statements to the press, e.g. making up rumors that Ohio immigrants were eating cats, that get regurgitated and spread until people believe it is fact. So, it’s time to reign him in.

As I’ve learned from a New Yorker profile, you used to have influence (or at least desire to have influence over your husband); in the years you were dating J.D., you supposedly kept a spreadsheet of worldly things you wanted to share with him. (One tangent: This fact immediately separated you and I; for I firmly believe the world is divided into two camps: those who use spreadsheets for extra curricular activities and those like me who scrawl notes in a notebook that they promptly misplace.)

Of course, I’m amused that Greek yogurt made your spreadsheet. (By George lady, Greek yogurt has been mainstream for ages. J.D. really was your Eliza Doolittle!). If this was the gist of your spreadsheet, I like imagining what other mundane things you put on this spreadsheet for him to try: Rao’s spaghetti sauce. An English cucumber. (Of course, I’ve already Googled “Usha and spread sheet” to no avail. Why not share this gem online? After all, if you won’t sway your husband and this Administration from all-out tyranny, at least you can make us giggle our stress away.) You owe us.)

If it’s true that you have the power to persuade J.D. to be a better man (and a yogurt-diverse man), and you don’t try—that’s legit bad. I get not wanting your inspiration to come from Nazi wives who rebelled against the Nazis but you can look elsewhere for inspiration. Consider that Roman empresses may not have had spreadsheets at their fingertips, but nonetheless, many of them became advisors and equals to their husbands.

I sense some hesitation or outright disinterest in this activist agenda I’d like you to commence. Maybe what’s stopping you are things are the classics: shyness, fear and apathy. (These things are potent.) If you must, start small and escalate your rebellion: wear a wide hat that conceals your eyes (a la Melania at Inauguration) so you can make angry faces in public spaces when racist, queer-phobic things are said by the MAGA crowd. Start writing outraged letters to Immigration Tzar Kristi Noem, in an encrypted language that only you understand. Then move things up a notch.

Though I don’t expect a full-scale transformation, e.g.,you on a soapbox raging like AOC or doing a one man show in Congress like Corey Booker, may I suggest returning to the old faithful—the spreadsheet? Though instead of Greek yogurt, add human compassion and respect for our judicial system.(While you are at, tell your spouse to take his paws off the Smithsonian’s fulsome collection. Not to mark myself a snot but I beseech you to remember this is a man who thought Greek yogurt was exotic and sophisticated. Imagine his taste in art.)

If you tear up this letter in a huff and take none of my advice, I fear you’ll be be lumped together with political wives like Emmy Goring who praised her villainous Nazi husband to the end—denying his well-established anti-semitism and seemingly erasing his crucial role in the mass extermination of millions of Jews and others in the concentration camps.

You don’t have to wait as Emmy Goring did, to be human. “I often wonder now,” Emmy wrote (in the years after the close of World War II), if we should not have been “a little more vigilant and when we saw injustices being done, if we should not have put up stronger resistance, especially to Hitler over the Jewish question.” (I’m sorry, you don’t get many points for retroactive regret).

Though I realize it’s hyperbole to equate the unique atrocities of the Nazi regime to this regime, there are important parallels so I will continue. If at the end of your husband’s term as V.P., all you can say about him., despite his continued insidious conduct, is that he is a great dad and do that less-than-charming bit of translating his poisonous rhetoric into sweet nothings, you will be an Emmy Göring. More than deluded. Complicit. (When Goring bit into a cyanide pill on October 15, 1946, to avoid the death penalty, she recalled in her memoir, “[h]ow could such a man have been made to suffer such a death—he who had always given so much to others, kindliness, the love of his fellow man, compassion and fidelity!” ).

Get working on those new spreadsheets!

CMCA