Stop talking about the Hispanics for a moment — what about Asian-Americans?
Apart from some fatuous self-congratulation from Asian-American liberals, there has been very little discussion of the 73-26 Asian-American margin of support for President Obama in last Tuesday’s election. That’s slightly smaller than the highest estimate of Latino support for Obama, at 75-23. Asian-Americans are a small minority now but their numbers are growing rapidly.

Most conservatives consider Asian-Americans poster-children for the American model of self-motivated success. The facts bear this out. The Pew Research Center reported last July:
Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, finances and the direction of the country, and they place more value than other Americans do on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success…
Asians recently passed Hispanics as the largest group of new immigrants to the United States. The educational credentials of these recent arrivals are striking. More than six-in-ten (61%) adults ages 25 to 64 who have come from Asia in recent years have at least a bachelor’s degree. This is double the share among recent non-Asian arrivals, and almost surely makes the recent Asian arrivals the most highly educated cohort of immigrants in U.S. history.
Compared with the educational attainment of the population in their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants also stand out as a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.2In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Asian-American kids occupy nearly three-quarters of the places at New York City’s exam-based high schools (including Bronx Science and Stuyvesant) although they comprise less than 12% of the student population. The main threat to the upward striving of working-class immigrant kids who study hard to get into top schools is the NAACP. The New York Times reported Oct. 15:
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other groups filed a racial bias complaint with the United States Education Department. They charge that reliance on a single test for determining who gets into Bronx Science and seven other specialized high schools discriminates against young African-Americans and Latinos. Other factors, like student grades, need to be considered as well, they say.
Asians “also stand out for their strong emphasis on family,” the Pew study reported. “More than half (54%) say that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in life; just 34% of all American adults agree. Two-thirds of Asian-American adults (67%) say that being a good parent is one of the most important things in life; just 50% of all adults agree.”





Please, Mr. Spengler, not you. Spaniards being hired by German firms used as an example of “bright Hispanics”? Spaniards are Caucasian Europeans. “Hispanics” are Latin Americans who speak Spanish because of Spain’s conquests and colonizations. My wife is a Spaniard, and I lived in Spain for eight years. Please don’t compare an apple with an orange. Confusing her with a “Hispanic” would be like confusing a Scot with a Jamaican.
The Spanish also have been some of the world’s dumbest racists for centuries. Latin American immigrants are now abandoning Spain (there was a piece in the Economist about this a month or so ago) because there are better economic opportunities in Latin America.
Thanks for your response, though your comment did not deal with the matter under discussion. Glad to hear that they’re abandoning Spain, as it was a mistake to ever let them in. A country that doesn’t have enough work for its natives has no business letting in large numbers of immigrants.
We in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Perú, Colombia, Etc, should have thought like you when “Mother Spain” dumped all the leftovers from their Civil War on us. They infected Latin America with their radical ideas and now their descendants are screwing up everything. Although I am grateful for the brave heritage of Castilla and León, I am NOT grateful for the Bolsheviks Spain has been so generously exporting since the turn of the 20th Century. You stay in your precious arid and ugly place and we keep paradise to ourselves. Just recall all your children, please. And keep king Bungalow Bill for yourselves too. He shoots defenseless elephants, we shoot kings.
Catino, if Latin America is such a paradise, why do we in the United States have such a problem with the illegal entry to our country of your nationals from “Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Perú, Colombia, Etc”?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Obviously the US not doing a good job at selecting who comes in. Do I have to prove that? That argument was presented against the Irish, and before against the Germans… yet some good came from both Huns and Mics. Some of the Spics are serving you well. Some were good Americans way before Germans and Irish arrived.
Think.
For the record: I am an American citizen, adopted Virginian by the grade of God. From a very young age an admirer of the ideals of the American Revolution. Since my happy acquaintance with The Roots of American Order, a Conservative but NOT necessarily a Republican. I deem Republicans as mere right-wing Liberals these days.
The “arid and ugly place” that you think Spain is has been and continues to be one of the world’s top tourist locations and an incalculably better place to live than any place I’ve seen in Latin America — and I’ve seen many. Latin Americans who can afford to travel love Spain — a civilized, modern country, with all the beauty and history of Europe, and they understand the language, too (while Peninsular Spanish is quite different from what you likely speak, but that’s another matter). You might want to check stats on national and individual GDP between Spain and any country in Latin America while you’re at it. Have fun trying to twist reality to fit your own feelings of inferiority. I and my wife the Spaniard will continue with our amusement with the Latin Americans who always seem to be descended from someone in Spain, but can never remember the exact relationship, nor from which part of Spain he came.
I speak Spanish. I’ve visited Spain dozens of times — I used to call on all the major Spanish institutions for Credit Suisse and Bank of America, and I’ve had plenty of time for side trips. I first was there in 1969, and spent a week in a Basque fishing village reading El Cantar de Mio Cid. I’ve written learned articles relating to Spanish literature, with a particular interest in Tirso de Molina. As glorious as (parts of) Spain’s history may be (other parts are wretched), the only thing that surprises me about Spain is that it took so long for the country to collapse.
David, by demonstrating the voting patterns of many Asians, you are offering proof of the left’s hegemony within academia, starting with grade school and into the universities.
The fact of the matter is, the out-sized success of Asian American can only be compared to Jewish Americans. And I am fully aware of the places held by Asians, at two of the most elite institutions. What story does it tell, when my sons, having attended both Caltech & MIT, were minorities, not only as Jews, but as whites? In other words, Asian Americans were in the majority, and as foreign students too!
Now, my emphasis on the left’s entrenched hegemony in academia, as a chief culprit in what is unfolding, comes into sharp relief, as the fruits of their (mis)labors (for decades) have come full circle – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/08/21/the-paradox-pitfalls-of-liberal-democracies-in-a-time-of-immoral-relativism-the-havoc-wrought-by-leftist-academia-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
For if this was not the case, how could such a successful group, such as Asians, become duly ensnared?
Adina,
I have said this before and I know it is taboo to talk about this but here I go again because it is true: the Republican base is basically xenophobic and very insecure. My particular experience led me to be a Conservative, a convinced reader of Russell Kirk, W.F. Buckley, Hayek, Friedman, etc. I have been to innumerable Republican, Conservative, and Tea Party meetings. Granted they are NOT the KKK but only a minority would respect a Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic coming into their circle. The equation “Hispanic=illegal immigrant” is in the minds of a great number of Anglo Saxons in the GOP. Otherwise one cannot explain how they have managed not to absorb one of the most traditional, naturally-born conservative crows ever to come to this blessed country. Russians and Arabs are better received among Republicans than Hispanics and Chinese. Many in the GOP dream of returning to the 1950′s and in fact they seem to be the cause why the party of returning to their 1950′s numbers! The Conservative movement in America has to return to reality and the GOP has to return to the great ideals held when they bravely resisted and defeated the immorality of slavery and Jim Crow. “And blessed your good with brotherhood” is not an empty phrase: we are a Nation under God and we are going to be brethren or waste the good Our Father gave us. The Dems play one brother against the other: we must uphold a true brotherhood of man or perish with the Liberal and Progressive hatemongers.
ERRATA: I meant to write “crowds”. My apologies.
I’ll say this in as politically incorrect a manner as I can. If all these over-educated graduate school participants, whether white, black, red, or yellow, and whether European, Asian, Jewish, or anything else, were so damn smart, then why the hell do they gravitate toward every tyrannical, dictatorial, murderous political philosophy and monstrous leader that the Marxocrats have put up year after year? Shouldn’t these people, given all their supposed education and touted superior knowledge, realize outright that the greatest gift to mankind in its political experience was the now lost American constitutional republic? I ask this question rhetorically, since these people have now destroyed the last, best hope for mankind. It is they who have plunged us into a new Dark Age.
You are full of crap. There were very patriotic Hispanics at a lot of those Tea Party rallies and they were cheered. I was there. Conservatives/Constitutionalists don’t give a shit where you are from as long as when you get here you love this country, want to be a part of it, and embrace its heritage and the constitution. And what do we get in return for our supporting people of character as opposed to race/ethnicity? Bull shit slander like yours. Why has no one on the left pointed out that a white person ran against Alan West? Why has no one pointed out that those who have ridden to his defense in the recount are the Tea Party, all those racist white hacks fighting for a black man? Oh that’s right. It never was about skin color, origin of country. It was always about using the visible means of difference to divide and conquer. But as long as the “minority” is a leftie, he’s still in. The right in this country is less bigoted, more inclusive, and more charitable to others than the left ever will be.
You bought the donkey talking points, hook, line, and sinker. And there is the real problem: name-calling works. In reality, the Republican base has been supportive of legal immigration, but wants to do something about illegal immigration. The donkeys have been quite successful at conflating the two. There is no tangible evidence of the “xenophobia”. Please wake up.
Folks: you say what you want. I still saw what I saw and heard what I heard. No hearsay here, no buying the donkey line. I was there myself. If you keep denying the problem that’s up to you. If you contact me I can give places, names, and specifics.
Go to h3ll, Catino. For all your jib talk about whites being xenophobic and wishing to go back to the 50s, I’d like to ask what the h3ll have YOU brought to the table. To this country? You all want to come here and enjoy the good life, but what have you given back? You all are little tribes and villages and wish to retain everything lousy in your cultures that you wished to escape. NONE of you are American is the old sense of the word. You are all hyphanated little tools being used to fracture us into even further splinters.
Again, to h3ll with you. You and yours have destroyed our country and I wish a LONG LONG life in the cesspool of misery you are about to undergo. Because there is now NO PLACE left to go!
“My particular experience led me to be a Conservative, a convinced reader of Russell Kirk, W.F. Buckley, Hayek, Friedman, etc. I have been to innumerable Republican, Conservative, and Tea Party meetings. Granted they are NOT the KKK but only a minority would respect a Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic coming into their circle.”
To put this as delicately and succinctly as I can, and without drawing a conclusion as to the veracity of your related experiences–whether they are real or, the invention of your subconscious or simply your invention–on the basis of my own experience…you are F.O.S.
“If you contact me I can give places, names, and specifics.”
What’s stopping you from doing it here and now?
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase put up or shut up.
I’ve had a different experience. In the rural deep South I encountered some racism as an Asian American. But even there, I met more people who were NOT racist, and also a lot of the discrimination I dealt with was more because I was culturally from the North than due to race – Asian Americans who grew up in the South seemed to assimilate pretty well. I also experienced some racism in small town Indiana, which I think was where the KKK originated. Except for that, though, when I’ve been to Libertarian or Tea Party or Republican gatherings in Michigan, Texas, Colorado and Massachusetts – I was welcomed warmly. I think most Americans are not racist and most Republicans/Libertarians are not racist either. The few who are often get the most media coverage, though, since it fits the media stereotype of Republicans and Libertarians. I have actually met more leftists who seemed sexist or racist than conservatives.
Reality is that discrimination exists in America but this is also a much less racist place than just about anywhere in the world. If you don’t agree, try living in Japan for a few months. Also, the solution to racism is not through government intervention – laws like affirmative action just make it worse. The solution is not to have groups of hyphenated Americans.
As far as the GOP reaching out to minorities – partly through stars like Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Allen West, Mia Love, Brian Sandoval… the party is no longer only an old white man party. Even though it’s racist, so I instinctively hate to go there, nominating a minority (like Jindal or Martinez or Rubio) on the ticket next time, either for Pres or VP, would force many low information minority voters to re-examine the GOP ticket. Is it worth doing despite being philosophically impure? I actually think the three I named would probably be as well qualified as most of the whites, so maybe it would even be philosophically OK.
The other thing is making the case for the GOP passionately – which Mitt Romney never did. That and he painted himself to far on immigration. I’m against illegal immigration, too. So are most of the Hispanics I know here in Texas. But what no one wants is profiling – many legal immigrants still have an accent and they don’t want to be harassed. We can enforce the borders, crack down on employers to check employment status and allow companies to sue competitors who break the law, etc., while at the same time reassuring minorities we won’t profile, we’ll fix the immigration system so it’s easier to legally be processed – right now I know cases where an American citizen has married an immigrant and it takes years for him or her to be granted legal status – and so on. Talk to Governors like Rick Perry or Pres. Goerge W. Bush, who managed to get 44% support from Hispanics here in Texas. There are ways to be pro-law and order and against illegals without coming across as mean. Also, Romney never passionately made the case for why illegal immigration is bad – how it hurts low-income workers, bankrupts hospitals and school systems, etc.
Unfortunately the media and the public education system are leftist. I advocate home-schooling your kids and turning off the TV as much as possible.
I’ve tried for over ten years to get the conservatives and Republicans to listen to reason, Catino.
Here, their replies to you reveal only a small part of their underlying problem.
Their current political philosophy is utter confusion. They claim to hate big government, but they love having a huge standing military, and they especially loive the war on drugs. They wanted more national security, but now they hate the TSA and the DHS, government bureaucracies that they were instrumental in creating and funding. Now, after doing all of that, they claim to hate the idea of any militarized civilian police force…and blame it all on their ideological opponents. They claim to like balanced budgets, but spent like drunken sailors when they were in charge. They claim to endorse individual freedom and liberty, but use government to limit the freedoms and liberties of other Americans.
At best, when you raise these and like points with them, they try to change the subject – usually by blaming their opponents or pointing to their opponent’s behavior – or resort to violent words, if not deeds, as you’ve experienced, here. Yet…they claim to be the party of civility.
This duplicity and dichotomy permeates their discourse and philosophy. Yet, they refuse to acknowledge it, let alone face it.They are almost perectly blind to their own faults and limitations. In many ways, they should be pitied.
They are blind, but claim that they, alone, can see.
We rotten, selfish, stinking whites “have not managed to absorb” the millions of illegal hispanics? Are you out of your cotton pickin’ mind? Illegals must not be “absorbed”- they must be jailed and deported. And that includes the swarms of brats they spew at will. It is the immigrant who must change and adjust himself to the new culture. Hispanics just don’t do that. They think and speak in spanish. They hate and avoid contact with anyone not hispanic. They are almost always lawless, lazy, greedy, noisy, selfish and stupid. They have no intention of becoming americans; but of turning america into another mexico. They honor deceit; not integrity. Their commitments are worthless. Their work is sloppy and shoddy. The vast majority are tincuppers, bought and paid for with our tax monies , stolen from us by the cartel of (mostly) white international bankers.Within forty years hispanics will be in the majority here. Your grandchildren will sit behind the yellow line and tremble for their safety.The worthless lot from south of the border pretends to a christian commitment, yet votes 75% for a sociopath who kills babies by the millions and avidly promotes the cause of sodomy.
There are a few exceptions and these should be welcomed, and “absorbed”. And my wife is chinese and our adopted son is mexican, so y’all can put your “racist!” silliness you know where.
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2012/11/09/what-about-asian-americans/#comment-83410
@Bonesteel: I believe the level of violence of those responses prove my point. Besides notice that I refer to some in the GOP and the general thrust of the GOP followers on that subject. That was immediately understood as “the whites” by those who have no better argument than insult. THAT PROVES MY POINT TO TEE.
Let us talk about “white” whatever that is. My ancestors, as far as the eye can see were Romans. If I remember my History well, when my ancestors landed on what is today England (more on that place later) they found some natives called the Picts. Today we would use the word “colored”. I am not making this up (ha!) Well, let me see: we moved them to the fullness of the Iron Age, we gave them the idea of baths, roads, parliamentary representation (“tribunes” and “senators”), mail (one could send a message to Ephesus from Lancaster!) the written word and much more. As far as I can understand very few Romans were dark enough to be called non-white by the crazy standards of today.
And back to England: on what basis do you present a case for racial purity when the coast of England was constantly raided by Danes, Norwegians, Britons (from France before 1066) Swedes, Icelanders, Irish, etc. etc.?
One day someone will have to explain to me how the offspring of so many bastards born from rape and pillage came to believe they are the inheritors of the white skinned Dorian. And those came from central Afghanistan and Northern India anyway…
Learn to read what writers write and don’t insert your own ideas in the text that is presented to you in good will as a mere intellectual proposition and NOT as a call to a brawl.
Keep this non-thinking going on and you may have a good chance to elect a dog-catcher for your party, folks!
Best to you all. I really hope one day we can have something better to offer.
Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.
The Picts were called that because of their war paint (woad), right?
Don’t know how old you are, but I’m a native Californian, from rural Northern California, and getting older than most. I also remember when “Hispanics” in our community were never referred to as such. They were considered another branch of the overall ethnic stock, sort of like the local descendents of Italians or Portuguese, and were completely assimilated, considering themselves as just as American as the daughter of the local Anglo-Saxon descendents, and perfectly likely to intermarry and work with everyone else. All of a sudden the pressure came on to consider themselves as another group –a pressure from recently arrived people of their genetic ethnicity. It was and continues to be sad to see such people challenged to de-Americanize themselves.
Catino,
I admire your passion and your path to a solid and intellectual conservatism in the revolutionary tradition. My daughter is in Arlington engaged in the public policy street fight of D.C., and she would agree with almost everything you say, except for the race victimhood. Maybe our perspective is a product of being 2nd generation white Americans, but my experiences have been different from what you describe.
I attended one Tea Party event, in a rural/exurb of Chicago — a very white area. Upon my arrival, I was solicited to gather signatures for a black Christian conservative to be on the Illinois Senate primary ballot. I walked the event for over two hours, and exactly one person refused to sign the petition — he did not know the candidate, and stated his skepticism of any candidate without a verifiable voting record running as a conservative. I had a bio sheet for the candidate with a big, joyful black smile … and every other (white) Tea Party conservative gleefully put him on the ballot.
White conservatives have flocked to support Allen West, Bobby Jindal, Susana Martinez, Marco Rubio, Condoleeza Rice, and to my great disappointment, Herman Cain. Republicans fully embrace racial minorities and legal immigrants. The question is why so many minority citizens buy the DNC/media propaganda campaign which labels us racists.
Catino, I think I speak for many people here when I say that if you are going to slur large populations of total strangers, you should have the backbone to use your real name in doing so, rather than hiding behind a false one.
You appear to know little about the Tea Party — suspect claims of subjective experience to the contrary. You certainly know nothing about the demographic realities of Hispanic immigrants in this country, since you deny certain facts. It is a fact, not a value judgement nor a stereotype, that assertions about cultural conservatism predominating among the ethnic group defined as Hispanic (I would prefer to view people outside such boxes, but since you and others here are choosing that unfortunate route, I’ll play your game) do not bear out statistically for core issues. Birth outside marriage and positive views towards socialist policies are higher, not lower, among Hispanics as a group. Hispanics — as a group — do not work longer hours than other ethnicities. They are more dependent on government aid and less likely to marry and support their own families. They are also more positive towards this sort of state of affairs, lest you write off such unfortunate tendencies as merely a product of temporary circumstances. Social indicators belie the political fantasies about social conservatism shilled by many Republicans regarding this demographic.
They perform relatively poorly in academic settings despite expensive, sweeping programs designed to aid them, although they also enroll in the military in relatively high numbers (though not as high as some advocates claim), which ought to be a larger factor in evaluating youthful accomplishment, on par with educational achievement, I think.
Demography is not destiny in America, no matter how much race peddlers wish to make it so: this explains the existence of so many devout, hard-working, and patriotic Hispanic citizens. But the drain illegal immigrants, government-dependent single parents, and other lifestyle-choice dependents create are real and substantial and fall hard on all wage earners. We have every right to talk about people who force us to support them, therefore taking money from our families and limiting our choices, whether they be black, white, or Hispanic. Every illegal immigrant is breaking the law, and we have a right to discuss the ramifications of that as well.
I’ve heard much harsher words directed at old white male RINOs at Tea Party meetings than at any ethnic or racial minority. Perhaps you chose to lecture people about your estimation of their identity-based failings and were rebuffed. I’ve heard that sort of attitude from two minority Tea Party members — yet I also don’t think it reflects a general trend.
In fact, I suspect that if you experienced a reception (perhaps imagined) that you deem prejudiced at Tea Party functions, it had more to do with what you brought to the table, which, if your comments here are any indication, include a thin-skinned tendency towards perceived bias; an obvious sense of innate cultural superiority; a high personal estimation of your intellectual powers, and a clear preference for thinking about people in terms of identity politics. Perhaps the notion of having to stand on your own two feet, without special deference to you based on skin color or national origin, was unsettling for you.
Also, it was the 1950′s when the Republicans were the ones opposing Jim Crow.
Let me offer you and all your peers who wish to be specially courted again and again: go be Democrats, then. The fantasy that white conservatives are making special efforts to recruit, or appeal to only white people is the real prejudice running through this entire comment thread. You can’t stand for equality before the law while endlessly pandering to identity politics. Just listen to the demands being issued — court me! Be specially sensitive to my culture and then I’ll come your way! Going down that road becomes a degrading game for everyone involved. Come to politics as a grown-up and an individual, and stop asking for special treatment, and you will be accepted as much as anyone else.
And if somebody hurts your feelings, tell them like an adult, don’t whine to me and less so about me. When did everyone become so infantile and needy? Your precious Buckley, Hayek, etc. didn’t think of or treat women as social or intellectual equals in the public square. I got over it. Try that for a change.
The Spanish also have been some of the world’s dumbest racists for centuries
How’s that? Most of Latin America’s population is meztizo.
The Spaniards are racist towards the Mestizos. Btw therr are fewer Mestizos than you seem to think and a lot more Indians in Latin Americans.
they aren’t racist than any other population, just that they are reserved
They don’t become your friend easily
David Goldman;
If Spaniards are so racist, why would they hire all those Latin Americans to begin with?
Q: When does an Hispanic become a Spainard?
A: When he marrries your daughter.
Q: When does an Hispanic become “white”?
A: When they want to hang him for shooting a black kid in self defense.
That is sad, however, true and funny.
Very funny, and very sad, considering Zimmerman had both Hispanic and black ancestry.
Very good point, the definition for Hispanic includes the King of Spain and Ecuadorian head headers. A tad wide in other words. Personal example, my Argentine wife is Polish-German Jewish in heritage. My kids have nothing in common with central American kids, yet they can claim some sort special according to some liberal inspired white guilt laws (aka racist)because they are Hispanic.
It really depends on the country. Cubans for example, are mostly pure-blooded Spaniards, while Dominicans are mulatto.
The ones here are. Cuba is a largely black nation.
I believe the whole Obama narrative over the last 6 years ,always bringing up race, making false accusations of ” dog whistle” words, has served to amplify any racial animosity that minorities feel towards whites! That was planned!
Indeed. I am originally from Spain (though I renounced my Spanish citizenship when I became an American); this idiotic American idea of putting us in the same bag as those South American “Hispanics” is the main reason I plan to change my name, to adopt an anglophone one, in the coming months. Enough is enough. The truth is that there is plenty of smart people everywhere. Now, because the “Hispanics” (ie, Latin Americans) that come to the US are for the most part uneducated, you just cannot put them in the same bag as Asian Americans who are, for the most part, highly educated.
That said, I find it puzzling as well that Asian Americans voted for the Dems in such large numbers. All the Asian Americans that I know, without exception, are of the hard working, family oriented, socially conservative kind. I cannot understand how is that they voted in such large numbers for the party of losers, drug addicts and sexual deviants. A real puzzle indeed.
Fernando,
Your statements below already provide the answer to what puzzles you…
As an immigrant from an Asian country that was liberated by the U.S. from Spanish and Japanish occupations, I understand why Asians are attracted to the purported message from Progressives about taking care of others (especially family and local community). But when Asians realize the real issues at stake and see the real core beliefs behind Progressives, they switch to Republicans who share more of their value system of hard work, saving life including the (I, for one, did and voted Republican all the way!) unborn, and faith in G_d. What I believe contributed to the greater number of Asians voting for the dear leader is the failure on the Republican side to connect with Asians through increased dialogue and outreach to this group of Americans who will one day play greater role in politics and government. Today, they are content and disciplined in achieving top spots in academia, science, and research… but not for long.
Now I believe, after this past failed election, is the time to get started and bringing the real message of life and liberty and the love of the U.S. Constitution to the Asians so that they can lead in the future, not with the Progressive’s false assurance but the love of country and serving her faithfully. It is in the blood of Asians to be patriotic, too, so now is the time to show and teach them the American way of patriotism!
To the one commenting about Asians taking advantage of the welfare system, please remember that no matter one comes from, given the situation they are in and the challenge they must face daily to survive, will be attracted to the available welfare to support their families and their needs. The problem is not in people, but in the welfare system that must be reduced to barebones so that those who trully need the help, the welfare is there to help them make it in America and reach the American dream! Asians, given the choice between welfare and opportunity to make it and achieve the American dream, will choose the latter in a heartbeat even if it will cost them a lifetime of sacrafices. Look at the children of 1st generation Asian immigrants and compare them with the others…You be the judge! Peace!!!
“That said, I find it puzzling as well that Asian Americans voted for the Dems in such large numbers. All the Asian Americans that I know, without exception, are of the hard working, family oriented, socially conservative kind. I cannot understand how is that they voted in such large numbers for the party of losers, drug addicts and sexual deviants. A real puzzle indeed.”
Unfortunately Asian kids receive the same education and cultural influences as everyone else – the proctological view of the United States.
In virtually every country they immigrate to, Asians have either lower fertility than the natives or they utterly assimilate. They do not matter in the long run. They are not a demographic powerhouse like Hispanics; it is not in their nature. Hispanics and blacks know how to use force to get what they want instead of futilely appealing to impotent merit. Merit and hard work in education haven’t been working out so well for whites recently, haven’t you noticed?
Asian conservatism with regards to the family won’t help them much here. Single moms and divorce exploitation are the new normal, even for Hispanics.
You forget that “whites” selected for admission in universities are not necessarily the most talented.
For example, the DOE head said a few months ago that universities who do not make their engineering, math, science, or technology admissions more gender inclusive will lose government funding. I take that to mean less qualified females will be selected over more talented males, or have I missed something?
Also, in many departments of universities the professorship is 70% female and disproportionately white. They defend to the death that their sons get admitted under legacy, instead of be subjected to all the gender, racial, ethnic diversity admissions nonsense. Would all their sons have been admitted in this litmus test of achievement vs. preferences? Not likely.
A friend of mine is a professor at a nearby state university. He told me a story recently about his sister, a policewoman in a major eastern city. Her teenage son came home from school earlier this year and said, “Mom, I don’t have a chance. I’m a white male.” If even a teenager can figure this out, it is in the open, blatant, and it is not going to go away.
When the yuan replaces the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and the billions of chinese spread out over the world you will see it somewhat differently.By and large asians do not hold to western values and, from a christian perspective, tend to be amoral. When that amorality directly impinges upon your lifestyle you will wish you had taken steps to insulate yourself and your family more effectively.But it will be too late. Ah, well…
This I disagree with 100%. I have worked with Chinese, VietNamese, and Indians, and while many of the first two do not have religion in the way we think of it and the latter are often pagan (although some were Christian, in fact), they were much more moral in the traditional sense – i.e., wait until marriage – than their European colleagues.
However, as a Jew, there is something that worries me. I recall a VietNamese colleague who actually believed in the International Jewish Conspiricy. This made sense from his perspective; without the knowledge of the 1500-year persecution of Jews by Christians which drove Jews to the US and Israel, it really is hard for him to understand why there are so many prominent Jews around. Combine this with the polls showing anti-semitism in half of Mexican immigrants (down to 20% the next generation) and prevalent Black anti-semtism, I fear for the loss of American support fo ISrael and possibly the return of serious American anti-semitism.
And yet, and yet … Chinese or Koreans have prospered when given the chance. Without their Chinese minorities, Malaya or Indonesia would be much poorer. Singapore, Hong Kong, S. Korea, Taiwan … from rags to riches in two generations every time. Not exactly the sign of a dysfunctional culture.
Asian voters go Democratic for 2 primary reasons
1) The Dem’s Race/Ethnicity coalition — voting Dem is a way of “giving it” to the white / male / traditional social hierarchy.
2) Technocracy — Modern left-liberalism can often be reduced to – in Mencius Moldbug’s immortal words – “put scholars in charge… of everything”. If you’re a scholar, this sounds like a pretty good deal.
This hits on the truth better than most analysis around here. The Democratic Party coalition is all about sticking it to the “white male patriarchy” (even if only implicitly so) and, as the “party of science,” putting “smart” people who don’t believe in outmoded, superstitious, Christian-based values in charge.
You take the trophy running away. All of the non-white groups really do want to stick it to the white man despite the fact that there is growing intermarriage between whites and Asians, and whites and (already partially white) Hispanics. In fact-anecdotally, at least-the most eager to stick it to the white man, are the products of such marriages. But it is your second point that gets you the new car. Bright, overly educated Asians have realized that it is they who are on track to hold the levers of power in the next New American Order.
Only if they assume spanish surnames and learn to speak texmex.
immigrants have made a disproportionate contribution to American economic growth in recent years.
In previous years as well. Worth noting on this sad 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht. And the contributions were well worth their economic translation. They were technological as well as cultural.
Quality immigrants are always an advantage, when they arrive in a country that truly appreciates talent and knows how to saddle it for its own good. Is this the present situation in the US?
We have yet, as a nation, come to terms with the problem of “race,” “ethnicity” and the progressive version of “inclusion.” I reject all definitions of immigrants as hyphenated Americans. Kudos to Bern for his commemoration of Kristallnacht. Here is my blog on the “progressives” and their undermining of unhyphenated Americans. http://clarespark.com/2012/11/09/race-and-the-problem-of-inclusion/.
Clare, and Bob in Virginia: That is my point. But it is not mine. I got it from the most beautiful of our many beautiful patriotic songs:
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion’d stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness
America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.
If we don’t hang together as brothers we will be hanged together as fools.
The “race” preoccupation in American culture is foolish at best and dangerous at worst. You see that when contemplating the forces at play in the last two elections. That sickness will bring much pain, like slavery did. Eventually I believe the natural decency of the American people will be refined in suffering and bring forth the “new race” that the American Revolutionaries talked about.
Yes, Americans need to get over race. In fact we could be there already. For the Right it is a matter of temperament (see Scruton’s definition of conservatism) and that is both more understandable and subject to change over time. The Right is culturally defensive.
But for the Left these divisions are profitable. The Left needs to exacerbate them for success. The Left is culturally aggressive. And I feel they have already taken us backwards.
For many Chinese Americans and American ex-pats in China, one of the main reasons that the re-election of Obama was welcomed was that the difficult relationship between the two countries will likely be more stable than with a Mitt Romney presidency.
Personally, I probably have more in common with Romney in terms of values and ideology. But it brought me chills every time I thought of Romney declaring China as a currency manipultor on the first day in the White Office if he was elected as the American president. Campaign strategy aside, Romney’s belligerent stance toward China turned off many Chinese Americans, myself (a Canadian) included.
If by “more stable” you mean that China will grow ever more powerful while America weakens and is more beholden to its Chinese creditors, I am sure you are absolutely correct. I suppose if I were an expatriated Asian, it would tickle me no end to contemplate, and even to help bring about, the demise of the America that prevailed in the Pacific War and has kicked economic butt in the Far East ever since. Until Obama, that is.
Sign me, hunkered down in the Northern MidWest.
Well while surely your sole loyalties lie with your adopted Canada, I can tell you that if China moves to take islands from Vietnam, Philippines, and Japan; if they will not leave Tibet, if they will not stop obstructing the ending of North Korea; if they will not stop spreading arms to the United States strategic opponents; if they will not stop manipulating their currency to our disadvantage–then should expect we will at length move to oppose them. If this pushes over their rickety corrupt, a illegitimate government and results in a decade or a millenia of warlordism in China, then that is what they have bought by letting things get to that point.
Americans of Chinese origin should have no more divided loyalties than does and American of Jewish origin. When the interests of the two nations however rarely diverge, they should be American.
So you are saying is that Chinese immigrants will support China at the expense of the US. China certainly thinks of the US as an anemy. Do you think then it would be a good idea for the US to ban further immigration from China and Taiwan, as it once did?
Correctly identifying China as a currency manipulator, which every other nation in the world as well as China itself recognizes as the truth, is seen as belligerent toward China in your eyes? Sorry to be blunt, but whose side are you on? If your heart leans toward China, you could always follow your heart. It’s clear that you’re not a citizen of the country in which you live, at least not in your heart. Immigration documents are easy to print and distribute, but they don’t make a citizen.
I have to admit I was a bit perplexed as to why Romney would specifically name China in his late campaign advertisements. He should know better than anyone that the best way to deal with “cheaters” like china is to make the US more competitive by killing stupid tax policy and excessive regulation. China isn’t really *that* competitive.
China has super cheap labor. So what? If those jobs weren’t there they’d probably be starving to death. China’s downfall: Communist party where corruption and pay for play is the norm, and a general lack of integrety due to an education system that has denied God (and therefore anything beyond “party” morals). That’s their key vulnerability. Unfortunately the US is racing headlong into embracing China’s corrupt system.
It’s good to see your dual loyalty proclaimed without the slightest bit of heistance.
This is the reason that the USofA is doomed. It will be a collection of economic immigrant colonists, feeding off the carcass, going forward.
White European Americans need to form a collective exclusive identity and pursue their interests doggedly.
I agree with oolala – Chinese i know here in Canada were anti-Romney because he was seen as unfair to China, mocking him “as if Americans really want lower skilled manufacturing jobs”.
And as a recent PJM piece pointed out, there are no “Asians” in Asia. What percentage of American “asians” are Islamic?
Nice piece === Here is another idea. Is it possible that Asian cultures value social harmony more than white Americans. Also many of the Asians I have met work in technical fields (medicine, data processing, engineering, etc.) where government participation is extensive. It would be interesting to see if Asian voting paterns differed from college educated whites? (especially college educated whites in technical fields).
One futrther thing, David. Do you still hold to the argument you made in the October 4 article, “The Character Test in the 2012 Election”?
All the best.
I think you raise an important point. If bright Asians have been directing their energy and attention to their own tech fields, it would not surprise me to learn that they picked up their social and political positions from academic colleagues.
Culture is important. I find it amusing but somewhat disquieting that so many commentators believe we must have immigration to innovate. What? have all the children of these innovative immigrants gone to sleep?
Letting in any immigrants whose primary political motivation will be to support more immigration of their own group into the country isn’t very bright. Amongst other things, it says that their primary loyalty does not attach to the country in which they are living. Its a matter of convenience for them. And when things go bad it may be more convenient for them to screw the country they’re living in. In essence, the original inhabitants of the country don’t really matter to them, and if the chain of unlimited immigration is allowed to continue the folks who allow this will become a despised minority in the land that used to be theirs.
Such a strategy didn’t work out so well for the Roman empire, nor did it for the Celtic inhabitants of Britain whose last remnants were driven into Wales. And how would it work for Israel today? What possibly could go wrong with letting unlimited immigration of Palestinians into the country and giving them full citizenship?
Letting anyone to immigrate into the United States, whether they have a PHD or not, is rather stupid when their primary loyalty will not be to this country. If they will not or cannot assimilate they should never be allowed to become citizens. Ever. And the probability of assimilating any group is inversely proportional to their size. Large groups of immigrants group to become tiny countries within countries: ghettos, barrios, “chinatowns”, whatever.
Catering to the barbarians at the gate is never a good idea. Its the path to ruin.
Unanswerable common sense, which is why it will not be answered.
You have just described the theft of the Americas from the original indigenous peoples by the colonizing forces of England and Spain.
So? They weren’t indigenous. They came from somewhere else. In fact the ones that the Europeans ran into were the invader who killed the people they found – who had happened to have trekked over from Europe.
My point being that when we came over we built something. We built a civilization. We created the greatest standard of life that the world has ever seen.
Can you say that these who come now will contribute anything? Or, is it more likely they come with malice in their hearts with every intention of tearing down all that has been built?
Your views are the reason that Asians don’t vote Republican.
They know that within the Republican party there are plenty of other nativists like yourself who view all foreign-born as “barbarians at the gate.”
A guy from India or China with a Ph.D. in science or math is most likely coming here to see if he can make it here as a U.S. citizen. But he has nothing to prove to you.
If he’s really good, he can write his own ticket. If you don’t want him around, fine. He’ll just be another one of the 70% of Asians who voted for Obama.
I’m grateful for the many informative (and unintentionally informative) responses.
As I said, some serious work is required to understand Asian-American support for Democrats, and the anecdotal evidence in the comments is enlightening.
It makes sense that
1) Obstreperous nativism will offend Asians as much as Hispanics;
2) Romney’s China-bashing didn’t make any friends among Asian-Americans (it was the stupidest part of his pitch); and
3) Immigrants who value higher education will tend to adapt to the prevailing liberal culture in the universities.
These and other observations are most helpful. Thanks to all for posting.
I think that Romney’s China bashing was a half assed attempt to overcome the ads that were apparently run in the northern midwest claiming that Romney would send all their jobs to China. They were stupid ads that would only be believed by stupid people but they were apparently effective as you can see from the electoral map.
After Tuesday I think it is pretty obvious that America has changed so much that it is not the country I grew up in and that, while Republican ideas are correct about the economy, there is no chance of those ideas being implemented in my lifetime. All this rah rah what do we do next stuff is like cheer leading in mid November 1932, “Yeah guys, we’re down now but 48 years from now in 1980 Ronald Reagan is going to be elected! Yay team!”
Spengler,
As your biggest fan I must say sometimes I am really amazed at your inability to make the connection between women’s rights, religion, abortion etc and the failures of the republican party. You were one of the few blasphemous conservatives who had the balls to call George Bush an idiot and repudiate the folly of nation building in Iraq. You even went so far as to criticize the republicans for refusing to acknowledge the stupidity of the war in Iraq. So why don’t you get it?
You are clearly an intelligent person so I can’t understand why you refuse to acknowledge that these women’s rights/abortion issues don’t scare the living shit out of people. You live on the Upper East Side for gods sake! You unrest and people’s mind set. Honestly, I refuse to believe that any intelligent person, regardless how they feel personally about abortion think that some other person having a abortion is anyone’s business. This personal intrusion in the private individuals life scares the living shit out of any person who values their privacy. Being associated with idiots like Rick Santorum, a guy in 2012 who talks about getting rid of birth control? Or how a senator on the science committee can talk about legitimate rape and a woman being able to stop the pregnancy? Or saying a child of rape is gods will? This doesn’t disturb you? These people are stupid idiots! And unfortunately they represent the views of a number of their idiot constituency.
One more time. If the republicans continue to insist on sticking their noses in women’s vaginas, they will end up sucking ass. And that is where they are at. Spengler give your background you have this complete contempt for liberals because you know how sick they are and how they just want to have power over people and control them. Wake up, the religious are the same. 80%of religious leadership and their flock are phony power hungry scum. Maybe 20%actually care about a persons spiritual development.for most it is just a way of getting power. And this intrusion into people’s personal lives is the classic proof. How can you tel a phony religious person? Simple, theygo out prostletising telling others how to be better Christians/Jews/Muslims etc.
And as far as feeling sad for the poor catholic church who have to provide birth control and abortion to their employees, I say F*!? ‘em. They got what they deserve. They support the most destructive new entitlement I world history, specifically designed to destroy this country. THAT is ok! Interfeering in your employers private life is just Finland dandy. Hows about a complete exemption from modern healthcare for Christian Scientists who like that idiot senator think disease is gods will?
I really can’t believe that you or any intelligent person, PARTICULARLY A JEW, would actually want a women’s personal choice to be dictated by some idiot beurocrat. REGARDLESS how you feel about abortion privately. Don’t listen…but at your own peril.
Best regards!
Thenachash
Abortion as a personal decision sounds good on paper. Look into the eyes of a child, spend some time with one. It didn’t exist a short while ago, and then it came into existence – from where? The spark of life is in its eyes. It is the most miraculous thing you will ever encounter. You don’t kill something like that just because it is inconvenient, or for any other reason but to save some one else’s life. Abortion is a selfish act in the worst sense of the word. It was illegal for centuries because people understood that. We have become so small and self centered that we kill our own offspring.
Thenachash
Those idiotic candidates were rightly dismissed by their colleagues. To put them up as typical is just specious.
What century are you living in? The Catholic Church has no power whatsoever to control any woman’s private parts. Women aren’t forced to work for the CC and can seek employment elsewhere if they want BC coverage. The CC isn’t stopping them. Pro-choice also means respecting the rights of those who do not want to provide products they are morally opposed to.
The CC can easily get around the ruling by switching all its workers to part time where it would not be obligated to provide ANY health insurance. But the point is to force the CC to provide something they’re morally opposed to, right? And if hundreds of people get their hours reduced and lose their coverage, well that’s just the price we have to pay.
Why do the PhD’s HAVE to come here? If they are so valuable why don’t they contribute to their own countries? Why does THIS country have to be the depository for the whole planet?
PhD stands for piled higher and deeper.most phd’s are given in the so called humanities.90% of these theses are such garbage
Where does the specific concept of a PhD come from and who’s science and math are we talking about? Yes it is barbarians at the gates if you’re talking about what one brings to the table relatively speaking. All the polite political correctness and blustering about equality won’t change that.
I see Americans and Europeans at sea when it comes to an understanding of how effortlessly superior they are compared to the rest of the world. It’s not even a close call. No matter how trivial a bit of info I read about when it comes to Western culture, the innovation is obvious. I was reading about the making of the early James Bond films recently and they’re practically inventing technologies for the films. Multiply that by about 10,000 and get back to me.
The sophistication, creativity and diversity of Western culture is staggering compared to the Third World. Let’s be honest, when we showcase the cultural artifacts of other nations, it’s unintentionally patronizing. Let’s not confuse population explosions that mimic productivity and creative energy like Brazil and China with true game-changing cultures like the West.
Fewer Europeans, a less bright America. That’s not an opinion or wish or dream but a fact based on a rising graph these last 200 years that separated itself from the rest of the world and soared out of sight. Seems even conservatives are somewhat ashamed of their own culture and seek to mitigate its accomplishments. It is what it is.
That’s culture, not race. One of the reasons the Japan did so well in WWII (and before that against Russia) is because they were in fact a partly European nation in culture at that point. If they come here, they will become “European”. (Not all of Europe is of that culture. Look at Russia.)
The great flood of Mexicans did not come here to become Americans. Look around you. Do you see any assimilation going on? I submit that American culture is the weaker of the two, since we have gone through decades of blame America first, multi culti suicide and pop nihilism. We have very little left of a culture to give our children, and the schools certainly arn’t doing anything for them along those lines. Ask any college student to name the first five Presidents. I have – they failed. Spanish American culture on the other hand is very strongly embedded and has not at all been weaked by the same influences. We are in trouble, but only if we know enough to care about it.
Goldman talks about GOP having to reach out to Asians, but all this ‘reaching out’ business doesn’t do much. There are only two ways parties can win over the electorate: giving them what they want AND being associated with ‘correct values’. Dems won the blacks by giving them welfare, government jobs, and ‘affirmative action’. Dems also won Hispanics by offering welfare and amnesty. Now, Dems didn’t do much for Asians and indeed didn’t even reach out to Asians, so why did Asians go with Dems? Because for Asians, the Democratic Party is ASSOCIATED with cool, hip, and attractive things.
A lot of Asian-Americans are well-educated, which means they’re well-indoctrinated by the teachings of leftist/radical/decadent/liberal/whatever Jewish or gay professors who dominate the academia. Asians also love pop culture. Asians tend to be more respectful of authority, and it just so happens that most of the top institutions are dominated by liberals. And so, Asians come to associate liberalism with good, correct, wonderful, hip, and moral stuff. So, even if Democrats don’t appeal to Asians directly, many Asians feel that Democratic party is the place of the cool and hip. After all, aspiring Asians soon learn that most successful Jews and whites are Democrats and socially liberal. Asians are status seekers, and so they naturally follow along. Asians tend to be conformists, and they will readily conform to whatever the prevailing ideology or attitude is. If Asians attend elite schools, they will soak up the attitudes and values of their professors and Jewish peers. Also, Asians are sick of the lame and wimpy ‘model minority’ tag. It implies they are loyal dogs than cool uppity rebels like blacks. And so, Asians don’t wanna be tagged with conservatism.
Also, GOP is no longer the party of success, excellence, and prosperity. 2/3 of the superrich are liberal/Democratic. And even many of the rich Republicans are socially liberal and always apologizing for the dumb people they’re associated with in the GOP. Laura Bush and her girls are for ‘gay marriage’. So are the women in the McCain family. Remember that NY Republicans voted for ‘gay marriage’. And with so many white trash being part of the GOP, one cannot even say it’s a pro-family party any more. And what is so pro-family about characters like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani? Also, there are too many dummies like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and other Creationism-believing lunatics in the Party. What self-respecting educated person wants to belong to such a party?
There was a time when the Democratic Party owed much to blue collar labor and the Unions. And so, many young pro-business types voted for Reagan in the 80s. But Clinton stole the free enterprise thunder from the GOP in the 90s when he fully embraced globalism and stabbed Big Labor in the back. The New Democratic Party became a welcome place for big business. Ever since then, most superrich gravitated to the Dems. Why? While most rich folks may prefer low-tax policies of the GOP, they happen to be socially liberal. Once Democratic Party bridged social liberalism with free markets and reasonably low taxes, it became the party of success. The rich and successful no longer need to find shelter in the GOP to find favorable business policies. Even the so-called socialist Obama only bailed out Wall Street and did everything for crony capitalism.
Hahahah. You’ve been subverted by libs. Try human beings.
Conservatives should come up with a clever name to stick this junk hyphen junk right back in the face of the Dem Party, and to remind people how they are being used and pandered to, and allowing themselves to be used and pandered to. Shame these people.
Umpire: “Oh, was it a Jewish guy pitching. Might be a ball.”
“No, it was an Asian. Could’ve been a strike.”
“Well, it wasn’t a woman. I’d have called it a wild pitch.”
“Hahahah.”
“Hahahahah.”
In many ways Asians are more ‘white’ than whites. Higher grades and SAT scores, lower crime rate, harder working. They are on the other side of whites from blacks and Hispanics. In a sense, more “white” than whites. So they should be voting even more Republican than whites. All of the previous referring to ‘as a group’ of course.
Keep in mind that they count a lot of Hispanics, Italians, Slavs, etc as being “white”. Real proper Anglo-Saxon whites, the kind who truly built the country, as as decent as any Asian.
my observations as an asian on asians.
an indoctrination that equates education with job creation. a belief that failure is catastrophic, therefore you work to avoid failure. (thus the asian work ethic is thus very different from our ethic which is to produce value or wealth). a feeling of resentment and entitlement when they find out that knowledge is not wealth.
thus wealth == knowledge to many asians. success is to get paid for displaying your acquired knowledge. but we conservatives know that knowledge is not wealth, (wealth is created by knowledge applied to fill a market need.
IMO, these tendencies and attitudes create a dependency and love of authority (licensing boards, regs, etc that limit lay competition and create value for knowledge).
A word of explanation: Yes, Asians are bright, hard-working, and family oriented. The also want to get their kids to g into the best colleges in the country — sometimes with a passionate intensity; and, sadly, their children are discriminated in this regard by, among other things, A. A.. So why aren’t they conservative? If you want to get into Harvard, advertising that you are conservative is not the way ahead. And once you have donned a liberal mask — this to give you an edge over the other kids with 2300 – 2400 SATs, it is very difficult for a young person to say: “Yes, I am something of a hypocrite.” Besides, those accepted in such prestigious institutions (if only they knew how second rate many of them are!) genuinely like their liberal classmates (and why not?). And for every Asian accepted in the top schools, there are 3 or 4 rejected — and they aspire to be like those accepted.
Until our universities are ideologically color blind, expect most Asians to wear liberal masks — and vote liberal.
VERITAS, Parchellan
True. Unfortunately we do not have among us a Buckley, a Russell, or a Muggeridge anymore. We have Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly. And we are being defeated by those who are just a little less dumber.
You are incorrect in so many ways. The hatred of the Left predates Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others like Michael Savage.
The Left hated Buckley and Russell.
The Left hated Rush Limbaugh et al a whole lot more because the audience/readership for said Conservatives is much larger than that of Buckley and Russell.
The Left will tolerate Conservatives with small audiences.
The Left is not despondent of the fact that Conservative Radio is much more successful than Progressive Radio because the Left controls the K-12 and colleges: an audience/reader of at least 100 million.
Get a Conservative to make inroads into to K-16 group and the Left’s hatred will go nuclear.
I stand corrected. I still miss Bill Buckley (and Russell Kirk).
I’d like to offer some insight as Asian myself
(1) Asians do depend on welfare and entitlement. Especially for older, non English speaking crowd who can realistically only find jobs in their community. The fact that a greater percentage of Asians enjoy higher income compared to other groups should not obscure this. Also many Asians come from nationalist countries where their view on the government is hardly libertarian. Bailouts and protectionist “buy our brand only” sentiments were either a reality or welcomed.
(2) A prestigious college is hideously important to an Asian. Asians who run ethnic markets or shops rely on cheap Latino labor (no unions there). So opposition to amnesty or the dream act is not a plus for that group.
(3) Many, many Asians detest the United States (especially Koreans). Even expat liberals in Asia are turned off by the anti – American sentiments and massive demonstrations based on laughable myths and misconception. For some Asians Obama represents a humble, repentant “I was wrong to mistreat you” you candidate that’s supposed to be an anecdote to the arrogant, capitalistic America or the west in general.
Asians aren’t likely to come out in force in every future election where someone like Obama (or an Asian candidate) isn’t involved, so the GOP’s emphasis on winning Latinos isn’t misplaced.
It’s probably best for the GOP to cultivate viable Asian candidate, and become familiar with certain cultural issues (like the ongoing tension between Japan, Korea and China). Distance yourselves from certain OG crowd who are nasty xenophobes who haven’t abandoned social patriarchy from their motherlands.
If Asians do continue to grow, then they may start to develop a bit of a power struggle between the Latino segment of this “coalition”. Asians and Latinos don’t always have the easiest relationship. It sounds shady, but if there’s any sign of defection, the GOP should pounce.
Can’t help but feel this is a red herring. That 73pc sits pretty well along side the 70pc of Jews who voted for Obama. Latinos aren’t the problem either, and women went to Obama by a margin of 12pc over Romney.
The central problem is the GOP itself. Will anyone argue that the election shows the Stupid Party got smarter and is just misunderstood and misrepresented?
A truly painful example is the GOP secret weapon, the Orca big-data software installed at campaign HQ in MA, which was a monumental flop. Start here: http://tinyurl.com/alv893r — and weep. You guys can’t be trusted to manage a piss in a bucket.
Toss in goofball moralists — to call them ‘social conservatives’ is to extend a courtesy they don’t merit — and the country club, Christie and the damaged ‘intellectuals’ who see themselves as keepers of the keys to the kingdom…and you’ve got a recipe for catastrophe.
Yet here so many sit, in imitation of the three monkeys, oblivious to why many of us who did actually vote for Romney had a hard time holding our noses and pulling the handle. We did it anyway, with deep misgivings. But we will not criticize the groups you blowhards now try to single out as the source of your humiliation. Do you really believe you have a monopoly on patriotism or that many of those who won’t vote for you are less concerned than you are?
You did it to yourselves. And you haven’t yet begun to pay the price.
There goes the myth of “the great manager.” A classic case of Peter Principle methinks.
You can never overlook the interpersonal effect of social conservatives, most of whom have always struck me as ignorant yet authoritarian douches.
All of this has a multiply-by-X factor when you consider the effect of relatively few handfuls of social conservatives interacting at workplaces, etc. And all workplaces have these. Doesn’t take too many wingnuts to convince vast swaths of potential allies that the GOP is the wingnut “hatred” or “anti” party on a personal or visceral level.
There’s no end of wingnuts who post here and exist in the wild who view American Exceptionalism as not the happy geographical accident it was (enlightened men of reason starting a new country on a geographically isolated continent loaded with absurd natural resources) but as a birthright of superiority handed to them by their deity.
Then why do the biggest and most intolerant jerks seem to be atheists?
Not to mention ignorant.
(Not to paint with a broad brush – I know there are normal, tolerant athists out there. But I’ve never met a religious person in the US who wanted to ban me from teching my religion to my children, as some atheists do. The whole attitude is thorughly unAmerican, and this fact is a great part of Ame4rican Exceptionalism.)
Then why do the biggest and most intolerant jerks seem to be atheists?
I disagree with this assessment; in multiple decades of real life experience I’ve found that atheists are by and large far pretty tolerant.
However just to humour you, let’s take your claim at face value and posit that atheists are jerks. SO WHAT. Atheists aren’t representatives of the church of superior morals and ethics that the intolerant wingnut variety of christians are. They’re atheists, an unorganised band of unbelievers, not a unified faith with buildings.
I thought I was pretty clear that *most* people of faith are decent and not wingnuts else why would one bother making the distinction. I think that you who are in the wingnut camp are just as emotionally compromised as your leftist equivalents, making the automatic assumption that observations about the few are broad brush condemnation of the many. You might want to check the settings on your Persecution Complex software.
@randomengineer:
The fly in the ointment of Conservatism are those. Conservatism is going nowhere not because it is a bad idea but because it is marketed by morons. Things will get better. May be two or three elections from now… if we still have a country.
At the risk of being labeled a conspiracy theory devotee, I just can’t shake the suspicion that there was some massive fraud going on in this election, that it was stolen. How better to steal votes than to install a virus in the electronic voting machines (just the ones in swing states)? What if ORCA was infected with malware by a mole in the Romney campaign and did the opposite of what it was supposed to do? It simply doesn’t add up that 8 million white voters stayed home. Just the sheer numbers of crowds that R&R attracted surely was a strong indication of high voter turnout.
On the other hand, we have avoided the promised rioting that would have occurred had Obama lost, but at what cost? I say, like many others, the House should just rubber stamp every little thing the administration asks for to hasten the crash. Then it is on Obama’s record. Get the collapse over with soon, rather than a long hemorrhaging of jobs and currency value, and we might have a better chance of putting the pieces back together again.
I’m not quite ready to don my tinfoil hat on the voter fraud issue but I am inclined to agree that we simply let them have their stinking way on everything & let the chips fall where they may. I really want to see these Obama voters regret their decision to put him back into office.
Anonymous:
1. They want to witness death by a thousand cuts. If it isn’t obvious they want to slowly torture all Conservatives until they “compromise”, you’re not paying attention.
2. As to voter turnout:
Why, if they can rig the numbers any way they want, would they show a LOW turnout for Republican voters, when showing a larger number of Republican voters voting, yet still have Obama winning not be published?
If it was me, as a Democrat, wanting to demoralize and show more support FOR Obama, I would do just that.
That would illustrate that a significant portion of Republican voters support Obama even though they are REGISTERED REPUBLICANS.
They cherish confusion, and would do this in a New York minute, if they’d thought of it.
Some………
Until you and your ilk learn NOT to let the AP (Administration Press) chose which candidate is worthy of YOUR vote, get used to it.
If that’s the way you think and feel, why do you bother to even read this site?
do you have any doubt the dems didn’t launch a stuxnet type worm on ORCA. ORCa was known about, and they already did Iran. To big a coincidence.
Some thoughts from a Jewish Conservative married to Asian Conservative raising Conservative Kids. Talk about a super minority.
Many Jews and Asians stress education in libertard dominated education system and universities. Both groups have totally corrupt Democrap politicians in their “ghettos” controlling and skewing the vote. Education, money, brains? Not all it is cracked up to be. Real America lights up Red. Most Jews and Asians are living in Blue cities, Blue states, with Blue ideology. Additional problem for Asians – gangs, illegals, mainland Chinese who bring Commie ideas here to Amerika, exploit the system and are way too connected to the motherland, same for many other “Asians”, even if homeland is not Communist – Koreans, Taiwanese, etc way too identified with home country so no assimilation here, just exploitation for education, dollars, jobs.
Good news is that most of their voting power would not count since it is confined to cities. Unfortunately, we have a really bad system whereby a few cities control the politics of most states and have way to much say on the national election level due to the misguided electoral college design.
The electoral college wasn’t misguided. It was meant to protect the rural and sparsely populated states. I don’t think they evensioned the mega-cities that have popped up all over the country. These cities effectively are choosing the president. Most of the rest of us should just stay home and not bother with the way things are right now.
You might review your history. The elctoral college was NOT to protect small states. That is what the Senate is, hence two votes for any state regardless of size. The electoral college was a gift to the states with big populations of which many were not qualified to vote. Just saying.
The Electoral College is a relic of the pre-Civil War days, when states held more sovereignty than they do now. Each state was to elect delegates, the number based on state population, who would together decide the presidency. A federal republic, not a demagogue and pander democracy. Also, senators were appointed by the state legislatures, not by popular vote.
The is something of a disconnect between the percentage of high-tech company CEO’s being Asian versus the overall socio-economic condition of Asians.
Whatever the ethnic group, there are a lot more poor people than rich people. Whatever the ethnic group, there are a lot more stupid people than intelligent people.
I see a lot of statistics relating to averages; I want to see some of these statistics in terms of medians.
No matter the extremely high income, the successful Asian gets only 1 vote. A small number of high-income people can change the average to a large extent, the median not so much.
I met a number of immigrant families (russian, chinese) where everyone has to bring in income to the family, irrespective of the income of the head of the family: infants and old-age members are all signed up with many government programs.
hmmm…….most asians are Legal immagrants are they not. So their voting pattern is not about a Amnesty policy, and neither is the hispanic.
Its about Free Stuff…..always has been.
Like 24/7 website lays out……Lets give immediate amnesty, right now, but with one caveat……….they cannot vote for 25 years.
Its about free stuff…….Our forfathers warned about a Democracy falling when people find they can vote themselves money, they didnt warn about a society falling because of free health care or a vagina’s rights.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
America can dumb down any ethnic group.
I am surprised rthat so many Asians voted for Obama. I thought many of them were operators of the small businesses to which Republicans often refer.
My complaint about so many illegal immigrants is the low value they place on education. This certainly cannot be said about the Chinese or most Asians. In my area most of the illegals are from Mexico or other Central or South American countries. Although their native countries have many natural resources, they seem to elect governments which don’t support their own economic development. They have numerous failed governments and their economies are up and down. The immigrants provide a large manual labor force but not educated workers. We need educated or educable immigrants. The original settlers in the United States were not especially well educated but most had a hard work ethic. In those days it was primarily manual labor: now it is willingness to put in long/unusual hours. Unfortunately this willingness does not survive in the current generations.
I think most Americans value peace, however, many realize that wanting peace is not enough. We must not give away everything in order to get it. I, personally, want an ample well-supplied military. I disagree with many of the rules involving our military in war zones and feel if they are shot at, it should not require a legal judgment before they shoot back. It is unfair to expect our military to fight like that. We should also treat the severely wounded better.
I see nothing wrong with expecting something back from those countries which we subsidize. We have sent billions (or maybe more) of dollars to Africa. Some of the starving children for whom I sent donations are probably some of the brutal attack force now warring. The same can be said about some American welfare recipients……I’m tired of always being on the giving end of the equation.
donna, you speak volumes.
If you examine the societies where we send money, such as South Africa for the sub-indigent, and other nations in South America, you’ll see they maintain two distinct classes of people. The elite ruling class that controls and dispenses the money and all other vital subsistence, and the labor (slave) class that are dependent on all their daily survival requirements.
I don’t see much of a stretch between those governments and many trying to force through their agendas in our government. Maintaining two classes in America would simplify much of governing for these tyrants, and create a wealthy ruling class for them, where they could govern with impudence and live lavishly. (And the employee unions are in on this scheme).
I’d also like to point out there seems to be a good many highly educated female commenters here at PJM. And they’re not afraid to speak out.
Women are getting a good education somewhere, in spite of the corrosion and corruption in our school system.
After further reading, I’ve discovered another way to illustrate what America has become under Democrat rule: A societal union that all Americans have to belong to in exchange for living in such a lavish lifestyle. That union decides what is necessary for all occupants of the nation to live the American lifestyle.
It’s government “of” the People completely; The “by” and “for” has been eliminated.
See:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/333132/why-i-despair-charles-c-w-cooke
Many asians that run small business run a lot of cash. Minimal papaer trail, even atms at some so they do’t have to take credit cards. They are not impacted by income taxes..Very industrious, like burrito shop owners as well. I think there is a lot to be said about immigrants and how they get influenced. 1. the education system is incredibly biased, and 2. they vote against people they feel hurt them in the past instead of for people who “might” help them in the future.
If a conservative or libertarian agenda is to survive, the political party called republican needs tremendous rebranding. Yet if it doesn’t these immigrants are the ones who will be most negatively impacted.
I think the christian right hurts itself trying to proselytize its agenda on everyone else. Who cares if democrats want to kill their babies, noone is forcing christians to have abortions.
I have often wondered about this. When asked about the large number of immigrants coming into Great Britain, former Prime Minister Tony Blair once responded that his only fear was that there would not be enough of them. Blair was no fool. He saw that the demographics in Europe showed an alarming decrease in the native-born populations in all the European countries. Worse, as the baby boomers were getting older, retiring, and living longer, there were fewer and fewer workers coming into the work force to support these people by paying into the many social welfare programs Britain had and still has.
The solution? More immigration. A lot of it. The big question is, what type of immigrants do you want? Do you want a bunch of angry, illiterate, under-educated immigrants who want to gouge the social-welfare system for every single penny and benefit that it has, or do you want literate, educated, and hard working individuals that have a firm belief in marriage, the family unit, a tough work ethic, and self-reliance on their own capabilities? Obviously, you want the latter, and you can find all those qualities in most Asians.
This is one group of people we should actually be encouraging to immigrate to this country. They make fine and loyal Americans and appreciate all of the many benefits America has to offer, especially when it comes to business and education. We NEED these people. Americans are having fewer children and we’re going to have to pick up the slack somewhere. We should be doing it by encouraging some of the best workers and people in the world to immigrate here and become part of the vast American family. It would be a shame to ignore Asians, because not only do they have a lot to offer this country, but treated fairly, should be natural members of the Republican party.
Perhaps some Asian-American Republican candidates would be helpful. Couldn’t hurt and would go a long way in showing that the Republican party is not only concerned about Asians but anxious to have them has a major part of the party. It can only help us and we would be foolish to alienate these people.
Minority groups have learned the hard way that if the dominant culture turns on one minority group today, tomorrow it may turn on another.
So if the GOP’s message to Asians is: “Don’t worry, we’re just against those illiterate lazy handout-seeking Hispanics, not you hard-working Asians,” they’re going to tell you to go stuff it.
And they’re right, given history:
1938: “We German Jews have little to fear from Hitler. It’s really those eastern European Jews that Hitler is against.”
The GOP either has to embrace general ethnic diversity or none at all. It can’t hope to pick and choose which minorities it likes and which ones it dislikes. That won’t sell with any minorities.
You’re doing the same thing the progs are doing. Conflating legal immigration with illegal immigration. Stop it!
Nobody is against legal immigration. You do things right – fine. Welcome aboard. Sneaking into my country to immediately commit fraud and theft is something I don’t hold with. These people are leaches and proud of it.
Lolly;
Right and those illegal immigrants are forcing innocent law-abiding Americans to hire them. Maybe it’s time we Americans faced our own hypocrisies. We like the cheap labor, cheap wait staff, cheap garden service, cheap vegetables and so on. There are no bargains. We pay in other ways – for the education of their underachieving kids, the prisons for their drug trading, and the welfare for their legal children because they are so low paid.
We can’t have it both ways.
First they came for the unborn minority group…
But when the labor force is stagnating and unemployment is high, the argument falls apart. The US used to have a dynamic economy. Now it has permanent stagnation similar to European countries where an unemployment rate of 7 or 8 percent counts as a success. In such a climate low skilled immigrants will likely become an underclass. Good for Democrats, not for anyone else.
I have observed this in Germany which last had full employment in the early 1970s. They have taken in lots of immigrants for the exact reasons you state. Germany has a pay as you go system for pensions. Many immigrants did well. Still, a majority of these immigrants is not paying for anyone’s social security. They are net consumers and barely employable. The policy was a failure but the immigrants give a majority to the left. Schroeder would not have been reelected without their votes in 2003.
asians, however, also have a penchant for authoritarianism
starting off young, this desire to please the authority figure focuses on mom and dad (grandma and grandpa and all the other fogeys) but quickly attaches to “teacher” as the impressionable tyke enters school
naturally, the mimicry and adoption of teacher’s point of view becomes the avenue to secure the good marks which will, in turn, please mom and dad… nevermind the indoctrination and propaganda – it’s not important
until we realize most of america- if not the world- is ignorant in market economics and the role it has in promoting freedom it matters not which immigrant sets foot in this country as the path to collectivism is right under foot the first step he takes
You are very, very right!
Correct.
Chinese immigrants believe in managed economy where the government picks winners and losers. They believe free markets will bring economic chaos. They believe democracy will bring political chaos.
ABC’s (american born chinese) throw themselves into the american education complex with incredible vigor. They tend to believe everything their evangelical-liberal teachers throw at them.
Chinese are also very aborto-centric. A chinese girl would never dishonor her ancestors with an out of wedlock pregnancy.
It won’t matter. The Asians love hating whitey too. And many of them come from left wing/socialist countries just like the “latinos”. You are whistling in the wind.
What do you mean the Asians, (not too sure about Indians), hate “whitey?” That is totally not true. They love our pale complexions & they generally view us as equals. What is true is that they view dark complexions as not beautiful. Dark skinned (equivalent to a tan) Chinese do experience prejudice in China. Can you imagine how they feel about Blacks over here?
At last, an intelligent comment! Lux Sit!
To be clear, the intelligent comment I referred to with approval was number 14, authored by Libertyship46. The replies (#14 and 15) to him by daxypoo and (especially) Bettina were not useful.
The reason minorities and anybody else vote dem is because the philosophy and policies of a generous safety net, income redistribution, and active manipulation/management of economic and social behavior and outcomes, as well as of course the joys of libertinism, are an easier sell than the conservative philosophy of liberty, which forces people to take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions and to rely on the invisible hand of the free market to creatively destroy businesses and the people who work at them when they make stupid decisions. It is a short-term immediate-gratification perspective versus a long-term perspective based on the time-tested path of individually creating wealth and prosperity through hard work, postponed gratification, and maintaining intact self-reliant families. Liberals provide the support to get on the path to success (e.g., subsidized education and home ownership) without instilling the character traits that really lead to success (see Reynolds Law).
While Asians, Hispanics, or whoever else you want to talk about, may also have the age-old “Protestant Work Ethic”, God is dead (whether Hispanics still go to church or not, look at their illegitimacy rates), and the compassion of the long-term perspective requires making a much more complicated case than the facile compassion of the short-term hand-out philosophy. The case is adequately made but the new God of T.V. doesn’t, and so it doesn’t resonate. Asians teach it to their own children but they don’t believe in it for society, because it is brilliantly countered by the dems by lumping it together with racism, a war on women, and “anti-science” being defined as anti-technocracy. As Asians experience more discrimination, they may turn. But it will be too late. It already is.
Let’s get something straight here. Judeo-Christian, free market beliefs are not in their blood.
Family values——–yeah right! They have children because “it’s” their meal ticket in old age. They have to invest in their children. Right now better education in the right fields equals a luxurious meal ticket. Like most recent immigants they’re also into the free handouts at least for their poor parents. How do I know this? I worked with many of them in the pharmaceutical industry & were invited to many of their homes. I got to hear about ma & pa visiting the USA for a couple of yrs, babysitting the grandchildren & taking advantage of any programs for the elderly esp Medicaid (or is it Medicare? Always get mixed between the 2.)
Chinese are into a perverted form of captialism. It’s called crony captialism to the extreme. In China there is a constant “greasing of each other’s palms.” Corruption is very bad over there & has been always, even before the start of Christianity. In other words who is the strongman gets to make the rules regardless of the common good.
Here in the States, if one qualified Chinese person gets a job in a large company, he or she will bring on board the rest of his Chinese friends, qualified or not. They do work very hard. For a typical Chinese, is it because their English is not fluent enough to read & understand & write business memoes?——I don’t know.
I could go on & on. The Chinese are generally the same as all recent immigrants, except for their lack of Judeo-Christian beliefs which obviously impacts their attitude on life.
“…taking advantage of any programs for the elderly esp Medicaid (or is it Medicare? Always get mixed between the 2.)”
Medicare applies to the elderly & disabled; Medicaid is for the others who qualify.
People suck. When you are young you think racists are irrational. In middle age you being to suspect the racists were right. In old age it hits – my god all the racists of all the groups were right. the only way they could all be right is if the whole species sucks. and it does.
The term “Asian” sometimes includes Indians. Indians seem to defy this tendency. Maybe it’s because they’re so invisible, but we have two out of fifty governors of Indian ancestry, and both are Republicans.
There’s probably an important lesson in that somewhere, but I’m not smart enough to ferret it out.
Just flailing about, are we? First Staples, then it is Asiatics – makes one wonder what comes next of import.
Mr. Goldman says that before making judgments about the Asian vote, someone should speak to Asians. And then he makes judgments about the Asian vote.
It’s an interesting question. Did Asians vote for Obama, because they want to bring in more family members? A few observations. First, Obama did not really champion immigration, even when he had a majority. Also, the Dream Act was for non-authorized (my term) immigration, and that primarily affects Latinos. Next, if it’s chain immigration we are talking about, does anyone seriously think we are going to have one policy for Asians and another for Latinos? It’s was precisely that kind of racialism that the 1965 law tried to eliminate.
Finally Victor Davis Hanson on these pages argues that it could be a separate source, essentially a kind of chauvinism. Perhaps the two of you should get on the horn and try to sort these matters out. Probably some people you know would be willing to sponsor a focus group.
In the meantime, let’s end affirmative action. Per the NYT today, it looks like the SCOTUS is also looking at the Voting Rights Act. Republicans (and blacks) will not like the latter. But if it forces black and Latino politicians to move to the center to get votes, it will be good for America.
Asians are collectivists and they love a strong and centralized state with big government. Therefore, ideals of individual liberty and individualism are totally alien to them. Amen.
Germanic types have a model of civilization where they believe in absolute government power, but this is hedged by individualism. They are individualists because they fear a powerful state that they know they will have to obey. It is their nature.
The US is on an extremely dangerous path. It was formerly a Germanic state, but now Latins want a big state for welfare purposes. They will get more than what they bargained for, in abusing the nature of the Germanic natives.
When the dust settles, Asians come out on top.
The United States was England with natural resources. We kicked Germany’s ass so many times it quit being interesting and we gave them to the Russians.
I think the conclusion of the post is wrong. I suggest Asians and Mexicans vote Democrat the same a lot of white people do.
As an example I have heard more than once that one person or another might vote for republican at least on economic issues but they did not feel comfortable with the perception of born again bigotry. Too, the appeal of classic liberalism has always been the appeal of new thought, new ideas, and free expression.
A person who has to wear religious underwear is not going to resonate with this group.
And having had enough ‘missionaries’ try to convince me that Catholics are idol worshipers and I was going to hell if i didn’t change churches I understand the point of view.
I say this is what is wrong. I post a lot of anti asia rants. and a lot of it is I was very sad seeing how badly workers there seem to be treated. And I am also very jealous that these countries have governments that not only don’t sabotage new industry but seem to actually encourage it.
We really had something great here. Our competition is going to take out good ideas and abandon our bad ones.
Anybody who voted for Obama doesn’t deserve the descriptor “American”, hyphenated as Asian, Black, Latina…whatever.
Ignoramus from Mars is a more appropriate.
Wot me, disgusted ?
good point
Salman Khan was a dirt-poor Indian immigrant in Mandeville, Louisiana. He used his brains to get to Harvard and MIT. He’s the guy who built Khan Academy, for his dirt-poor, bright, hard-working Indian cousins.
Ask Him.
He’s teaching my kids math and science and economics, right now. They’ve never met. They likely never will. I think he’s the best thing that’s hit education since Gutenberg.
your right. probably getting rich and making the world work better all at the same time.
I saw a video of Khan and he reminded me of a math oriented Tony Robbins.
Prancing around, hyperventilating.
I learned math and economics and science from plain old face to face teachers.
But that was back when teachers’ main claim to fame was being on top of their subject matter as opposed to whatever their union was demanding at the moment.
Lets face it – ethnic votes go to the democrats for one reason only – racism. The 600 pound gorilla in the room is was and always has been racism. Fact is some of the most racist people on earth live in Japan, Korea, China etc. A Korean (yes they can tell each other apart quite well) walking down the street in modern day Japan may well be treated worse than a black person in the 1950s walking into a whites only cafe. And its an accepted way of life.
We’ve had ‘those who know better’ preaching the multiracial/multicultural ‘lets all get along’ kumbaya crap to us for all these many years and this is where its led us? To ethnic block voting? Seems the only group that hasn’t caught on to this crap is the white people in this country.
Just goes to show that intelligence and education doesn’t produce wisdom. All these people can’t see the dark road Obama and the Democrats are leading us down. They prefer Democrat lies about that past (especially the way the Democrats have shifted their racist past and present onto the Republicans), and promises of free handouts and racial spoils forever.
Almost everyone is missing the most fundamental reason of all why Romney lost. Read Ann Coulter’s latest article. Romney lost in large part for the simple fact that he was running against an incumbent who had no primary challenge and no 3rd party candidate against him. The last president to lose an election under those circumstances was Herbert Hoover 80 years ago during the Depression.
It is simply very difficult to defeat a sitting president. So all this talk of panic and drastic overhauls of the party is silly. Democrats won’t have that advantage next election, instead it could be more like a replay of 2008, but with Democrats defending an unpopular president who has trashed the economy and been the cause of multiple foreign policy crises.
I believe it was Joe Torre who said when you are losing you’re not as bad as you fear you are and when you’re winning you’re not as good as you think you are. It seems to apply to politics as well and should be considered before panicking and doing something rash when fine-tuning would have sufficed.
As opposed to saying things like…”this group is bright and we want them in” or “that group is not so bright and we want them out”…
What’s wrong with simply enforcing the immigration laws on the books ? Or change the laws, which didn’t happen in the previous Obama administration, despite Obama’s promise to Hispanics at the get-go. (except of course for Obama’s executive order, after the Dream Act failed to pass, giving preferences to certain illegals.)
Mexico would never tolerate the lax enforcement of immigration laws that it has insisted (see Calderon) the United States follow.
Enforcement of federal law can’t be picked and chosen according to some group’s personal preferences or some President and his political party pandering to a potential voting bloc.
It’s.All.Insane
– welcome to San Francisco. Welcome to California. Jean Kirkpatrick was right, Señor “La Raza”.
A nation is a people writ large. In the most concrete terms that means a nation ceases to exist when it becomes a collection of radically different peoples, the racial difference being far and away the largest, most visible and most intractable difference of all. That is why it has been SUICIDAL for our elites – may they rot in hell forever – to turn America into a “Universal Nation.” They have guaranteed its demise.
I’m not familiar with this website but I was forwarded a link to this article by a friend and found it very relevant.
Immigration is not the real issue – most Asians are LEGAL immigrants. I’m one of those Asians that voted for the president and would like to try and shed some light on why this is through personal anecdote.
I was born in this country to very successful Indian parents who have lived here since the 60s. They were once very solid Republican voters. I grew up with a picture of Ronald Reagan in the living room. When the Republican Gov of our state (Bush Jr) ran for president in 2000 may parents raised money for his campaign. They voted to reelect him (albeit more reluctantly) in 2004. In 2008 they were turned off by the Iraq war and the Bush deficits and chose not to vote (they like McCain as a person but disliked his choice of running mate). Mitt Romney should have resonated in 2012 – I’m in banking and my father is in private equity. We know Gov Romney to be a good and competent man and fiscal conservative principles still matter to us.
None of this mattered when it came to voting for the president for one very simple reason. We’re terrified of the Republican party. It is very hard to vote on pocketbook issues if you feel under threat from one party. I have a 6 year old daughter and I detest the implication by many in the political right that we are in some way not ‘real Americans’. First was the birther movement to delegitimize a non caucasian president with a funny name (just like us) that turned us off and to be honest offended us (does anybody really think the CIA and the military would take orders from somebody they knew was not an American). My parents were so angry they even raised money for the President’s reelection. Second is the platform the Republican party gives to people that seem to be anti science. The support for theories like creationism and a general anti intellectualism does not play well to communities that value education over all else. Third was the tone of the Republican media (fox) covering the president. We do not mind criticizing him for his policies (some of them deserve no less) but a tone and tenor focused on giving people like Donald Trump and Glenn Beck a platform to call him names was another turn off. Finally we do not like the absolutism that seems to have hijacked the Republican party where compromise is a bad word. A deficit deal with a 10:1 cuts to taxes ratio was rejected on purely ideological grounds – Reagan would have taken it in a heartbeat. Friends of ours from other non Caucasian communities like Chinese Americans and Korean Americans have felt the same way over the past four years and that showed in our votes.
I’d really like to be able to vote Republican. As I’ve said I’m a fiscal conservative. People like me, my family and a large chunk of our communities have chosen the lesser of two evils. I’d rather pay an extra 4% in income tax than give a mandate to a party whose only agenda over the past four years was to hate anybody that was not like the loudest parts of its base.
Amit;
The president is half-caucasian. If he was demonized, it wasn’t because of his genetics. The truthers were indeed idiots. They were the answer to the Gore-is-the-real-president crowd.
Colin Powell could have had the republican nomination if he wanted it. And Herman Cain was riding high in conservative polls before the controversy.
May I point out that the US has two Indian-American governors who ran and won on the Republican ticket.
Amit, are you sure that Republicans are as hate-filled as you claim?
I can tell you that most people in the Indian American community have ZERO respect for Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley. They converted religions and changed their names to win votes. I’m only a nominal Hindu and not religious at all but I strongly believe in being authentic. Would you trust a politican that did changed who they really were in such an obvious way? Elizabeth Warren got a lot of deserved ridicule for pretending to be Native American. I see these two as the same thing.
(Reposting from an earlier reply – forgive my tech backwardness)
That you recognize the birthers were idiots is to your credit. Unfortunately a lot of what passes as Republican media gave these people a massive amount of exposure and nobody senior in the Republican party called them out in public and with extreme prejudice. John McCain’s finest moment as a candidate came when he stood down the crazies calling Obama an Arab. Instead Mitt Romney goes on stage to accept an endorsement from Trump (who I believe does not accept his own lies but sells them anyway because it is good for his bank account) because the alternative would have cost him the primaries. Birtherism is just a symptom. The best example I have is Bill O Reiley who is hardly the most radical Republican on the planet. On election night he said that the end of what he called the ‘White establishment’ was the end of ‘traditional America’. Newsflash – the only tradition in America is that nearly everybody is descended from immigrants. My parents coming here in the 60s does not make me or my kid any less ‘traditional’ Americans than Mr O Reiley who’s ancestors likely came here from Ireland a century before. The number of otherwise reasonable and balanced republicans at work and in my neighborhood that were willing to buy the Birther lies was breathtaking. Not one Democrat that me or my family were acquainted with did anything but strongly denounce the whole thing.
So what if Niki Haley converted & took her husband’s last name. Taking her husband’s last name is an American custom that she freely accepted. So what if Bobby Jindal converted to Catholicism. Again he freely choosed to do so. They are Americans whose ethnic background is Indian. Don’t Indians in India convert to Catholicism or Protestantism freely? Are they less Indian after their Christian conversion? As a matter of fact relatives & friends living in India rejoiced when Bobby & Nikki were elected. Even so, both of them lead all Americans in their state not in their parents’ country.
Elizabeth Warren claims to be a full-fledged member of the Cherokee nation. In reality she is less than 1/32 Cherokee. Even Native Americans are having a hard time accepting her heritage. One can not equate Warren’s deceptive genetics story with the changing of one’s last name or religion.
Seems to me that you & your Indian friends are getting your information from the inaccurate MSM & not using common sense to decipher fact from fiction or exaggeration.
Jeanine;
Unfortunately Christian converts in India have suffered occasional physical attacks by Hindu religious extremists.
Perhaps the reason so many are suspicious of the President’s back story is because until a few years ago he ADMITTED HE’S A KENYAN!
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/17/Obama-pamphlet-in-use-2007
DID YOUR PARENTS SEE THAT IN THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA??
The reason that so many people in this country believe this man is a foreigner is because every thing he does, and attempts to do is foreign to the founding of this country. He said on Chicago radio the founders got it wrong and that he is going to “fundamentally transform” the country. Screw him.
Amit;
Bobby Jindal converted to Christianity as a teenager. Whatever the reason for his conversion, it obviously wasn’t to get votes. And ‘Bobby’s” legal name still remains Piyush. He changed his name as a child because he liked the Brady Bunch character on TV. Again, not for the votes.
“Nikki” is on Haley’s birth certificate. Secondly, it is the custom in the US for women to change their last name to their husband’s when they marry. Many women do not, but most do.
Amit, you do realize the whole Birther thing started with the Hillary Clinton campaign, right ? Your new found messiah has encouraged a great deal of this with his less than transparent treatment of that as well as his sealed transcripts and other records.
You mention Bush 43 at war, so how’s that “days not weeks “‘campaign, with NO congressional input set with you?
Your decision to vote for someone who hates you for your success is fairly counterproductive.
Great! You’re brainwashed by a media that plays edited soundbites 24/7. Congratulations! You lose! America is over. Done. Kaput!
Dear Amit, I too was unfamiliar with this website until just this week when I was looking for resources to better understand the conservative point of view. I find your post to be very enlightening and intelligent, and a very good explanation of why so many people, not just Asians and Hispanics, find the current tenor of the Republican Party so unappealing. Thank you for your thoughtful and enlightening words.
So, in essence, Social Conservatism turned you off, as well as the associated fear that the Republican Party sees you (ie non-Caucasians in general) as the outgroup. Not really sure how I can convince you otherwise; as a Jewish Republican, I have my hands full trying to convince my coreligionists that voting for the GOP won’t turn America into some sort of Christianist theocracy.
You personally liked Romney, but didn’t vote for him. I actually admire this; you voted in your perceived self-interest as a non-Republican, and it’s sensible to note that a president is part of a larger political party. It just saddens me that you think the Democrats are a better choice. This was an election where the Republican party pushed and pushed on economics. Social issues were not nearly the issue that they had been in previous elections (caveat: in my lifetime, so take that with a grain of salt). If this wasn’t enough to convince you, I’m not sure what will. It may be that Asians in the aggregate, like Jews, are permanently lost to the Republicans, no matter how unfriendly the Democrats are.
If you have any comments on my reply, I would like to hear them, so please respond if you have time!
Elena – if more people like you in the Republican party were given a voice this would be a much much better world. Reasoned argument seems to be a bad word to the people that seem to hog the limelight on the republican side. Post Clinton, the Democrats have done a much better job at ensuring their extremists do no get a lot of attention. Everything is a social issue. That includes the economy. The 2010 midterms boosted a Tea Party committed to sensible conservative economics. They got hijacked by people that wanted to push a stone age cultural program on the movement (exhibits Mourdock and Akin). That is a great way to alienate a lot of people. I dont are about money if I do not feel welcome.
Toady – that you recognize the birthers were idiots is to your credit. Unfortunately a lot of what passes as Republican media gave these people a massive amount of exposure and nobody senior in the Republican party called them out in public and with extreme prejudice. John McCain’s finest moment as a candidate came when he stood down the crazies calling Obama an Arab. Instead Mitt Romney goes on stage to accept an endorsement from Trump (who I believe does not accept his own lies but sells them anyway because it is good for his bank account) because the alternative would have cost him the primaries. Birtherism is just a symptom. The best example I have is Bill O Reiley who is hardly the most radical Republican on the planet. On election night he said that the end of what he called the ‘White establishment’ was the end of ‘traditional America’. Newsflash – the only tradition in America is that nearly everybody is descended from immigrants. My parents coming here in the 60s does not make me or my kid any less ‘traditional’ Americans than Mr O Reiley whos ancestors likely came here from Ireland a century before. The number of otherwise reasonable and balanced republicans at work and in my neighborhood that were willing to buy the Birther lies was breathtaking. Not one Democrat that me or my family were acquainted with did anything but strongly denounce the whole thing.
To the others saying I’ve been brainwashed by the media please look in the mirror. A lot of the media on the right (Fox/Drudge) exist in their own alternate reality. The reactions on election night should be instructive. In contrast the left’s version of Fox (MSNBC – which I do not like for the record) were scathing in their critique of the president after the first debate. Conspiracy theories are called that for a reason. The extreme media (Fox/MSNBC) exist to make money. If they can do so by appealing to your worst instincts all the better because most facts tend to be boring anyway. The leftwing media outlets (MSNBC, HuffPo) only spread lies about Republican politicians. The right’s equivalents spread lies about their viewer’s neighbors, coworkers and friends who are the people that vote for Democrat politicians. Moral equivalence is false.
Hi Amit, I’m glad you’re still hanging around! I have to admit, I struggled a bit in how to address your reply, so hopefully you’ll forgive me if my response meanders a bit.
a) I’m not really sure there’s anything I (or any other Republican) can do to change your mind on the media, given my available platform. I had to spend a year in 2008 with a roommate who had a TV largely turned to MSNBC or E!. The way you feel about FOX is the way I feel about – well, actually, both those channels. There something about being forced to listen to Chris Matthews at 2 AM when you have to be at class in 6 hours that really focuses venom. Is it logical? No. That doesn’t mean all liberal media is bad; even Mother Jones publishes something interesting every so often. If you feel the mainstream conservative media is too slanted, I strongly suggest you read/watch other sources. I’m pretty fond of the National Review’s Corner, Instapundit, Tablet Magazine (two magazines for the price of one!), PJMedia columnists (you might like Ron Radosh, although as you may have noted, comments can be heated), Walter Russell Mead (who isn’t a Republican, but is still really interesting), and City Journal. If you’re interesting in other fiscal conservatives, I’d point you towards Ace of Spaces (ace.mu.nu) as a starting point, although I have to state that they are pretty R-rated in their language. This is just off the top of my head: I’m sure other commenters can chime in with their favorite blogs as well. I can’t say anything about Fox and their coverage of the news because I don’t have a TV or cable, so I haven’t watched them since I was in high school – but just FYI, no one seems to like Bill O’Reilly, so you’re not alone!
As for moral equivalence…well, you can get pretty tired of being called a racist, sexist warmonger when you’re not. Of course, for me there is the additional loveliness of being told I’m not a “real Jew” or a “real woman”. False consciousness (the “what’s the matter with kansas” question) is an irritating meme on both sides of the aisle. I try to do people the credit of taking them at their words.
b) In a response to another comment, you indicated distress about Babour and Jindal’s conversion to Christianity and their loss of authenticity. I wanted to address is because as another non-Christian, I can sympathize more than some of the other commenters. It’s probably not nice to say this, but I would and do feel betrayed when other Jews convert to Christianity. Of course, there’s the historical issue that Jews have converted to Christianity to obtain entrance into the larger, non-Jewish society – and we generally don’t think much of them. There’s always the belief that they’ve “sold out” in a way. Luckily, I’ve never had to deal with this in my voting habits, as Jews have free entry into American society without conversion to Christianity. This, of course, makes, the decision of those who convert even more painful, and I suspect that’s part of your problem with Babour and Jindal. Either they converted to Christianity to gain power – which says unpleasant things about American society/the GOP – or they converted because they truly believed. Either can be seen as a slap in the face to their former co-religionists.
However, I do believe that they did not convert to obtain power – I think that if they had remained true to their prior religion, they still would have gained the GOP nomination for office. I suspect that is the Indian-American population in American grows, you will see this in the future.
c) war: I think it’s pretty clear that neoconservatism in foreign policy is dead, even among other die-hard Republicans. Shockingly, no one wants to send American soldiers to die occupying yet another godforsaken terrorist haven, especially given the massive failures to change public culture in Iraq and Afgahnistan. Unfortunately, I think Obama is another retread of Bush and Clinton, especially in regards to the extrajudicial and extralegislative policy. I don’t know if you remember, but Clinton’s peace dividend was mostly paid my people like my dad and his colleagues in Croatia, Kosovo, and Yemen. Fukuyama was wrong; the end of the cold war was not the end of history. Libya, Uganda, Syria, and probably Mali by next spring; as for Iran…well, we’re still part of NATO. Do you seriously think we can avoid dealing with a country that seems intent on war? Israel may be the first target, but Europe is in range as well. I don’t think the American people are interested in war with Iran, but I suspect that due to internal pressures of their own, the Iranian government is very interested in war with us. Please see Spengler archives here or at Atol, Richard Fernandez, or Long War Journal. Additonally, you might read Daniel Drezner and Donald Sensing, who have both written pretty interesting things – If you want to see vintage stuff that’s held up pretty good, look at Steven den Beste on the USS Clueless.
c) the Tea Party. I’m glad to hear that you seem to approve of them! Quick question: do you ever go to your local group’s meetings? I don’t know where you live, but chances are there’s a group near you, even if it’s only a small one. You worry a lot about being welcomed, but from the meetings I’ve been to, Tea Party guys don’t give a damn about anything other than fixing America’s extreme budget issues. If you want to do that, they should welcome you – I’d be really surprised if they turn you away.
At this point, that’s probably the best thing you can do in terms of fiscal sanity. The national Republican party is lame duck for the next four years – maybe just two years, depending on how we go. And you’re right: they didn’t have a plan for how to handle the deficit issue. A lot of my vote for Romney was based on the fact that his pick of Ryan seems to indicate that he knew there was a problem, and wasn’t going to simply parrot the “we’ll grow our way out of it” pablum that keeps coming out of DC. We’re not going to grow our way out of it – not now, and not in the future.
But America is a big country, and the national conversation is set at the local level. If you want to change the country, you could do worse than join the TEA party, which seems to be in the middle of co-opting county and city-level GOP organizations. If you’re worried about SoCons co-opting them in turn; well, you better get over there to keep them on the straight course! I suspect that fiscal conservatism will have an outsized influence over the national GOP in the future, as political parties have to respond to the crisis of their times – and make no mistake, entitlement spending is the crisis of our times. If you want to set the agenda, you need to be part of the process.
As for the social conservatives – you did mention Akin and Mourdock. As you may have noticed, both of those gentleman lost pretty badly, both in states that went for Romney and other Republicans pretty heavily. I think that’s a pretty ringing endorsement that the local Republicans of those states reject such radical anti-abortion stances. However, a caveat to all this: American politics is coalitions politics. Sometimes you have to rub elbows with people you dont’ always like, and hold your nose for politicians you can’t stand on a personal level, to get the result in government you don’t always like. My response to all such issues is to support the 10th amendment and encourage others to do the same. Shrinking the reach and strength of government is for the best of all of us; the fact of the matter is, I don’t want to government to interfere with my personal life, by either side. I have to admit, I’m trying to get more active in my local party as well; as someone under the age of 25, I’m pretty nervous about where America is going – I’d sort of like the old lady to reach 300 without defaulting, you know?
Anyway, this was a really long comment. Hope it wasn’t too boring! If you’d like to discuss further, please feel free to respond here, or email me at elenapolitics@outlook.com.
First of all thank you for engaging in discussion. People like you need to send a message to the people that run the Republican party.
I do not think anybody is lost in politics. A better attempt at marginalizing extremists will get you plenty of votes that are currently off limits. I’ll give you an example – Sheila Jackson Lee and Michele Bachmann are pretty much the same person. They’re narrow minded, unintelligent and prone to fits of demagoguery. The Democrats have done a terrific job of keeping the former out of the spotlight (I only know about her because she’s one of the local reps). The latter is on every Republican TV show, on some pretty important committees and had enough of a national constituency to think she could run for President. Every party is going to have people you don’t like. It’s just a lot better to sweep them under the carpet.
Mourdock and Akin lost and that was encouraging. The flip side is tat they were even there in the first place. Why would Rick Santorum – a poorly funded candidate with no establishment support and a medevial social worldview attract as much support as he did in the Republican primaries against a FAR superior candidate? Why would the only person that spoke the truth about the Republican’s problem with messaging that we all acknowledge (Jon Huntsman) not even be viewed as a viable candidate? Nobody likes bullies and rightly or wrongly, the perception is that the GOP is the party of nasty.
As for the Tea Party the only thing I said is that I agree them with a narrow range of pocketbook issues. I’m not averse to paying a little more in taxes but I have no interest in seeing the money go to pad enormous Government pensions (nobody in the private sector has them). I find the acclaimed ‘heros’ of the Tea Party (Bachmann, West etc) distasteful and a lot of their most public candidates too extreme. Here in Texas – the tea party want to ban the teaching of critical thinking skills in schools. This means that I will need to pay big money to send my daughter to private schools and colleges over the next 20 odd years. That’s way more than any tax increase is going to cost me.
Thank you once again for engaging. I truly hope the Republicans take this sort of feedback to heart. Good luck.
Well I don’t think you can vote for the Republican party as a fiscal conservative either.
As far as I can tell, Romney/Ryan’s budget plan was to significantly lower taxes, significantly raise military spending, possibly start a war with Iran, raise the cost of Medicare back up by 700 million – leading it to go broke faster…
Then when the government was truly broke and in default, the plan must have been to pull a Reagan and cut based on being broke – and the plan has always been to destroy Medicare (private vouchers that don’t guarantee any level of coverage when the government is in default will be the same as giving everyone a coupon for aspirin and hoping the die quick), and destroy Social Security…
If that kind of brinksmanship and wholesale destruction is what you want, then the Republican party is for you.
Josh Scholar;
If Medicare isn’t reformed it will be destroyed. Get a grip.
Reducing revenues while raising spending is what Romney proposed and it isn’t a plan for reform. We’ve seen this before, and we know what that plan means. It’s a plan the break the bank and force something much more drastic and more destructive than “reform”.
I seem to remember a calculation that if 100% of what could be called “loophole” were eliminated (and no one thinks they can be) that would fund only 1/5th of Romney’s tax cut.
A plan to make us go well and truly broke can not be called “fiscal conservatism” unless those words have changed their meanings. Have they? What changed them?
Pity Party.
It sounds like you are bringing your psychological issues to the voting booth.
You are a big freaking drama queen for saying you are TERRIFIED of Repulicans.
Since some off-beat individuals you connect to the values and principles of ‘the republican party’ so turn you off, have you considered the crowd of Chicago thugs you voted to re-elect ?
Where is a mention of the DNC chair, the moronic Debbie Wassserman-Schultz ? Or the continuously lying and dissembling Obama election central girl, Stephanie Cutter ?
During the campaign, both of these women looked into the camera and told baldfaced lies to the American public.
And speaking of lies, this President’s lies on Benghazi alone should have you running for the exits.
For a self-described fiscal conservative like you, the billions poured down the drain on “stimulus” and green boondoggles alone should repulse you, Donald Trump, birthers, weird guys running for Congress saying weird stuff about sex and rape or not.
Back on the subject of creeps and liars, how about Obama’s election chief, David Axelrod ? How about a marginally sane Joe Biden as second in command ? Or a nuttry Harry Reid running the Senate, so manipulating the place that he wants to shut down opposition voices ?
Know a man through the company he keeps. Know Obama through the kinds of individuals who have been with him for the duration, many of the lesser liars, particularly his original economic staff, have left.
Though your piece is well written and intelligent, nothing on Earth should have prevented you from at least attempting to remove this destructive pretender and his cabal from office.
Amit
Thank you for explaining your position. I am very sorry that you and your family reacted the way you did to things that I usually dismiss as extraneous noise but your emotions are your own and it is not for me to say how somebody else should feel.
I have read that an important part of the Obama campaign was to microtarget voters and send them messages that would resonate. This worked in the states of the northern midwest where white working class voters were bombarded with messages that preyed on their fears that Romney would send the rest of American manufacturing to China. They did not vote for Obama but they did stay home on election day allowing the Obama team to get enough votes to win. What it sounds like is that you and your family were also operating from fear. Whether or not that fear was the result of a deliberate targeted campaign or just arose naturally, I have no idea.
I don’t guess it matters any more because I don’t expect the Republican party to be much of a factor in national politics for decades to come.
However, elections have consequences. A few years back when gasoline first went over $1.00 there were problems with the gas pumps. Considering the inflation that is probably now inevitable, make sure your ATMs can handle plenty of digits. I have also talked to several people who are liquidating their investments and buying gold. I don’t know how widespread this is. Maybe they are crazy and just overreacting, but it is happening. Needless to say gold is not a productive asset and if enough people take enough capital out of the marketplace then inflation is not going to be the thing to worry about.
Anyway, good luck. I think that we are all going to need it over the next few years.
IF the Republic survives Obama and the nationwide introduction of Chicago thugery into national policts, if we can get past this transformative Manchurian president, we will have time to woo the Asians. The more I hear about who voted for Obama the more I believe Peter Navarro was right: this election was all about race, race, race. Minorities looked at Obama and decided they could sit there one day, and voted for him based on that flood of keen self-appreciationg that is the one talent Obama has.
Did it ever occur to you that the reason Asians, like blacks and Hispanics, support the Democrats is because Democratic policies are objectively good for them or that the Herrenvolk musing of the Republican base might turn off people of the wrong complexion? It’s not enough to admit a handful of honorary Aryans into the fold so long as you define the country racially.
Small example: imagine how you would hear Donald Trump’s October surprise if you were black. Why would anybody’s college transcripts be a major issue in a political campaign if you weren’t operating with the assumption that black people are too stupid by nature to do well in school if everything was on the up and up?
Prove it. Prove the gop is racist. It was democrats that fought against freeing the slaves in the civil war. It was democrats that introduced Jim Crow laws in the south. It was democrats that stood on the steps of schools to forbid black children from entering. It was democrats that turned hoses on black people during the civil rights. It was democrats that stood in the way of civil rights legislation.
So now that they lost all that they decided to enslave black people by giving them stuff. Yippee! It worked. Oh – and they called the gop racist. It didn’t take at first, but after 60 years it stuck.
As for Trump the Chump, what was so wrong about asking for school transcripts? This is the only president is history to have his school records sealed under presidential decree. What’s to hide? But it sure isn’t racist to ask.
Political parties, like religions, have no bones in ‘em so that over the years they morph, sometimes into their opposites. In the American case, as everybody who isn’t a brain dead ideologue damned well knows, the Democrats and the Republicans changed sides over the last 50 years. The Democrats lost the South, which used to be their private preserve, by opting for civil rights while the Republicans absorbed the old Dixicrats, which is how they became the white man’s identity party they are today.
I’m an old man. I was a Republican in the 60s and remember how the GOP sold its soul.
As for the idiocy about the grades: nobody’s grades are sealed under Presidential decree though colleges normally keep them confidential—the only presidential grades I’ve seen in my lifetime were Bush’s and those got out because somebody leaked ‘em. The grade business is another right-wing stupidity right up there with the Obama isn’t an American bit and the Obama is a Muslim bit and the Obama is a Marxist bit. My point about the Trump challenge is that it only makes sense if you have racist opinions about intelligence. Fess up, lad, you do have such opinions, right? Straight out of the Bell Curve no doubt.
According to the Fla dept of Education (wholly owned and controlled by the progressives) the bell curve is correct and should be used to institute a sliding scale of success in state testing programs. Look it up.
Progress at last. If you’re going to base your politics on racist views, why not be forthright about it? What we usually get is a progression of excuses/explanations that’s like the old bit about the guy accused of stealing a pig: “I didn’t steal the pig; it was my pig; and, anyhow, it wasn’t very big.”
To summarize what I hear in these parts: “Racists are supposed to be bad people; but we’re good people, therefore we’re not racists. We’re just facing facts about what everybody knows black people are like: lazy, shiftless, violent, stupid, and oversexed. The fact that they were sold them into slavery, that it was illegal to teach them how to read, that they are discriminated against in commercial transactions to this day, routinely abused by the cops, and disproportionately sentenced by judges has nothing to do with anything. That’s ancient history or we’ll count it as ancient history even if happened last week and, anyhow, the overwhelming evidence that America remains a very racist society is just statistical and we don’t trust statistics.”
Exactly the point I wanted to make about my own view and put much more elegantly. Well done.
Its not just an African American that would feel insulted by Trump’s ‘October Surprise’ – anybody that is not Caucasian or that has a funny name (like me, my family, my parents and a lot of my friends) took offense too. Had we had a Caucasian president with a regular name (say – ‘Mitt Romney’) the very thought of anybody in the media asking him for a birth certificate or a college transcript would be laughable. Trump turned out to be the joke himself judging by the howls of laughter his little stunt provoked across the internet.
“Its not just an African American that would feel insulted by Trump’s ‘October Surprise’ – anybody that is not Caucasian or that has a funny name (like me, my family, my parents and a lot of my friends) took offense too. ”
For someone who accuses the Republicans of being racists, your statement is not exactly free of it, ie racism. I am Caucasian & I take offense at your statement & of course Trump’s.
Ummm, Amit, the media and their Democrat soulmates did indeed want Bush’s transcripts, and even went to the point of falsifying Bush’s records. Your accusation does fall flat. If Obama is happy telling all of us he’s the smartest guy in the room, constitutional law professor and the like, then show us . So far, he’s shown me he’s a cunning con man, as was the lily white Willian Jefferson Blythe Clinton.
So, try again to tell me how all your principles and fears are being upheld by a community organizer without his law license..
I am really sick and tired of all the identity politics. That is why we are screwed. How about if we just talk about Americans.
Mr. Goldman – one problem with this scenario of lots of Asians coming and adding to the donkey majority – the USA sucks, and is going to suck more as time goes by. Just as immigration from Western Europe and Japan slowed to a trickle, and then almost nothing, there’s not much reason to compel a Korean or Chinese to chose to emigrate to the USA, with current trends. If you’re inclined to leave, Canada or Australia look a lot more attractive, particularly to somebody with some marketable skills.
The tech bubble in the US is over, and the US has more engineers than it can use right now, and will for years to come. We’re not going to see many more Asians, because we suck, and we’re only going to suck worse in the future.
On the contrary: good engineers are in short supply in the US, in software
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443675404578058163640361032.html
mining, mechanical engineering, and many other fields.
Horseshit. Talk to a real engineer sometime instead of reading the MSM. Companies always bitch when they don’t have 100 applicants for every job.
Snork;
I’m an engineer and we just aren’t getting even a minimum amount of resumes. I guess Obama’s got the unemployment rate down to zero. And yeah, I sure would like to see more folks from Asia. They arrive legally, they know the importance of education and a two-parent family, they respect our laws, and they aren’t burdens on the taxpayer. I don’t get their preference for Democrats but at least they’re not on the welfare rolls or dealing drugs like some other immigrants.
I think it’s because companies always want experienced engineers. But if inexperienced engineers cannot find a job, how do they gain experience.
I don’t buy it. Too many good people are out there. You just have some good excuse to import someone cheaper.
Really? I’m a computer programmer. As far as I know the jobs are only in government. I’m interested in being proven worng. What part of the country are you in?
I’m in Long Island, New York. My company hired over a hundred new people this year, mostly engineers. We gotten some really good contracts.
Toady
Where are you and what kind of engineers are you looking for? Go to LinkedIn and do a search search. Considering your perception, the number of experienced people available might surprise you.
Perhaps it is merely an arbitrage problem. There are a lot of unemployed engineers pounding the pavement. When Sequestration hits in January there will be a whole lot more.
The comments offer a very different perspective than the article. I dare say that comments are better than 9/10 articles in WSJ, NYT, BBC, etc.
It’s alsways seemed to me – and this goes back to the 80′s, as a computer programmer, is that “there aren’t enough programmers available” means “the aren’t enough available for what we are willing to pay them”, so let’s import someone cheaper.
Mr.Goldman
If you know anybody who is hiring, it would be very much appreciated if you would post a link.
Ban hyphenation NOW.
rush had it about right. most everybody who voted for the as$%^%&& did it because he represents santa claus. i like to call these losers the ‘handouts for halfwits’ government programs crowd. opm (other people’s $$) is what they live for.
as far as voting a racist ticket goes, didn’t martin luther king define what a racist is?
” i have a dream that my four little children will someday live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”.
i voted for character (romney), something our gun-running, cowardly benghazi most transparent, most afraid to testify prez ever has yet to demonstrate.
Shefali, I suspect that Asians living in cities vote for Democrats much like Whites living in cities. Cultural sensibilities tied to geography, not race. It would be interesting to study the politics of Vietnamese immigrants working in Gulf fishing. As Asian families move to the outer suburbs in search of good schools, do they vote for Republicans? I’d be curious if Asian small business owners are fairly conservative.
GOP is a party of extreme right wingers and populist demagogues trying to pass as mainstream conservatives. People have learned the consequences of these policies: Give a tax break to the rich, they will take the money to China to produce pen to sell in US. This is your trickle down economics, but it trickles to China. Your foreign policy is at least as smart as your economics. You borrow from the chinese to fight “them” over there in Iraq.
Bachelor Degrees. Umm-hmmm. “Skilled innovators?”
Well, there’s innovation and innovation and standards and standards. Is the world speaking Chinese? What kind of cultural diversity exists in China compared to America, in sports, literature, music? And what does exist, how much is native to Chinese culture?
World architecture is based on what? Pop fashion, TV, movies. Even frickin’ kitchen fixtures are American throughout the world. And there’s the internet, and cell-phones.
If Asians were such innovators, their own polities in Asia would show it and I’d be wearing Chinese jackets instead of them baseball caps. They show nothing of the kind other than an ability to read manuals and learn to operate what others create. I don’t care what kind of education they have; to figure out immigrants and what they’ll offer, look at their own countries. That’s the fullest expression of them, and the cream of the crop are mostly financiers and people with degrees, not bright and eccentric innovators.
History has spoken on where innovation comes from. Real innovation creates without a blueprint. The Third World can’t innovate even with one.
I wonder what the numbers for Asians would look like if the vote was broken down by ethnic group? I’m Asian myself, but from Southeast Asia and I DON’T identify with either the Chinese, Indians, Koreans, etc. I’m very curious how the numbers would turn out.
In my immediate family, almost half voted for Romney. I also have a large group of extended family who are evangelical Christians or intermarried into evangelical Christian families and they are, understandably, conservative.
I would hate to lump all Asians together as they are even more ethnically diverse than “Latinos”. Someone really needs to do a study and find out what the breakdown is.
The differences between South Asian and East Asian and West Asian are much much much bigger than the difference between Calif. and Texas. The Asian-American label is very hard to make any sense at all.
And, beyond race, what are the other factors in playing? The education etc. Does the percentage there deviates too far from the subgroups within the white males? If the deviation is smaller, then your thesis does not hold. The subsequent discussion would be total waste of time.
Amit, neither democrats and republicans are “racist” in real life. A lot of your concerns are mostly MSM talking points and projections that has little basis in reality, which tells me that you’re a bit more partisan then you appear to be.
Did you equally feel threatened by the left when the OWS made antisematic remarks? Black politicians are occasionally caught blaming Asian immigrants for their troubles. Plenty of left wingers are racist whack jobs. You can’t judge a movement by the fringe.
A bad idea supported by a multi – cutural coalition is…. still a bad idea. A business ran by 10 qualified white workers will beat a business 10 mediocre non white ones. The left makes a huge deal out of the fact that the GOP is “mostly white” because they place a lot of default value on visible diversity. But diversity by itself is meaningless.
Most immigrants do not embrace limited government. But their sense of social patriarchy, nationalism, racial identity politics, and penchant to blame super power nations is an easy fit on the left. I’m not surprised that Indians feel offended by Jindal switching religions, Asians detest their own if they feel they sold out their heritage.
I’ve seen plenty of racism in my life, and some of that comes from Asian cultures. There are plenty of Asians who are NASTY little suckers with a penchant for xenophobia and racist thoughts. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese can’t stand each other, and they’ll employ the worst kind of stereotypes in their comics and TV shows.
I browsed through many of the comments but I did not find the point(s) I am going to make below.I apologize if I overlooked if someone made the same.
As an Indian(not Indian American but had formative years in America) I am distressed that Indian Americans went for for Obama by 85%!And Asians in general by 75%.
It was only Koreans and Vietnamese Americans who were reliable Republican voting blocks due to the fierce anti Communist position of Republicans but I think those have been undermined as well since 2004.THe same story as Cuban Americans.
Part of it was due to the screw ups of the Republicans in 2004 but also the current generation doesnt really remember or care about the communist atrocities in their home countries anymore.
All Asian American want to be bourgious “white” but they want to be associated with the “right” kind of white-”tolerant”,upper class” ,”affluent” and “urbane”
all of which add up to white liberal!
The image constructed by the Democrats of Republicans as a bunch of racist,gun toting ,Bible thumping yahoos who in cahoots with the Republican Wall Street types is out to screw minorities,women and the poor has been very effective propaganda.
And the Republican efforts to counter it have been ineffectual at best.
I suppose they didnt bother with them as they always thought they had the white votes to fall back on.Clearly with a divided white electorate,that is no longer an option.
Say what you want about Bush-he never lost an election.I dont think ethnic pandering will help-see what happened when in 2008 McCain tried to court women with Sarah Palin.Minority and female Republicans will not endear them to these voting block but create contempt.The best thing to do is make sure we have a winner!Everyone loves a winner
Im afraid too many whites and minorites were turned off by Mitts LDS faith and his upper class stature.We have to get an erudite ,charismatic white evangelical or Catholic Santorum working class type with a somewhat tenuous minority connection such as an adopted daugher or son in law(minority wife is so last decade).
I was thinking about all those black preachers before the election talking down obama’s homosexual agenda and that they were supposedly telling their congregations not to vote for it. Right?!? By the by, I’m not soliciting a bunch of hate speech, just sharing a waking thought.
Given that exit polls said 93 percent of African-American voters voted for Obama, virtually the same percentage as last time, one of two major things happened. First, that’s not really what all those preachers were telling their congregations after all (it was just news for public consumption). Or second, the other 7% of votes all came from black preachers and, while their congregations may hoot and holler to make the preacher feel useful, they don’t really listen to the gospel their preachers are sharing.
Bottom line: black America, by a margin of 93%, enthusiastically endorsed homosexual marriage in America with none standing against it in the end. If I were Grayson Gaymore, I’d be hitting up the closest black church, mosque or temple to schedule my homosexual wedding ceremony. By all recordable indications, they’ll all be receptive to the event.
So the black church’s teachings don’t count when it comes to re-electing the first 1/2 black president.
And the Catholic church’s opposition to the Obama/Sebelius move to force Catholic institutions to provide insurance for contraception doesn’t matter in the face of that same church’s so called “social justice” agenda.
So to a preponderance of blacks and Catholics, the teachings of their respective churches are irrelevant when it comes to voting.
Too many hyphens, not enough Americans.
Immigrants used to focus on assimilation into their new country, not hyphenation.
If a political party has to appeal to this alleged group or that alleged group in order to win, the American experiment is over.
I will never forget one black guy on camera at a tea party in 2010. When asked why he wasn’t with “his people”, he replied:
“I’m with my people. Americans.”
@tanstaafl: Excellent!
I agree that this topic requires further study before a more useful analysis can be attempted. For example, there is a big cultural gap between Khmer children of refugees from rural Cambodia who are born into “gangsta” culture and Indian pharma executives who complain that U.S. schools are too slow for their kids and will handicap them when they return to Indian schools.
“I will venture a guess.” You presumptuous, pompous, ass.
Just a thought: If you want to know why Asian-Americans voted for Obama — ask them. Don’t speculate. Ask.
I have been a Republican since I first voted in 1976. And I don’t understand how we expect to rally this country around a party that stands for Sympathy for the Oppressed Wealthy.
I love how awful these comments are.
Keep digging that hole conservatards.
Virtually all immigrants spend their first two or three generations in our densely populated urban centers, attending the public schools therein. These are the parts of America ruled by the Democrat Party with an iron fist. What do you think new immigrants perceive “American culture” to be? They assimilate very quickly – into the welfare state Democrat urban culture around them. The poor, unskilled ones become trapped in the welfare state, and naturally vote to expand it. The skilled ones get ahead by learning to thrive in the radiaclly Leftist university environment and since personal success trumps all other considerations, they tow the Leftist “pay line” rather than worry about abstract things like what words like “novus ordo seclorem” are supposed to mean.
The Republican Party is not quite yet a conservative party. It took several generations for the Democrat Party to become the Marxist Party it is today. Because the GOP is still a party “in transition”, it has not yet been able to formulate a successful marketing strategy that works in the deep-blue parts of the country. It had better decide what kind of party it wants to be very quickly, however, because time is not on its side right now. Or America’s.
Some are sensitive about no longer being peasants like they once were. Perhaps they don’t see a difference between small government and anarchy, recalling a bit too much “freedom” where landlords and mafia ruled.
I love the comments here. The party who hates math and science is all of a sudden wondering why Asians won’t vote for that party. Blocking Obama Asian judical pick didn’t help either. Streaming Muslim this and that don’t help because alot of Asian are Muslim. The only way the GOP will survive in the next few decades is to have the moderates take over, because your base (old WASPs) are dying everyday as we speak. If the economy recover or the Teatards in the House tries to stall everything in the next 4 years Hillary will be the next president in 2016.
What are you writing about?
It has been proven time & time again all people do well, better than being on the dole, when the markets are free. The incumbent is against free markets.
That is why people are upset that the incumbent was re-elected. They see the collapse of the economy happening under his watch. Now there is nothing to do but sit tight & bear it for now.
Have a nice day in your virtual reality!
Asian immigrants are model citizens in almost all respects. The election shows two things. Asians will put their interests in bringing their families over above the welfare of America. And secondly, they do not understand our Constitution – both the written Constitution and the unwritten constitution that makes America great. A person who knows and loves this country and understands what it means to be American could never vote for Obama. Not the second time around.
America is lost. A high level of immigration combined with a refusal to aggressively assimilate immigrants is one of factors that destroyed it. Just one of many. My neighbor is not an immigrant. He supported Obama. He is a nice man. But he doesn’t understand America either. There are many like him. Too many like him. That’s why America is lost.
The Republican Party would have had a better chance of winning if they had Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans conservatives, who share the same values, on the team to reflects minorities who are conservatives too. The Democrat Party would have no merits when it came to calling the Republican Party racist.
The Republican Party should reach out to the minoirties who share the same value and go from there. Until the Republican Party reaches out to them, the GOP chances of winning the Presidential election is slim.
They exist. But do you have any doubt that the Left would not attack and smear a candidate Jindal or Rubio? They hate a black conservative, a gay conservative, and they prefer to destroy them first.
You have to realize that Romney and Ryan did not run on social conservative issues. They were blue state moderates who wanted to talk about the economy. It was the Democrats who insisted on making it about abortion and who cooked up the war on women fantasy. It was a distraction from the real issues. Pure demagoguery. And they will try the same thing no matter who our candidate is.
We are up against demagogues and they do not care what they use to “kill” their enemies.
I am so SICK and TIRED of this Hyphenated-America CR*P! If we have to spend our time catering and kowtowing to every d*mned hyphenated ethnic group that cannot simply become AMERICAN then it isn’t worth saving this country!
Speaking as an Asian-American, the most obvious reason, to me, that Asians vote Democrat is really simple. Geography. Here are the places which have a lot of Asians:
California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, DC area.
Even if they’re from elsewhere, a disproportionate number spend their college years in the Northeast, California or similar places. The most conservative Asian-Americans I know tend to be from the South. I suspect the voting percentages, once adjusted for geography would be a lot closer to the general population.
That said, I did notice a significant shift from Asian-Americans voting more Republican to voting more Democrat in the last 20 years. More first-generation Asian Americans tend to be a bit more conservative than the second and third generation Asian Americans. Again, not too different than the generational divide among white people, for example.
“If we Republicans can’t persuade our most successful, entrepreneurial, family-oriented citizens to support us, we won’t be in business much longer.”
I agree 100% what the author said. I am an American of Indian origin. 90% Indians are Social and Fiscal conservative but 75% are supporting liberals. Something wrong here, lot of them have not realized who they are and what they believe in. I was able to talk to so many Indians and able to convince them to to become republicans. Republican party should reach Indian community.
“Asian-Americans, like any other immigrant group, come here with the hope of bringing family members with them.”
I don’t care if someone brings their family _if they undertake to support those family members from their own pockets_. And if that requirement of support is backed up with actual consequences. Which is not the case today.
Norm Matloff, a professor of computer science at UC Davis, wrote some articles back in the 1990s in which he pointed out how Chinese families openly abuse “family reunification” to get their overseas parents a free retirement courtesy of Uncle Sam.
When younger people sponsor their overseas parents for entry to the U.S. under family reunification, they are asked to sign a pledge that the people arriving will not become a public charge. It is intended and expected that the younger family members will pay for the elders’ living expenses and medical care once those elders are here in the States.
Except, as Matloff pointed out, there is absolutely no enforcement mechanism to back this up. The “pledge” to support the elders is not binding. And the Chinese in particular game the system ruthlessly.
The pledge of support is signed and thereafter ignored. The elders arrive and within a month or two, they’re enrolled in SSI, and drawing benefits from a system that they never paid into. (A system that’s already going bankrupt as it is, even without cynical freeloaders from outside.)
The article is written in such general term, sterotyping of Asian American, and who are these Asian Americans, that does no justice as to why Asian American vote Democratic instead of Republican. According to the the article since Asian Americans share the same family and education beliefs that should automatically make them Republicans in the mind of the author. To have a better understanding why a high percentage of Asian American vote Democrat is base on their values, income, and community. If Asian Americans live in a high concentrated liberal community then they too will vote Democrat and the same with voting Republican. Also, the perception by Asian American on the government role in governing society.
In order to understand why Asian American voted Republican or Democratic the author should be on the street asking them instead of following the so called research polls. You aren’t going to change anybody minds just by looking at charts or understanding why Asian Americans voted for Democrats instead of Republican.
Most Asians emigrate to large cities that are dominated by the Democratic party. Additionally, the democratic party and its leaders such as senators and congressmen, make an effort to reach out to the ASian community in their churches and temples. As someone of Indian origin, who is a liberatarian, I can honestly say that I’ve never met anyone from the Republican party attend any of the Diwali festivals or make an attempt to explain what the tea party is about at the temple or at any of the citizenship ceremonies.
Additionally, many Chinese immigrants do not have a problem with the Communist Party. They are seeking a better standard of living, less pollution and less competition, not seeking religious freedom. So, the onus lies on the republican party to better it’s outreach programs. Do not assume that only Christians will get what America is about.
Agreed. The Democrat governor would visit Southeast Asian Americans (SAA) at church during the election time. No peep from the Republican Party side. This is an advantage for the Democrats.
The Republican Party needs to do some major outreach to minority groups and promoted themselves as to how they are going to help Asian Americans, Latinos, and African Americans to have the American Dream.
Final comment to Republicans: Reach out to where the Asians are. If you think your message is worth it, go out and spread it.
To get someone’s vote you have to ask for it.
My wife is Asian. At the annual celebration her ethnic group has min the nearest big city with thousands of people the Democrats are always there. The Republicans? MIA.
In the 2004 election Hawaii, typically plus 15-20% Democrat, was close in the last days. Why? 20+% of Hawaiians are Filipinos. For a number of reasons, paying some attention to The Philippines, strong on Islamic terrorism (many Filipinos have family members who have been forced from their homes or killed by Islamic terrorists, Bush was popular with Filipinos so they flipped from being overwhelmingly Democrat. So did the Republicans try to capitalize? See any Filipino Republican candidates? No. They never recruited any.
Up until 2004 Republicans were getting between 40-45% of Asian-American votes. So, do you see any Asian Republican candidates? Did they recruit any? It’s be chapter one in The Book of Short Lists. The only one who comes to mind is Bobby Jindal who recruited himself.
Good point. If you don’t show up …
To associate Asians with entrepreneurship and individualism is a mistake. The recent immigrants from Asian that I’ve met are great;y interested in consuming social services to the maximum extent legally possible and beyond if they can manage it.
I was born in the US, voted in every election since I turned 18, and have voted for candidates from both parties. In this election I voted for Obama. Given the comments here that I’ve read, I made the right choice – since according to y’all, I am a barbarian, effortlessly inferior, not a “real American”, here to steal jobs, devalue the US currency, and I’m probably some kind of communist spy. Glad to know you didn’t want my vote after all.
Mr Goldman,
The reason that Asians overwhelmingly supported Obama is simply skin color solidarity. the republican party is viewed as a “white” party and the few non-whites in it as traitors. The European experience, particularly in Britain, is that Asians, mostly from the Indian sub-continent, are expert at working the system for freebies. Your friend Reuven Brenner, with his open borders nonsense would, I suspect, be less enthusiastic were his tenure to be revoked and asian economists willing to do his job for 25% or so of his salary were welcomed in. Perhaps he could also experience the delight of being blackmailed into training his own replacement.
As Obamacare is implemented we will experience the joys of the British NHS, where completely unqualified “doctors” are imported from India and other places (Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, etc.), in order to fill positions that British doctors won’t because of the low salaries offered. Asians are now guaranteed that H1B and L1B visas will be given out like confetti; print yourself a graduation certificate in computer engineering, do a two week course in answering the phone and you are welcomed into the US as a “Hi-tech” worker. No wonder they support the democratic party.
Here’s a joke for you.
In 2025, what are we going to call Americans who work for Asian bosses?
The answer is:
“Lucky.”
The rest of us won’t be working.
Everyone complains about the lousy performance of American students in international rankings, yet a hugely disproportionate number of Asian kids go through the same schools and excel. Their cousins back home are working just as hard. Their parents make them spend the afternoon at “cram” schools (and pay the tuition) or practicing musical instruments instead of playing video games.
I used to hire lots of H1B types on Wall Street. I never heard of someone getting a US job with a diploma-mill degree.
The emergence of the Asian economies has elicited the biggest wave of highly-educated talent ever to hit the world. We’d better adapt if we want to stay in business. The sort of resentment you express will sink us for sure.
Really Mr Goldman, for a man of your erudition you seem to be incredibly naive. Lucky to work for Asians? Lucky to work for people who will tolerate and even celebrate the social conditions in India? Multi-millionaires quite happy to step over a starved cripple on their way to their counting houses. People who invert Marx’s thesis that profits are unpaid wages into the firm belief that any wages paid are unmade profits. Take a look at the societies these people come from and then tell us that we are lucky to have them. As for your idea that American children are backward, split the statistics and you will find that white children of European heritage can do extremely well in our schools. If you dilute their achievements by including black and Hispanic dysfunction then yes, US education is failing. The truth is that the US economy has been eviscerated by a monumentally greedy class of money changers. We will prosper again when the conditions we apply to our own economy for wages, worker health and safety and environmental responsibility are applied through tariffs to all those who would get rich off our consumption.
The GOP would be wise to study PM Stephen Harper of Canada and how his administration courted the immigrant vote and won it, helping him gain the first conservative majority since the early eighties. It took years of outreach, teaching and showing them that their traditional values of hard work, strong families and fiscal sanity are CONSERVATIVE values. No one party owns them (as the Liberal Party of Canada assumed for so long). He often bypassed the mainstream media, and sent his ministers straight to their communities to get to know them and they could get to know what conservatism is all about.
Thank you for cheering me up.
Roger,
What I’m trying to tell you is that you’re standing in the path of an economic tsunami and you have no idea of what is going to hit you.
I believe you Mr Goldman. I would add that in addition to the economic tsunami that is almost upon us, there is a moral and civilizational tsunami also, and God help us if we need to depend on Chinese or Indian help with that.
regardless of how educated you are or how much money you make, if you are not white the republican party is way too scary and to hostile towards you to vote for them. Plain and simple. Why is it that white supremacists and kkk types find a home with the GOP? Why do national republican leaders not denounce vile racist comments made by elected officials and their supporters? Asians and Hispanics are not white, have you guys noticed that? The GOP has painted itself as the white party by going after Obama and degrading black people the way they do. And not lifting a finger to appeal to the conservative blacks, and there are a lot of them out there. Asians, Hispanics, are new immigrants, they were not here when this country was formed like the blacks and whites were. They are not part of the 400 year sin committed against black people. All they see is one party that allows some of its members to demean, degrade, disenfranchise, and suppress one race in particular and all non whites in general. They understand clearly that this type of history and continued behavior can have a devastating affect. And they naturally assume that with increased political power it could eventually affect them, because, keep in mind, they are not white. Remember too that asians and hispanics are subjected to racism and hatred everyday in this country as well, it’s just not front page news. They know very well what it feels like to live in a country where freedom and opportunity abounds but is also littered with a lot of racist white folks. So naturally non whites would tend to lean away from a party that is hostile towards them, a party where mostly all members are white, a party that allows racist comments to stand, but lean more towards a party that has a more inclusive tone, a more we’re all in this together tone, a more freedom and equality for all tone. a party that has members that look like them. And currently that party just happens to be the democrats.
Jake,
Your ignorance is quite astounding: Of what party was former imperial wizard Robert Byrd a senior member?
What party ended slavery?
what party led the fight for civil rights?
I could go on and on but you are young and foolish, but hopefully sometime you will learn.
Jake,
I couldn’t have said this any better myself. When your party’s narrative is – let’s separate the makers and the takers and you give the impression that all takers are minorities, it does not sit well with all minorities. Asians are a very intellectual but also a very compassionate crowd. They also believe that you are only as good as the humanity that you help as a path to enlightenment in Buddhism. Even the Asians that are Christians share this compassionate sentiment. To see one party constantly target one group of people does not win them over. For a party that was founded by anti-slavery activists in 1854, the Republican Party of today is far from that. They have allowed the Democratic Party to now be the party of equality.
David: It’s an impossible situation. Immigration reform is a chimera. It’s way too late for that. Republicans are asked to compete with the Social Democrats for the votes of socialist-preferring Hispanics (see Heather MacDonald’s work, and Andrew McCarthy) by granting a mass amnesty for lawbreakers. I’m sure this will mobilize the conservative white working and middle classes even more. As for Asians, if they’re so smart, why’d they vote for Obama? Because grandma can’t get in to the US on their coattails? If they’re willing to sacrifice the country’s future for such a petty personal objective, they’re not as sharp as we think and frankly, who needs ‘em: this country’s doomed, so the GOP might as well stand firm on all principled positions and go down shouting the truth rather than colluding. Why take on policy positions that implicate us in the pending disaster? At least then when the collapse comes, it can all be laid to rest at the feet of the real culprits.
Heather MacDonald and Andy McCarthy are friends of mine. But the numbers are clear: if the Republicans can’t win over immigrants we become a permanent minority party. The white working class didn’t do that well for us in any case; the turnout was quite low. From an economic standpint Brenner is right: we need the skilled immigrants.
David,
Republicans are doomed.
Asian immigrants come mostly from mainland China, and they accept gov’t domination of their lives. The same applies event to Japanese or Taiwanese. They are quite comfortable with the Democrats. The same applies to majority of intellectuals from any country (Asian or European) with the exception of Eastern Europe. In general, socialist religion is a mental disease of the intellectuals, but it is taking over the old judeo-christian religion. This is the trand of the last 160 years, and it is not going to stop.
The key is having the right economic and cultural message that appeals to regular, blue collar workers regardless of ethnicity. Focus on bread and butter issues. What could be more conservative? Stress on workers. Soon everyone with a (private sector) job will be declared “rich” and will be a net payer into the system. Defend them.
Too many Republicans seem to have internalized the leftwing view of themselves. They find it hard to say that their ideas are in fact good for children and minorities. Our natural constituency are people who understand that they have a stake in the future, even if they need a nudge to see it. They are still a majority.
Just don’t pander to hip chicks and billionaires and identity hucksters. The Dems will always be better at that.
Since I haven’t seen this suggestion here yet, how about simply asking THEM why they voted for Obama rather than Romney? Maybe the answers will confirm your thoughts, maybe they won’t. But if it is important to pay attention to this, or any other, ethnic group, it is important to ask THEM rather than writing reams of speculation based upon indirect information that may be irrelevant to reality.
I write these sort of things in part to nudge my Republican friends to conduct the sort of research that might better enlighten us.
The Asians are workers, not takers, like the Mexicans.
That is wrong and injurious. The Mexicans work hard. They use less food stamps per capita than the general population and have a higher labor force participation rate. The trouble is that their skills are inadequate.
They have 50% out of wedlock birthrate. That means heavy use of government assistance by them (if they are legal) and by their American born children. They also have high crime rates. Yes, they work hard, but they they bring other costs and social problems that Asians don’t.
The overall population has a 40% out of wedlock birth rate. The rest of the country isn’t doing too well, either. It’s OK to criticize ethnic groups, painful as that may be, so long as the discussion is fact-based and serious. That’s a fine line to walk, but I insist on it: I won’t allow ethnic insults on this site. So everyone, be careful and judicious when discussing inflammatory issues.
Hispanics have an extremely heavy bias towards the young and “Millennial” cohorts. Crime, illegitimacy, and economic measurements really need to take account of age; it’s like a 15 year gap between Hispanics and whites. They are already very mainstream, but it hasn’t been reflected yet in voting.
For the marriage issue, wealth matters. Exploitative divorce laws make marriage a very dangerous decision for the poor, one that can result in jail. Hispanics are much more family oriented than the hard left would like to think. It’s just the feminist system that holds back men.
jon huntsman would have gotten almost all the east asian-american vote.
goldman nor any of the comments i read don’t mention the one reason my chinese wife and most of her republican friends didn’t vote for romney: he sounded like a warmonger, and his advisers were in fact warmongers.
ditch the neocon beligerance and the liberal internationalist democracy building crap, and you’ll get a lot of asian votes.
My husband is an Iranian-American, who considers himself “white” not Asian. When I mentioned to him how surprised I was at the large numbers of people who consider themselves Asian-Americans who voted Democratic he said that I shouldn’t have been, that people from countries such as India and China were raised in an atmosphere in which social and economic modernization were backed by governments working against traditionalists, and not only are they used to having central governments controlling things they have been raised to think that is the normal way of things. If you believe that having a strong controlling central government is a good thing, you naturally vote Democratic, so it will probably take at least a generation before they adapt to the actual conditions in the United States.
Mr. Goldman,
I like your piece and the question you raised. As an indian-american, I can share my views. I came here as a doctoral student and now I am a researcher in a federal laboratory. My husband has a ph.d and he is a college professor. I have two young children and the most important thing in the world for me is their education. We will go up to any measure to secure their higher education. As an educated person, I do not despise science and math. I (and the majority of the asian-americans) believe in evolution, think creationism is a hoax and is dangerous as a policy to be introduced in public schools. I almost worship Richard Dawkins and Nate Silver. I cringe when I hear comments from GOP rep (who serves the science committee in the House) that evolution is something from the pit of hell. As long as GOP does not change it’s attitude towards science and math education, it does not get a chance to win asians.
Chatra,
Thanks for writing.
I agree with you about some of the idiocies coming out of my party. But there is a different and far deeper argument for viewing science and mathematics from a religious vantage point:
See
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians
Hindu mathematicians appear to have discovered a good deal of the calculus a couple of centuries before Leibniz. I am curious to know more about them.
A truly educated person should be able to make a rational decision about politics. A decision involving costs and benefits, and the good of society. You do not sound like such a person. What is stopping you from voting for a moderate blue state businessman over a divisive demagogue who pushed up our federal debt by 50% in four years? You love math? Then you understand how much a trillion is. How do you feel when Obama goes on Letterman and pretends not to now the debt figure? Sure, the media love him anyway but an educated person should see through them. But then, education is not wisdom.
Romey and Ryan ran on the economy, not creationism of abortion. Obama did not want to talk about he economy. So he created a number of distractions and lied about his record. People voted for him based on identity politics and fashion. Nothing rational about it.
Both parties have nasty members and candidates but somehow the existence of corrupt and hateful Democrats does not deter you to vote for Obama, right?
I am not religious but I will not let that fact define my choices because this great western civiliation was not built by atheists, it was built by Christian and Jews. Historic fact. Certainly not by the likes of Mr Dawkins. You use the word worship. I do not worship a God, but I detest an intolerant person like Dawkins who feels the need to trample on the beliefs of my mother and grandmother.
Strength through Diversity or Balkanize, Divide and Conquer?
You make the call.