An op-ed today’s LATimes argues that Asians have signed on in overwhelming
An op-ed today’s LATimes argues that Asians have signed on in overwhelming numbers to the non-White coalition that has become dominant in the Democratic Party. Based on their experience studying the Asian American community, two political scientists, Taeku Lee and Karthick Ramakrishnan, claim that the main reasons that Asians voted overwhelmingly for Obama have to do with seeing the Republican Party as too concerned with limiting immigration and too much associated with Christianity (Asian Americans turn Democratic).
The 73% of Asians voting for Obama was indeed remarkable—higher than Latinos (71%) or Jews (~70). Given their income profile, Asians are voting much more like Jews who, as the old saw goes, vote like Puerto Ricans but earn like Episcopalians. The point here is that their motives for doing so are similar to those of Jews—a lack of identification with the traditional people and culture of America (although doubtless with far less fear and loathing than is typical of Jews).
Since 2000, the Republican Party has moved more sharply to the right than the Democratic Party has to the left, especially on issues that resonate with Asian Americans. For example, Republicans in Congress escalated their heated rhetoric on immigration and, despite the Bush administration’s efforts, consistently scuttled efforts toward comprehensive immigration reform.
[During the Obama Administration,] the Republican Party has not been helped by its close liaison with the tea party movement, which received low favorability ratings in our 2012 survey, nor by presidential candidates and party activists emphasizing Christian values. Thus a Pew report on Asian American religion showed the highest Democratic Party support among Hindus and the religiously unaffiliated who, together, account for more than 35% of the Asian American population.
Taeku and Ramakrishnan also mention Obamacare and ending the war in Iraq as issues that helped Obama with Asians. But the bottom line is clear:
If Republicans … are able to project a more inclusive image of the party on immigration and religious diversity, they can hope to reverse their steep descent among Asian American voters.
So, once again, the Republican Party is encouraged to abandon any allegiance to the interests of its White base. Implicitly, Whites are urged to give up any attitude that immigration should be limited—Whites should have no concern about their displacement and should get on board with transforming the country away from its historical people and culture as soon as possible by admitting even more non-White immigrants.
Whites should have no concern about the eclipse of the implicit and often explicit understanding that America is a Christian culture. All those tea partiers and their concern that America retain its Christian heritage must simply change their attitudes in order to be acceptable to Asians (and Jews).
Once again we see that multiculturalism has resulted in the racialization of American politics. Utterly predictable. And of course, the standard line is that it’s all the fault of those evil, racist Whites—despite the fact that Whites are the least racialized of any racial group. On average, 80% of non-Whites voted Democrat, while a bit over 60% of Whites voted Republican. But the drumbeat message is that the White base of the Republican Party must change; they must become loyal foot soldiers in the program that is displacing them and making them politically irrelevant.
Whites are clearly becoming racialized—despite the fact that working class and middle class Whites were forced to choose between Obama as multicultural icon and a plutocratic, elitist Republican who did not represent their economic interests.
White the Republicans are urged to become more like the Democrats, the Democrats have firmly embraced what used to be considered the agenda of the far left. Ronald Brownstein notes
Continue reading:
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2012/11/asian-americans-as-part-of-the-non-white-coalition/