With Election Day comes an influx of electoral maps—and Donald Trump Jr’s is the latest to have tongues wagging. While electoral maps usually divide up the US states in shades of red or blue to designate forecasted Republican or Democratic victories, Trump Jr shared a world map segregated by the same values, and his designations have been baffling to say the least.
“Okay, finally got around to making my electoral map prediction. #2020Election #VOTE” he tweeted, sharing a pic of a world map with most of the world coloured red except for Mexico, India, China and Liberia as well as US states California and Maryland.
Whether he intended the map as a tongue-in-cheek reference to claims of election interference from around the world (with China, Russia and Iran all accused of interfering in US elections) or as a genuine forecast of global preferences, the map was baffling for more reasons than one. What stood out to Indian viewers, however, was the inclusion of India as a ‘blue’ state—ie one seen as against Trump, and in the company of China.
Worse, the map shows the entirety of Kashmir as being red while India is shown as blue, suggesting a critical divide. The entirety of the northeast was also excluded from India.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor reacted to the map on Twitter to take a jab at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign policy.
“The price of Namo’s bromance: Kashmir & the NorthEast cut off from the rest of India, &the whole ‘filthy’ place relegated by Don Jr to the realm of hostiles, along with China&Mexico. So much for the crores spent on obsequious serenading stadium events!” Tharoor tweeted.
He was referring to Trump’s recent statement calling the air in India “filthy” as well as to the massive PR campaigns held for both the Howdy Modi and Namaste Trump events—both of which ostensibly signalled Modi’s supposed closeness to the Trump camp.
Tharoor’s wasn’t the only reply to poke fun at Trump Jr’s tweet. Another user tweeted a more relevant map for Trump, considering the possibility that, should be lose the election, he would no longer enjoy the legal immunity from prosecution that has protected him from a slew of lawsuits.