Rikyrah makes a very good point about why non-white voters, and Asians in particular, might be turned off by the far right’s attitude towards the Kenyan usurper:
Barack and Michelle Obama are the EPITOME of the American Dream.
They are what EVERYONE who wasn’t born RICH in this country, and can’t dribble some sort of athletic ball is told to do:
Go to school
Excel.
Work your ass off.
Nobody is saying that you’ll become President.
But, if you aren’t born rich, this is the way to middle-class success at the very least.
The GOP continually disrespected this self-made man and his wife….but, the only people who noticed were Black folks, and we were told we were being ’ too sensitive’, and it was in ’ our imaginations’.
The highest educated populace in this country is the Asian-American community. They value those pieces of paper like nobody’s business.
You don’t think they noticed…
That being President of the Harvard Law Review – is a spectacular achievement…
Until Barack Obama won the Presidency of the Harvard Law Review.
Graduating Magna Cum Laude used to be a spectacular achievement…
Until Barack Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School…..which of course, means he got his degree in crayon at the ’ Black Entrance’.
If you read too much of the neocons, you’ll notice that they love something called “thumos”, which might loosely be defined as the hunger for recognition (part of the deal, I think, is that people don’t need big gubmint social programs and laws to be happy, they just need the satisfaction of being appreciated by their church and country). So you’d think the right would understand that non-white people don’t like the idea that no matter what they achieve, they’ll be put down as undeserving affirmative action babies.
But apparently, it doesn’t. Bobo et al. continue to believe that all the right has to do is sex up the bootstraps and belt-tightening talk a little more in order to win over non-white voters.
efroh
Unfortunately conservatives don’t think the Obamas have earned their success, they think it was given to them (via affirmative action programs, etc.).
Total BS of course, but it’s how they rationalize thinking that the Obamas don’t deserve the success they’ve earned.
Cassidy
Only white men with parents who have money earn their success. Everyone else sucks at the gov’t teat.
schrodinger's cat
Bobo had an op-ed a couple of weeks back on why the new immigrants are not like WASP immigrants from Ye Olde England, in that they like the gubmint, because they are not independent minded or risk taking.
Yes, because coming to a country where you hardly know anyone one, with less than $1000 in your pocket, when you are in your early twenties is a very safe thing to do. Idiot.
Suffern ACE
@schrodinger’s cat: Back in the day when Huntington was formulating the “Clash of Civilizations”, he decided to write off everything south of the border as part of Western Civilization. Didn’t matter that they had been catholic for hundreds of years and had participated in the modernity debate. No, they had some kind of mañana culture that left them outside of the West-that-is-Worth-Saving adventure.
Also, it kind of sucks for them to run out the same old notion of the smug superiority of western family values (only we love our children, don’t ya know) when they know full well that those other cultures actually value filial piety and respect for the elderly family members to degrees that we can only imagine. And they love their children just as much to boot.
Joel
Some years ago, the same people (albeit with different stated political alignment) might have wondered why Jewish immigrants and their children were unwilling to throw their support behind the “conservative” cause. They might have wondered, of course, if they weren’t systemically trying to exclude said Jews from society. The bad news for Republicans is that people remember for more than a generation.
BGinCHI
You know who else thought whites were the only hard-working and virtuous race?
No, seriously.
BGinCHI
@Joel: This is true unless your name is Lloyd Blankfein or Sheldon Adelson. I guess that much money and power fogs your memory.
Montysano
I recently did some business with an African American owned restaurant. The owner’s daughter, mid-30s and educated, and I got into a conversation. I asked her how the last 4 years have looked from her perspective. I already knew the answer, but it was quite an experience to hear it from her. Basically, it appeared to her that the election of Obama had caused some sort of national nervous breakdown.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
Furthermore, they don’t see, as the example of Irving Kristol describing all his son’s connections and hands up from friends and colleagues, is in itself a form of “affirmative action” that Barack Obama never had, yet he’s President of the United States, while William Kristol is an asshole who makes predictions that are always wrong.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
Pretty fnording hilarious watching a group of politicians with an empathy issue. So exactly why did they chose politics if they can’t be bothered to understand how other people think?
aimai
To the extent that the Right noticed non-white Asian voters as a significant class they thought they had them sewn up because of the not insignificant history of Asian racism against self (as non white) and against specifically African Americans. And they had Dinesh D’Souza, Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley to assure them that South Asians would happilly buy into an anti-affirmative action bourgeouis dream. They thought they could pit Asian Americans against Blacks, just as they thought they could pit Jews against Blacks, as though college placement and paying for college weren’t a crap shoot at the best of times. Rather than pushing to make good schools more affordable for everyone, and opening up more places (through supporting good state schools) the right wing has focused like a laser on the the bugabear of “affirmative action” keeping white people out of school–since Bakke which was a long time ago. And there are some Asians who buy into it–just as there are some in the Democratic alliance who do. But that doesn’t stop them from voting Democratic on the whole.
My personal theory is that the large number of South Asian middle class strivers would vote Republican but everytime they encounter Republicans socially and in the work force the obvious overwhelming racism and spite of their attitudes simply can’t be hidden and is repulsive, even if the tax policies look like they might be congenial. I base this theory on the fact that down in a thread over at Andrew Klavern’s site, where the ostensible topic is tamping down the right wing propensity to attack every Democrat as nuts and sluts, the bretheren can’t help themselves–they literally can’t see what is wrong with attacking Sandra Fluke and every young woman personally as a slut if you want to attract their votes. They are incapable of putting themselves in the position of an identity group or a minority group to which they don’t belong and seeing that when one is attacked, all are attacked. Just as they can’t help themselves and continue attacking young women as slutty bitches in heat I presume that in coffee room conversations with Asian Americans they can’t stop themselves from going on the attack over racial issues of all kinds.
aimai
schrodinger's cat
@Joel: Yeah now its all Judeo-Christian this and Judeo-Christian that. Isn’t Bobo Jewish? Why is he always writing paeans to WASPs of the days gone by?
geg6
Rikyrah is spot on. There is literally nothing people of color can do (even if that person of color, Jesus himself, appeared right in front of their noses) that wouldn’t get twisted into either a result of affirmative action or something not worth achieving anyway.
Oh, and just to drive you crazy, Doug, I sent Sully an email yesterday regarding the stunningly stupid post “The Roid Age.” And he posted almost my whole reply today. If you’re interested, I’m the Clooney fan. ;-0
Villago Delenda Est
@Montysano:
This is the part I simply do not get.
I’m a middle aged white guy. Scots-Irish last name. College educated. Veteran.
I’m in one of the prime “hate the ni*CLANG*” demographics.
Yet I’m not participating in the national nervous breakdown over this black guy being President. I voted for the guy twice, proudly, because he was, and is, the best candidate offered for the job. I don’t give a shit about his skin color. He’s the best guy we had to choose from. It’s really quite simple.
This whole thing baffles me from a utilitarian perspective.
GregB
The act of getting a law degree and serving in state politics is about to get a big boost by the GOP once the hagiography surrounding the most accomplished young man ever to rise to the top in national politics.
Marco Rubio! Amazing! Law degree! Rose to the top in state politics! Most accomplished human being ever!
Ash
I don’t really think Asians suffer from the idea that people think their hard work or status wasn’t earned. I’ll be blunt and say that, unlike blacks and hispanics, we have the advantage of the “model minority” tag and therefore don’t really experience the “YOU DIDN’T EARN THAT!!!!!!!” comments.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: I always thought one part of the 47% tape that didn’t get enough discussion was Willard’s very angry “I earned everything I have! I inherited nothing!” While technically true– he was richer than George when the old man died– the inability/refusal of people like Willard and Dumbya to recognize that they were born on third base (Cranbrook, son of a governor, to say nothing of that IIRC $50K nut* Willard and Ann used to buy the ironing board they ate off– so cute and human-y!) is a real blind spot for the Republican party and their fellow travellers. I always considered myself slow to realize my own privilege in this world as white male with affluent parent, by which I mean I was a freshman in college.
*in 1970 dollars, fercrissake, which is probably like a quarter million today?
schrodinger's cat
@aimai: I don’t think Nikki Haley and Jindal and the Indian/South Asian Wingnut Punditubbie brigade is representative. They are like the Michael Steeles of South Asians, grifting the gullible.
geg6
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, there’s your problem right there. Exactly how many racists/bigots/teatards do you suppose are utilitarians? Or even know what it means?
Eric U.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: my understanding is the Mitt started “his” company with Bain’s name and Bain’s money. Then he used that to destroy companies and take their money. There are very few people that get that deal, even among the 1%. And it’s a fairly disturbing story all around.
The Moar You Know
When the right stands for the rights of those who’ve inherited wealth and the rights of those who’ve got theirs already, it makes it hard for them to form a credible argument that they’re on the sides of folks who are trying to make their lives better.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
Point taken (insert huge smiley face here)
aimai
@schrodinger’s cat:
No, I agree, they are not representative, but I think that to the extent that the GOP hierarchy thought they were, they were reassuring to them. Its really clear that the average Republican voter simply had no idea of the numbers involved–look, they are still surprised by the legitimate, legal, citizen Latino vote. In real terms the Asian vote (south and east) wasn’t huge, anymore than the Jewish vote is huge and most average Republican voters simply probably didn’t realize how important all these votes would be to creating a non white majority vote in the long run. But the upper classes–the Mehlmans and the Roves knew that the GOP is on suicide watch if it can’t expand into minority voters and yet they did nothing. Because they assumed the Asian vote was sewn up because CULTURE! Just like they kept insisting that 1) latinos wouldn’t vote or 2) they are a natural conservative vote bank because of presumed beliefs about gayness and abortions.
aimai
The Other Bob
The one thing I didn’t see in the last thread on this issue was a discussion of the religiosity of Asians. Aren’t many Asians, especially immigrants from China and Japan nonreligious?
I cannot see the Christian Taliban appealing to people who came from a nonreligious society.
Suffern ACE
@GregB: Oh, and even better, he served in the state legislature long enough and in a powerful enough position to actually get accused of graft! He outshines Obama. He made holding office profitable for himself. That jerk Obama just wrote a book.
schrodinger's cat
@The Other Bob: I actually know some Bible thumping Koreans and Chinese, so I don’t know if that’s always a safe assumption to make.
geg6
@The Other Bob:
I don’t think necessarily non-religious as much as non-Christian. I think one of the many reasons many of the Vietnamese who immigrated here used to be reliable Republican voters is that they were Catholics. It’s pretty hard to get Buddhists or Confucians to get riled up about crazy shit like abortion or birth control like it is with Christians.
Suffern ACE
@The Other Bob: Well, based on what I see on that score, as Christians, they are Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians and not so many pentacostals (although those are there, too). It’s like they converted to mainline Christianity and probably don’t have time for the snake-handling end-of-worlders.
PeakVT
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s also the unquantifiable element of knowing that you can take a risk and fail without having to worry about being homeless or even starving. Rmoney doesn’t even have a glimmer of an inkling of the faintest notion that his father provided him such an incredible freedom.
Ash Can
It’s nice to see rickyrah’s comment showcased; that was a righteous (and oh so true) rant.
And this is why I don’t think a Hispanic last name or Hispanic spouse or Spanish language skills, in and of themselves, would be worth shit to a GOP presidential/vice-presidential candidate in a general election. The policies are what have to change, not the color and/or ethnicity of the candidates, and as long as idiots, assholes, and lunatics are running the GOP, this ain’t gonna happen.
Walker
@Suffern ACE:
A lot of it has to do with missionary outreach by the mainlines in those Asian countries. For example, that is why so many Koreans are Presbyterian.
schrodinger's cat
@Ash Can: It would be as helpful as Sarah Palin was to get the women’s vote.
Frankensteinbeck
@PeakVT:
The biggest thing men like Bush and Romney inherit is a bunch of family friends who’ll go ‘Straight out of college? Come work for me for 100K a year and gigantic promotion opportunities, even if you fail.’
geg6
@Suffern ACE:
What exactly about the Catholic Church today is not completely equivalent to the snake-handling end-of-worlders? Sorry, but if you paid any attention at all to the goings on in the US Catholic Church over the last two years, you’d know that they have become one with the Borgavangicals.
rlrr
@geg6:
Many Catholics feel free to ignore their church. This is not true with fundamentalists.
brettvk
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, yeah, that part of the Romney saga has always bothered me, and I fault all lefty pundits for never taking it up and running with it. All of us who are eking out our student loan payments every month should know that story and have a gut reaction to it. And Romney’s repeated claim to self-invention was never, never challenged like it should have been. Someday, someone in the media has to have the courage to ask a Romney or a Walton where’d they be if they hadn’t chosen the right parents.
ruemara
@Ash: Exactly.
It is hard to have an open minded conversation with someone you already know ascribes to you severe deficiencies of character and ability. I can’t figure out what Republicans are thinking in their approach towards the minorities and I certainly can’t figure out why they can’t understand it’s not that we didn’t get their message. We got it, we rejected it, putting a black, latino or asian puppet on the stage to repeat will not make it more palatable.
Suffern ACE
@Walker: Well that and the Catholic Church has a stranglehold on education and welfare institutions in the Philippines that we really don’t have here, yet. They want their kids to go to Catholic School and be taught by the nuns, just like they were.
@rlrr: It’s kind of weird. The reverence that the Filipinos I know had for John Paul II just does not transfer to the “New Pope who isn’t John Paul, so we’ll see about him.” Just very skeptical. Based on my protestant upbringing and the misunderstanding I had of Catholics, I didn’t realize that you kind of personally decided whether or not you agreed with the Cardinals decisions when you selected a Pope.
Citizen_X
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I thought that that was hyperbole on your part, so I plugged it into one of the online inflation calculators. Holy cow, you were low! Daddy Romney’s $50,000 helping hand would be worth over $285,000 today.
So yeah, that’s a little bit of privilege.
RareSanity
@geg6:
Growing up as an African American male, my parents would tell me, “Son, always remember, a black man has to run twice as fast a a white man, in the race of life, just to stay even.”
Thoughts like that, are expressed in minority households, everyday, all over the country.
Every time a Republican opens their mouth to talk about how minorities only accept handouts, don’t earn anything, are dependent on welfare, or some other crap…all they are doing, is proving how true our parents words are.
Republicans will NEVER make inroads into minority populations, because you can’t fake empathy on a nationwide scale, for long periods of time. They honestly believe that minorities are inferior, in one way or another, to white people.
I don’t care how many PR agencies or political consultants they hire, sooner or later they will speak to their true feelings, and reinforce the repulsion minorities feel toward them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ash Can:
The Rethugs still believe in tokenism as the way to get the dumb browns to vote their way.
They’re missing the big picture, totally, and it’s all because they’re wearing blinders of their own design.
Napoleon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Something in the back of my head is telling me I saw somewhere where it worked out to something like $350k in todays dollars.
Foregone Conclusion
Aspirational people in America look at Barack Obama and see a man who rose from relatively modest beginning and, through hard work and intelligence, made a massive success of himself.
They look at Mitt Romney and see a rich man who, through the easy accrual by the rich of more money, became richer.
AZmando
Obama (more than anyone, I believe) and Clinton both gave truth to the concept that in America, “anyone can grow up to be president.”
Romney, Gramps McCain and Dubya were all essentially trust fund babies, not self-made men.
1badbaba3
The bad thing about having the giant megaphone that can do everything but shut off is that every idiot with a “voice” can get out there with their idiocy. Success has bred imitators and oh my Gawrd they’re everywhere and they will not shut up. This from a party that used to pride itself on message discipline. They will not recover from all of this. Not in an age where it is on record for all time. They are finished. They are in Weekend at Bernies territory now and for all time.
gwangung
This is not rocket science, people.
And the civil rights movement (which was about VOTING) is in living memory.
2+2 (but then, Republicans always were bad at arithmetic….)
Maude
@RareSanity:
I’d say rich white men. They also look down on poor white people. And the “little” woman.
different-church-lady
@ruemara:
Indeed, what is it they think is so hard to understand about “You suck, you’re parasites, and you don’t belong in this country”? And just how do they think they’re going to put a better wrapper on that?
Villago Delenda Est
@AZmando:
Which is why the vermin of the Village hate both Clinton and Obama, and loves them some Romney, McCain, the deserting coward, AND the sire of the deserting coward, whose father was himself scion of a long standing 1% family.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
I suspect that to many wingnuts, utilitarian is some kind of fancy closet where you store mops and brooms.
@aimai:
You left out Michelle Malkin, among others. It is damned odd that the GOP can attract the Toriest of Tory Asian wingnuts.
Apart from this, Asian Americans are too diverse a group to be attracted to any simple GOP message. And your stuff about pitting Asians against blacks is odd and largely just plain wrong.
@brettvk:
Sam Walton worked to support his parents, who were Depression Era farmers. Walton did get a partial stake later from his father-in-law, but you still can’t say much about Walton being lucky because of his parents.
gwangung
They’ve lost sight of the fact that being rich and becoming rich are two different things. And that policy for encouraing each of the two can be very different, sometimes diametrically opposed.
different-church-lady
@Foregone Conclusion:
Shawn in ShowMe
All those rich, well-connected Democrats walking around Loudoun and Fairfax Counties and not one interested in running for Governor? The mind boggles.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I suspect he meant the post-Sam Waltons, who along with the Mars and Johnson clans and a couple others, spend millions of dollars fighting tax increases, especially inheritance taxes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shawn in ShowMe:
They don’t need the aggravation of having to put up with teatard assholes proudly displaying their moran-nacity at their campaign appearances.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
I’m guessing brettvk is talking about today’s Walton kids, not Sam himself.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
This is a trait his vile spawn cannot claim.
gene108
@aimai:
Despite the fact most Asians are probably not Christians…
schrodinger's cat
@Villago Delenda Est: So why did the Villagers hate Gore, his father was a senator.
The Red Pen
I urge everyone to read the comments on Charles Murray’s article on the AEI web site. This point is made over and over by many Asian-Americans (many who are obviously potential wingnuts).
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/why-arent-asians-republicans/
Quaker in a Basement
I saw that comment when Rikyrah posted it the other day. She has a way of making things….clear, yes?
gex
@Ash: I’m pretty sure this is the reason why us Asians were so amenable to right wing politics for some time, being the “good” kind of minority.
The thing is, the right is so much more stridently a white supremacy movement now, and our society operates under the one drop rule, that Asians can’t afford to stay with that team.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I take your point. Still, you have to consider the founder, who didn’t have a shit ton of breaks starting out. And it should also be noted that education, partly publically financed, and a stint in the military, also obviously taxpayer funded, helped make it possible for Sam to go on the make his fortune. The bottom line is that the Walton fortune is not based on anyone living any kind of no-government, libertarian wet dream.
BTW, spending millions when you’ve got billions is not much of a deal. The four Walton heirs are each worth about $25 billion. The three Mars heirs weigh in with about $17 billion each.
aimai
@Brachiator:
Apart from this, Asian Americans are too diverse a group to be attracted to any simple GOP message. And your stuff about pitting Asians against blacks is odd and largely just plain wrong.
Look, cupcake, I know you are a hero inyour own mind but for christ’s sake try to step away from the keyboard occasionally and realize that other people besides yourself know a few things about American society. For example: I’ve actually taught race, law, and history in a University. It is blindingly obvious that Asian Americans come in all sizes, shapes, colors, and histories–for example South Asian, East Asian, Subdivisions of South-East Asian–they vary in when they came to this country, and under what laws and easements of laws. Did you know there was an early and largely forgotten male-South-Asian-Sikh population that because of the then laws on immigration couldn’t bring over their own wives and families and couldn’t marry “white” or “black” under the then laws? So they married Hispanic women? And formed hybrid communities that were spanish and Sikh but were later rejected by newly immigrated, more upper class, Sikh families? Oh, yeah, and blah blah blah a Lebanese woman was denied entry because she came from “Africa” and she argued that because she spoke “French” she wasn’t African under the meaning of the then relevant statutes in re immigration?
My point was simply that the Republican party tried to pit Asians as a “model minority” against African Americans, not that this would work.
Judas Escargot, Bringer of Loaves and Fish Sandwiches
Thank Francis Fukuyama for teaching the GOP about ‘thumos’.
Shorter Fukuyama: In the old days, a fine young man of thumos would seek his fortune by raising an army and causing all sorts of mischief. This was called ‘History’.
But now that we have Capitalism and Democracy (which, like Hegel before him, Fukuyama asserts is the End State of human development), all the quality human capital instead heads to the Ivy League, and from thence into high-profile positions, to get their thumos on.
No opportunity for mischief there. No-sirree.
(I also just realized that you can read Chris Hayes’ Twilight of the Elites as a response to The End of History with no loss of context or intent).
gex
@The Other Bob: Actually, a lot of Asian immigrants are Christian. Much of my family is. One of the key leaders of Prop 8 was a Chinese guy convinced gays want to rape children. The missionary period of colonialism infected a lot of non-white populations.
gene108
@AZmando:
He’s black per traditional American standards, which makes his rise to the Presidency historic, but if you take race out of it and go by “poor by does good” Nixon and Clinton would be at the top of the list, followed probably by Reagan.
By the time Obama was in high school, his grandparents were successful enough to send him to a private high school in Hawaii, which is a step up from what Reagan’s parents could’ve afforded (I think) and well above what Clinton could’ve managed and Nixon, well put it this way he was born poor and the Great Depression didn’t help.
Del
@different-church-lady: in my experience Founders are usually pretty good, and if they come from a lower class it’s almost a guarantee because they lived a workers life before their success. Their kids? That’s a crapshoot, and just as often as not they turn into spoiled MBA bastards who tank or completely corrupt the company as soon as mommy and daddy are gone.
RareSanity
@Maude:
No…I’d say it’s pretty much any white man (or woman), that is in similar circumstances.
A lower class white man (or woman), still enjoys a privilege, that a lower class black man (or woman) does not. Mainly that the white guy (or woman) is not immediately branded as welfare kings and queens. Higher social class merely amplifies the privilege.
An example would be if a wingnut hears a story about a poor family, struggling to support their family, and needs some help. The difference in perception a Republican would exercise if that were a white family, living in a rural mid-western town…or a black family, living in a housing project in a major city, is an illustration of my point.
Tone in DC
@RareSanity:
I hear that.
I am just amazed (and fairly disgusted) how many Michael Steeles, Allen Wests, Nikki Haleys and such are out here.
Brachiator
@gene108:
What? Korean Americans are hugely Protestant. Filipinos are hugely Catholic. A core of Japanese Americans are also Catholic, some with roots going back to hidden Christians in Shogun era Japan. Fair amount of Christianity among Vietnamese. Things get complicated. Probably not a lot of Christianity among East Indians or Pakistan immigrants. But the main thing is that even though Asian Americans are a very small portion of the population and electorate, they are too diverse to pigeon-hole into any “Asians are this or that” category.
Shit, there is a significant divergence between Chinese Americans who came here in the 1990s, many with roots in Hong Kong, and Chinese Americans who came before (part of this is linked to the turnover of Hong Kong to China in 1997).
Hell, thinking about it more, the diversity among Pacific Islanders is staggering.
Makes it all the more astounding to think that almost all these groups went for Obama in large numbers, and that the Republicans want to write them all off with their neo White Man’s Burden shit.
gex
The entire problem can be summed up by the phrase “real Americans.” Frequently used by the right, it very clearly tells a large portion of the American population that they don’t count. And it isn’t all brown people. Women, Jews, gays, atheists, liberals, etc. We are all told we don’t count. Repeatedly. By the people who are wondering how to get us to vote for them.
The “real American” trope has always been implied, of course. But these last few cycles the phrase itself has become part of their campaign. So if you are Asian, you have just been told there is NOTHING you can do to be considered a real American. And you know who loves being American more than any asshole who was just born here? Recent immigrants that paid a huge price to become one.
LAC
@ruemara: Amen! It is really revolting that not only do they get all wide eyed ingenue about the fact that their message isn’t playing to anyone outside of the confederacy, but that their next response is run to fucking Build a Bear and try to contruct something that is either tanned or has a vajayjay to sprout the same shit. Ta-Dah!! Behold, the new GOP! Same as the old GOP, only with a spanish name on the ticket and SHUT UP!!
The Red Pen
@geg6:
The key here is “US Catholic Church.” The Catholic Church outside the US certainly carries some of the baggage that comes with the Catholic Church, but it also gives a shit about things other than gays and abortion, notably social justice.
Catholic immigrants don’t assimilate in the Cathlibangelical white-people US Catholic Church. They go to churches that have services in their native language and parishioners who also immigrated from their country.
If you are unchurched, it’s easy to assume that Catholic is Catholic (after all, “catholic” means “universal”), but different parishes can differ widely in tone and focus. You won’t find a white-people Catholic church displaying icons of Our Lady of Guadalupe, for example. I even went into a white-people RCC church that didn’t have the Stations of the Cross (“we put them up at Easter”). I was gobsmacked. It’s like going into a McDonald’s and being told that fries are a seasonal menu item.
Maude
@RareSanity:
Can’t agree with you on this.
Valdivia
I am so happy that you showcased this comment. I read it yesterday on a thread and thought it was spot on.
Also, too. Thumos! Now I need a drink because I am having flashbacks of neocon times past. Gah.
The Red Pen
Another thing to keep in mind is that some Asian Christians come from countries where they are persecuted. I don’t mean persecuted like “war on Christmas,” I mean persecuted like “arrested by the secret police and tortured to death.” China maintains it’s own state-approved Catholic clergy, who are known to be unrecognized by the Vatican (and many Chinese Christians).
Even if these people are Bible-thumpers, they’re not going to look favorably on a group that wants to merge religion and government or a group that thinks torture is OK.
gwangung
gex Says:
The culture tells Asian Americans this (see lack of Asian American males in media and few AA females as agents of their own fate). It’s barely tolerable then; it’s gonna snap some people off when it’s part of the POLITICAL discussion.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck: This.
I keep saying the key difference between Bush and Palin is that Bush was born into the hereditary aristocracy and Palin was not.
Svensker
@efroh:
They are also completely sure that Obama is not smart. “57 states? Ha ha ha what a maroon!” Before Obama, I would have sworn my brother was not at all racist, but now? Even if you disagree with everything Obama says, how can you listen to the President and not realize the guy is very bright? I really can only attribute that to racism, unconscious or not.
Citizen Alan
@AZmando:
Romney and Dubya were. McCain, IIRC, was fairly poor until he abandoned his wife to become a gigolo to the beer heiress.
JCJ
@Valdivia:
I read this yesterday as well and showed it to my wife – a non-Christian Asian(Thai)woman. She has been hearing this the entire time to the point where she has wondered what all of our devout Republican neighbors think of her. Our daughter identifies as Asian (I am a white guy) and she also hears the disrespect. This could end up as a nominee for comment of the year, although I think JD Rhoades may have the all time comment last year… https://balloon-juice.com/2011/11/29/sheblowsalot/
RareSanity
@Maude:
Interesting…Do you care to explain the rationale behind your disagreement?
Specifically why you would think that “white privilege” is confined to “rich” white people, as opposed to ALL white people, only differing in degree based on socioeconomic class?
Valdivia
@JCJ:
as a latina I can tell you that I too hear this over and over. I think it should be comment of the year as well, mainly because it captures everything that happened in 2012 to perfection.
gene108
@Brachiator:
I think the Chinese immigration of the past 20 years from mainland China are not heavily Christian.
Indians are definitely not a majority Christian group.
As India and China constitute the bulk of Asian immigrants in the U.S., most would not be Christian.
Though Filipinos and Koreans are mostly Christian, I don’t know if they have enough numbers in the U.S. to outweigh the Indians and Chinese.
Suffern ACE
@schrodinger’s cat: They hated Gore because he didn’t denounce Clinton loud enough. And despite his upbringing, was known to be a hard worker who thought about things and that doing things was possible and important. In other words, he wasn’t a cynical enough and possibly too sincere in what he wanted to accomplish to be any fun.
Plus, he was a Democrat who actually did do some farming, but not the type of salt of the earth cowboy that makes their members pop up in their pants.
RareSanity
@Tone in DC:
They love the wingnut gravy train. They sold their souls long ago, they aren’t even capable of empathy toward other minorities anymore.
It’s pathetic.
schrodinger's cat
@Suffern ACE: Gore should have embraced Clinton and had him campaign and chosen someone other than jowly Joe for his running mate. Bowing to beltway CW was a mistake IMO.
different-church-lady
They’re making <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-good-man-the-right-fight/2012/11/28/5338b27a-38e9-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html“>so much progress figuring it out too!
This dude was Romney’s chief strategist. Now we know why Romney was so obstinately out of touch — his chief strategist thought it was a win. Even after he lost, the chief strategist continues to believe it was a win.
schrodinger's cat
@different-church-lady: Shorter Stuart Stevens, Romney was wonderful, because no one liked him.
Brachiator
@aimai:
Yeah, I kinda have a good knowledge of this stuff. And most of this is based on the oral histories of family and friends, not what I might have learned in a University course. What’s your point?
We agree on this, in part, although the “model minority” shit may have been picked up by the GOP but never really related to any grand strategy on their part.
Where I may have more disagrement is over your assertions about the supposed “not insignificant history of Asian racism against self (as non white) and against specifically African Americans.” This kind of thing screams for a broader context.
And, cupcake, I’ve always given you props about your background and knowledge, even when you jump on your own high horse. You might want to back away from any pot/kettle shit.
Pluky
@Citizen Alan: As the son, grandson, and maybe even great-grandson of admirals, McCain might not have qualified as wealthy, but poor he most certainly was not.
Argive
@Joel:
For real. If Republicans wonder why Jewish people tend to vote Democratic, part of it is that a lot of Jews are children of immigrants themselves. Hell, my dad’s parents came over here illegally from central Poland in the 20s. They were flat broke and faced virulent bigotry. Yet somehow they managed to build a life for themselves (getting amnesty certainly helped). My dad and his brother both worked their asses off to graduate college and succeed in life. And both of them have some pretty hair-raising stories about the incredible prejudice they encountered from white Christians who distrusted anyone with a non-WASPy name. If Republicans think that all the birther nonsense and racist BS about how Obama wasn’t a real American didn’t upset a wide range of people who otherwise might have voted for Romney, I have a bridge in Lodz to sell them.
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: sorry about he link failre. Here is amends: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-good-man-the-right-fight/2012/11/28/5338b27a-38e9-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html
geg6
@The Red Pen:
I grew up Catholic. I’m also white and northeastern (sort of, if you count Pittsburgh as the northeast). I’ve never been in a Catholic church that didn’t have the stations of the cross, not even in my travels south and north as a child. And we had a statue of the Lady of Guadalupe in my childhood church, a church with not a single Hispanic parishioner. It was mostly Irish, Easter Europeans, and Italians. Of course, the church was also called Our Lady of Fatima, so perhaps the Spanish connection inspired someone who didn’t know that all Spanish speakers weren’t the same.
Anyway, I’m an atheist now. That’s what being Catholic generally did for people of my generation in my part of the world. I don’t know a single person who was my age and went to my childhood church who isn’t an atheist or agnostic.
geg6
@Citizen Alan:
His dad was an admiral. Admirals are not poor. They aren’t Rockefellers, but they aren’t poor by any measure.
schrodinger's cat
@The Red Pen: Hey McDonalds in France serves wine and McDonalds in India don’t serve any beef burgers. Any multinational corp has to adapt to the local tastes.
Brachiator
@gene108:
From the 2010 census:
Not much here about religion, though you are probably right that Christianity is overall the minority religion. One fun thing that can be teased out here is the degree of multi-racial people among some Asian American groups. Makes it harder still for the GOP to try to pit people against each other when their family might be mixed.
Patricia Kayden
@RareSanity: Here here! So true. Getting a Black/Asian/Latino to front for them just won’t work. (Looking at you, Cain).
rikyrah
thanks for the shout out, DougJ
...now I try to be amused
@geg6:
McCain’s father and grandfather were full admirals. He probably would have bilged out of the Naval Academy if it wasn’t for that.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
This Heart of Whiteness Election Recap Tour by Mitt and his Romneyites is amazing in it’s tone deafness and delusion. Yahoo News and other reporters seem finally willing to call out the GOP on their stupid shit:
This is a real funny way to try to pitch the GOP as being open to economic and ethnic diversity.
ABL
You’re spot on, rikyrah.
rikyrah
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
tell me about it.
He went to college, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School
WITHOUT TAKING OUT A DIME IN LOANS.
And, his daddy bought him his first house.
He used the Romney name to start Bain.
Yet, had the nerve to call himself a ‘ SELF-MADE MAN’.
There was only one self-made man running for President.
Barack Hussein Obama II
rikyrah
@Villago Delenda Est:
there are a whole lotta folks who are wrapped up in their Whiteness.
Yeah, things are bad for me…but, at least I’m not a Nigger.
So, when they answer to the question:
What do you call The President Of the United States…
and, you want to say Nigger….
Your entire world has crashed.
rikyrah
Another part of the national nervous breakdown, IMO:
Both Barack and Michelle Obama’s stories are an inspiration. You don’t think folks don’t know that Michelle Obama’s parents were just two high school graduates, but their love, support and devotion produced two highly educated, productive members of society. You don’t think that folks noticed that Michelle Obama went, from one generation, from a tiny apartment over an average Chicago bungalow into the White House?
And for a whole lotta folks, it scares the shyt outta them.
Nellie in NZ
McCain was at the bottom of his class. He was an ace pilot for the other side – he crashed five taxpayer paid for Navy planes. He would not have been a POW if he had been following orders; he went beyond his orders, crashed his plane and was captured. If his name was not McCain, where would he have been. Who of us has the kind of network that buoys and rewards such failure?
The Red Pen
@schrodinger’s cat:
I know. That’s why I said “fries.” All McDonald’s serve fries.
The Red Pen
@geg6:
Huh. Well, maybe that was a bad example. I was trying to compress the variability in “Catholic” faith and the complexity behind it into a blog-comment-sized image that would be accessible to non-Catholics. I’ll have to think of something else next time I want to make that point. :-/
slag
I don’t think the meaningful question here is “Why did Asians not vote for Romney?”. I think the meaningful question here is “Why did white people vote for Romney?”. I can’t be the only one who found Romney’s entire campaign utterly asinine and his policy proposals completely unrealistic. The guy was a joke.
You don’t have to be a wizard to see that Romney failed to provide a single remotely substantive reason to vote for him. So, why did so many white people do it? What’s their problem?
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
To sane Americans, yes. The sad thing is that racist wingnuts simply cannot process the idea of a competent black man and woman, let alone a black president who might be as intelligent as they are.
You see some of this shit in the presumption of Mitt Romney. He may have tried to move to the middle with respect to policy, but every honest comment that came from him or his people reeked with the idea that he absolutely believed that only a Real White American Man could be president and represent America to the world. Why, even terrorists would magically stop their shit and do right when they looked into the steely eyes of the Anglo Saxon leader of the free world.
There were few things more pathetic than Romney in the last debates pretty much saying that he would do the same thing as Obama, but it would be extra special better just because a white man was doing it.
And you see this sad stuff in the comments of McCain and his gaggle of fools, that American foreign policy needs to be run by people who are “smarter and stronger” than Obama.
This shit just reeks of racism and raw fear.
About the only saving grace in this sad spectacle is the fact that millions of voters are either not infected by this sickness, or have found ways to shake off the worst of the infection.
But there are a sad bunch who would rather die than be saved by a black man.
Mike G
@Nellie in NZ:
Another measure of McAngry’s privilege:
He was born in Panama, yet you never heard a peep from anyone suggesting this made him “unAmerican” or “ineligible to be President”. Compare and contrast with Obama.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
Sorry, research fail — Obama was a scholarship student at Punahou.
...now I try to be amused
@rikyrah:
The decline of class privilege always gets ugly. The more marginal members of the privileged class are confronted with the fact that they were the beneficiaries of the old-fashioned kind of “affirmative action”, and without it they are being outcompeted by members the formerly disadvantaged class. It’s an assault on the ego that few can handle without getting angry.
The Red Pen
@Mike G:
Actually, there was some. The birthers are quite proud of their diligence in this respect.
McCain was born in Panama, but he’s eligible for a variety of different reasons depending on who you ask. Not surprisingly, Obama is ineligible for these reasons. For example, one camp of birthers insists that both parents must be American (not true). McCain passes this test, Obama does not (even if he was born in Hawaii, with is part of the appeal of this particular birther camp).
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
I think it’s two fold. Part of it is being an other, even if that other is as a “model minority” they just don’t feel fully welcome in the Republican party.
The other part is that they’re highly educated and successful. Why would they want to be associated with a party that is largely dedicated these days to ignoring facts and science?
I have an Asian friend who is Christian. She flirts regularly with supporting Republicans, because she’s successful and identifies with their “self made” mythology, but then they say or do something god-awful stupid and she just says she can’t support a party full of retrograde dumb fucks like that.
If you want public policy that works, and a government that works effectively and does good things, and you’re smart and well educated enough to inform yourself about what’s likely to work, why would you vote Republican?
Ruckus
As only one other person has even mentioned it, I think it needs to be said:
I nominate Rikyrah’s comment for comment of the year.
gwangung
Oh. The “PREACH it, sister!” doesn’t count?
KS in MA
@Ruckus: Second!
Wolfdaughter
@different-church-lady:
Ruemara said:
DCL replied:
I think that they are so prejudiced that they assume that these “lesser” people are too stupid to figure out that the RW stances are poisonous to all except old, “entitled” white guys.
My experience with rich people is that many of them (not all, fortunately) really do live in a bubble of privilege. I used to serve on the Residency Classification Review Board of the Univ. of AZ. This board allowed for people who had been classified as out of state for tuition purposes, to appeal their classification.
In a typical morning or afternoon of serving on this board, we reviewed 4 or 5 cases. Usually 2 of them were wealthy young men or women, who had a healthy trust fund set up for them by Daddy or Mommy or Auntie or Grandpa…you get the picture. The student would buy a 3- or 4-bedroom condo and rent out the spare rooms. This way, they were supposedly “earning” their way thru college.
If a student came from out of state, one of the criteria that had to be passed to be considered in state, was financial independence. IOW, they had to be living on money they actually earned themselves. The rich kids felt that renting out a couple of bedrooms qualified them as financially independent. I always asked them if they would have been able to afford the condo in the first place, absent the trust fund, or indeed, would they be going to a school in another state without the trust fund. Since they were under oath, they had to answer honestly that without the trust fund they wouldn’t be sitting there talking to us, much less buying a condo.
They always got such a funny look on their faces when admitting this. Also, when they came in, they typically lounged on the chair, one arm behind it, one knee on the opposite ankle, with an expression barely concealing their disdain for us proles who served on the Residency committee. By the time the session was over and they had been put thru the metaphorical wringer by us, their body language was completely different.
The idea that someone barely out of high school could consider him/ or herself to be superior to people considerably older and more experienced…need I say more?
Wolfdaughter
@slag:
THIS! I’m a 66-year-old white woman and I gladly voted for Obama in both ’08 and ’12. Not that he’s perfect, which he acknowledges himself, but he was clearly head-and-shoulders above Romney (or McCain) as a candidate.
I don’t get anyone supporting Romney. OK, very wealthy white people, but anyone else? And I was astonished by the rationales given by those who voted for him.
pattonbt
@Villago Delenda Est: Because Clinton and Obama are demonstrably better than the Village. And they prove it every day with their successes. It hurts their fee-fees deep down.