From Macaca to MAGA: How one needling remark can become a political thorn for Trump

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Gastonia Municipal Airport in Gastonia, NC (AP Photo) TOI correspondant from Washington: Twenty years ago, a single word helped change the balance of power in Washington.In 2006, Republican Senator George Allen of Virginia was cruising toward re-election and was being talked about as a possible presidential candidate.Then, at a campaign rally, he pointed to S R Sidarth, a young Indian-American volunteer tracking his campaign for Democrat Jim Webb, and called him “Macaca” (monkey), before adding, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”The episode went viral, by the modest standards of the pre-TikTok, pre-X era, and transformed the Virginia Senate race. Allen's once-comfortable lead evaporated, and Webb eventually won by just 9,329 votes, giving Democrats the 51st seat they needed to take control of the Senate.Contemporary polling showed Allen's lead shrinking dramatically after the incident in a state with a significant Indian-American population adjoining Washington DC.The lesson was not that one offensive comment single-handedly decides an election (Allen was decidedly pro-India). It was that stray remarks a...