As an immigrant from India myself, this is only part of the story. The other part is that there are certain uniquely American values that are repulsive to most non-Americans (especially those from non-developed non-Western countries) which are guarded primarily by the Republican party.
Some of these are:
1. Gun rights
2. Free speech absolutism (many other countries have exceptions for hate speech)
3. Opposition to ANY abortion
4. Individualism, or "lifting by bootstraps" approach, as expressed in opposition to government healthcare
5. Overall Christian worldview which seeps into things like supporting creationism
Many Indian immigrants are against at least one of the above points.
Indian conservative values are very different:
1. Family centred rather than individual centred
2. Religious but not Christian
3. Safety prioritized over risk taking
4. Conformist ("keep your head down and study")
In general, I don't feel that there is a natural connection to the Republican party at all. Trying to court Indian immigrants at least might not be effective. And according to you, Indians are closest to the Republicans!
I have seen the same with Chinese immigrants. Conservative in many ways, but big government, socialist instead of individualist, take what you can get from the government instead of limiting what can be taken, etc. Safetyism is a big thing, to be enforced by government. Credentialism is another very popular one. Gun control yet another.
Part of the problem seems to be that people the world over are much more left leaning than the average American when it comes to what they expect the state to do, so while they may be socially conservative they are very left leaning in everything else.
I could be wrong about that, of course, but I fear that a detailed survey would bear it out. Most people, including immigrants, just aren’t the “you leave me alone and I will leave you alone” types.
The average American is just as 'left' as many other places. What's coded as left and right just switches around a bit between places.
So eg the average American, including the average GOP voter, would recoil at the thought of abandoning their government mail service (USPS). Nominally leftist Germany has privatised their government mail long ago. And they weren't the only country to do so.
Similarly: Americans might squabble how high their minimum wages should be, but the existence of a minimum wage is widely supported, and has been for ages. Germany got their minimum wage legislation only fairly recently.
For sure, that was a logical *effect* of the price floor, but are you suggesting that xenophobia per se was more of a motivation than the higher price that those already in the door could sell their labor for?
Yep. In "less free" Korea, you can open up a hair salon without prohibitive and unnecessary licenses. Young kids walk themselves to school and academies, have "paper knives" ("Exacto" razors), play dodgeball, and are generally expected to not get themselves killed.
Sure, marijuana is criminalized, but you can drink alcohol in a public park -- oh and by the way, even when someone does get busted for marijuana or other illegal drugs, the police knock on their door, not bust it down with a SWAT team.
It might swing a bit on specific issues, but I don't think one can claim that Americans are on average just as left (broadly defined as more government intervention, less social issues) than most places. Particularly not places where lots of immigrants come from, but even compared to Europe. Your example of the USPS is a lot less popular than you think, surely not such that your average GOP member would "recoil" at the thought of abolishing or privatizing it. Consider issues like nationalized health care, gun control, taxation, state vs individual rights, ease of starting a business etc. States might vary a little here or there, but in general most are more to the left of the USA across most issues. The American left pines to be more like the social welfare states of Europe, even if on some specific issues Europe doesn't really match their ideals.
I've been against low skill immigration forever, but was more sanguine about high skill immigration (basically Asians) until 2020. Watching how Asia and Asians (as well as leftists generally) responded to COVID has convinced me that the cultural difference is too great. Having a few more dentists and accountants around definitely doesn't make up for being told you can't breath the air freely. I've also watched Asians I know make the Vaisya to Brahmin transition.
On the other hand, I worked with a Belgian immigrant (who became a US citizen while we worked together) who wont go back because he cant take his "arsenal" with him. He would sometimes post pics of his firearm collection on facebook to freak out his Belgian friends.
Oh yea, there are definitely some that come for the standard of living and stay for the guns :) Just talking averages, or really distributions, here. Not all immigrants lean left and vote Democrat, but it does seem like the majority tend to. The question is why.
(Personally I am all for encouraging people to learn to use guns and be responsible owners. Most people I have known who "don't like guns" were really just "not comfortable with guns" and after an hour or two at the range learning to use them changed their minds. Powerful machines are always scary till you know what you are doing.)
I don't think that the majority are left leaning. I think it's social engineering AKA another media lie to get immigrants to believe that all of their immigrant friends are left as well. Most people only change parties once in their lives (myself included), and we'll see how this turns out demographically with immigrants in 2022/2024.
IMHO The leftists get them here, and the rightists get them and their legalized tax-paying children to stay here.
Some of these might be inaccurate, but I think it gets to the reality that "it's all about the vibes".
For high skill groups, in addition to being culturally and economically more statist to begin with, the main motivation is to climb to liberal elite coastal hierarchy. You don't climb the liberal elite coastal hierarchy by adopting conservative values or voting GOP. Ain't gonna get you into Harvard or Google. Once you determine who you want your friends to be, you can come up with whatever worldview and rationalizations are necessary to do so.
In short, Caplan asks why the GOP can't win a bunch of Vaisya immigrants, without noticing that all those immigrants aspire to be Brahmins.
For low skill groups (basically Hispanics and America or Muslims in Europe) the simplest answer is that they want free stuff from the government they don't pay enough in taxes to get, and the Democrats are the ones that promise those things.
Caplan asks, why can't you get all these Helots to vote for you, without noticing that the Dems have perfected turning them into Dalit vote banks within a generation.
Summing up, the simplest answer is that immigrants aren't all that conservative (or libertarian) and become much less so the longer they are here.
That "coastal hierarchy" point is interesting. One doesn't see many immigrants move to rural areas, or other GOP heavy areas, outside of migrant farm workers. I can think of a few exceptions, but on the whole one expects to meet immigrants in big cities, not small towns. (Although I have seen a few Asian Amishmen in central PA.) I never really thought about that much past "I don't know why immigrants don't move out of the cities; I like it out here a lot better myself."
It wonder how much is that immigrants like the city culture more (more left leaning) or how much is that they start in cities, and cities cause people to be more leftist over time. (Before one dismisses that second point, the fact that major US cities are overwhelmingly filled with Democrats and run by Democratic governments at all levels and have been for some time is widely recognized. Maps of registered voters' parties look like a red sea with big blue islands scattered around. It is suggestive.)
It's common for minorities to start in cities for a number of reasons. Including the simple fact that they want to live near other people like yourself and that's the only place you can get a critical mass.
The place that the GOP has made the most inroads with are white Hispanics living in red states, usually in the suburbs and exurbs. But it's a mistake to think you can get a dark skinned poor NYC Hispanic to vote the way a light skinned middle class Cuban in the Miami suburbs does.
Karl Rove and GWB learned the wrong lesson from Texas Hispanics and thought it could be applied to Hispanics everywhere (and that running as a virtually unopposed incumbent in 1998 could be applied everywhere). But Asians and Hispanics are just census categories, there is a lot of contextual difference in there.
Hispanics are sorting themselves by region in much the same way whites are. Conservatives are moving towards conservatives and leftists are moving towards leftists.
Income levels. That is 90% of it I expect. That would seem to be the same reason why people leave CA for more rightwing states then vote for the same policies they did in CA. People don't understand the link between policies and outcomes they like.
… which is a lot of why Republicans are suspicious of mass (legal) immigration. If you dislike American values and only seek residency and citizenship because it's economically beneficial to you, well… a country can deal with a few citizens like that, but bringing in huge numbers of them will damage the country's political culture.
Yes, I think that is the most defensible objection to increasing immigration. Unfortunately, I think it is a pretty strong objection, and while I think Caplan is correct that making a compromise along the lines of "immigrants can't vote ever" or something similar might solve that problem to an extent, I doubt any such compromise would ever happen.
Of course, native Americans are not a lot better, but they are on average.
Exactly. I am sick of Caplan pretending like race isn't real. The left is not importing WASPs from Europe, of the same stock that created this country, its culture, and its values -- they are importing un-American races who intrinsically support the leftist agenda more than American conservatism. The Republicans have the choice of a) giving up all of the values that make them Republican to court non-WEIRD, or non-Christian immigrants or b) rejecting those immigrants implicitly.
Caplan's post boils down to "just choose A! I am very smart."
Most red states don't ban "all" abortions, even post-Dobbs. Florida has a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled legislature, yet abortion is legal in all cases for the first 15 weeks. So when you say "Republicans oppose any abortion", I say, "Which Republicans?"
Christianity, I don't see how that is legislated in a way that interferes with the lives of the non-religious, particularly outside of the Deep South.
As to guns, let me tell you something, I'm sure the LA Koreans didn't think they wanted them in the 1990s, until the race riots got to their businesses and they learned to love them. It's true that it's hard to imagine an Indian with a gun, but the US is a violent country, with one side of politics liking to free prisoners and reducing police for social justice and such, that you'll learn to love them to feel safe.
There are also other things. Asians are smaller, thus more vulnerable to crime. Asians do better academically, thus more vulenerable to affirmative action and DEI initiatives. Asians make more money, and thus feel more of a pinch of higher taxes.
Anyway, I think that's only true of the early generations. Hispanics were very biased towards the Dems too, and now they're slowly moving rightward as more of them get accustomed to cultural American traits.
Don't a lot of these have fundamental differences with conservatives (and libertarians)?
Like, its almost like the real problem is that people in Asia have very different values and beliefs then our own, and that makes it very difficult to get their allegiance without sacrificing important aspects of how we want to live.
Let's take you comments. My comments in ***.
---
1. Gun rights
***Polls show basically nobody votes based on gun rights, so I don't think this is a problem***
2. Free speech absolutism (many other countries have exceptions for hate speech)
***I'd say free speech is a core value of the right, if we have to give that up we are giving up a lot***
3. Opposition to ANY abortion
***Despite the reversal of Dobbs, my Republican governor has not outlawed abortions. Polling indicates broad support for a ban sometime between 15-22 weeks, which is were this will eventually settle. Supporting abortion past that is ghoulish, and generally accompanied by very un-conservative positions on family and promiscuity.
4. Individualism, or "lifting by bootstraps" approach, as expressed in opposition to government healthcare
***Apparently individualism, self reliance, and not wanting to have government healthcare are dealbreakers. Are these the natural libertarians you are talking about Bryan?***
5. Overall Christian worldview which seeps into things like supporting creationism
***Seriously??? Have you met a conservative? This is ridiculous that you think this is a real thing. At least the right believes in genetics, lord knows the left doesn't.***
Many Indian immigrants are against at least one of the above points.
Indian conservative values are very different:
1. Family centred rather than individual centred
***This is kind of vague beyond the broad swipe at individualism***
2. Religious but not Christian
***Duh?????***
3. Safety prioritized over risk taking
***Yeah, I noticed that Asia gave up on breathing air freely, going outside their homes unless the government says its OK, and having children***
4. Conformist ("keep your head down and study")
***Sounds horrid, I have nothing in common with these people***
---
In a lot of ways it's kind of a parody of why conservatives reject the left. For instance, they also think cultural standards are good and hedonism is bad, but not because they are blind conformist followers with no free will.
I reiterate my belief that COVID lifted the veil for me on Asian safetyism and conformity. If that's what life is like under Asian rule, I can't see how any conservative or libertarian would want it.
A lot of people are single-issue voters. Sure, Asians immigrants might support safetyist policies, but many of them care about getting their kids into good colleges more, and will prioritize that issue in voting. So a Republican that runs on ending affirmative action and DEI programs can still win among Asians even if that Republican also supports less popular issues like being pro-life or pro-gun. Not to mention conservatives' (but not libertarians') obsession with being the party of "law and order".
Sorry but when you move to another country you are supposed to know the history, the constitution, the values that stand behind that nation. Nobody forced you or any other Indian to go to the US. If you have full citizenship you will be allowed to express your opinion democratically through election. Until then you should simply not spit in the plate you are eating from. And I am an expatriate myself for 25 years.
I've always wondered why in Canada the immigrants (400k per year) mostly come from conservative leaning countries, but vote overwhelmingly NDP + Liberal
Especially because our conservative party doesn't really have the same right-wing hostility/rhetoric that some Republicans have in the USA, like, if you were drawing that same cartoon, the Canadian conservative party wouldn't be pushing the immigrants to the other parties, I don't think. The immigrants would just be jumping away from the conservative party, into the open arms of the Liberals + NDP.
The most plausible explanation I can come up with is that immigrants to Canada prefer the Liberals + NDP because they promise more handouts
1. Canada and America don't have totally separate political cultures. I think pretty much everyone maps the R/D divide onto Canadian politics somehow, and while the details may vary, republicans behaving badly is almost always going to damage the reputation of the CPC. Should it? No, but I think it very obviously does.
2. Immigrants to Canada are generally (a) people who chose Canada over the US or (b) people who couldn't get permission to live in the US. In either case, there's an easy path to assimilating into Canada's anti-American culture, which leads to the Liberal and NDP parties.
GOP leaders spent 50 years telling its voters they were wrong and they needed to be more pro immigration to win over Hispanics. Most anti immigration GOP candidate in recent memory (Trump) is more popular with Hispanics than any other GOP pol before him. Obviously Hispanic =/= immigrant but would seem to fly in the face of some of the analysis here.
There is absolutely zero empirical evidence to show that being pro-immigration actually wins over immigrants. This applies to both the GOP and the DEM. Trump did better than Romney. And Bill Clinton launching a jihad against illegal immigration in the 1990s did little to damage the DEM position with them.
It's clear that immigrants vote mostly on non-immigration concerns. The GOP can safely court them without importing more of them.
Are you saying that the GOP could easily win over immigrants by abandoning conservatism and becoming the statist leftists party these people want to begin with.
I guess the only problem is...then what's the point?
I used the be “right wing” and against “illegal” immigration. That typically is nonsense once you ask if they want to reduce “legal” immigration as well, they typically do. What turned me was initially Milton Friedman and the idea that illegal immigration is better because they can’t take advantage of welfare. Then seeing the studies that all of the crime, welfare, and steal jobs arguments are just either fear mongering or the desire to not look into it further. Then I became libertarian and started to believe restricting immigration was immoral.
Oh, they can't use welfare? Great. That lasts one generation (or less). They they have naturalized children.
Oh, and hispanics commit more crime than whites and use more welfare. And we already have a partially selective immigration system which open borders would eliminate, meaning that future immigrants would be of a lower quality than what we have now.
Immigrants at worst break even in terms of tax revenue vs any benefits received. At best they are a profit, that’s in Bryan’s book and in most studies you find. The crime comment couldn’t be further from the truth. 1st generation immigrants commit roughly 1/3 the amount of crime as natural born citizens. That number increases the more generations that are in American. The crime rate catches natural born citizens at the 3rd generation.
"Immigrants at worst break even in terms of tax revenue vs any benefits received."
False and not even close.
"At best they are a profit, that’s in Bryan’s book and in most studies you find."
I've seen better studies, but the people who publish them pay a price for getting an unacceptable answer.
"1st generation immigrants commit roughly 1/3 the amount of crime as natural born citizens. That number increases the more generations that are in American. The crime rate catches natural born citizens at the 3rd generation."
I think the insight you're missing isn't the "native crime rate", but the "white crime rate".
Like we all understand that Hispanics aren't as bad as Blacks, but if Black and Hispanic neighborhoods are both considered "too high crime" for whites to live in, they have effectively been displaced.
It’s easy to find studies that confirm what you believe, anyone can do it. I know I used to when I believed what you did. Then I stumbled upon the overwhelming data to the contrary.
Can you only be considered native born if you’re white? That’s a line I never came close to crossing. If your argument is if we take crime rates among different races and based off of that we can decided who is allowed to have natural rights I’m not sure you’re worth saving.
It's extremely intuitive that people with low IQs are a net burden on the state. It would take a miracle for that not to be the case. You've got to twist yourself into knots to pretend they aren't.
The question is if immigrants make life in the country better. They can be not as bad as blacks (who isn't) and still be a net negative.
Building on Sriram's comment, I think that the phrase "All the main immigrant groups are socially conservative" is misleading. All of those groups may agree with conservatives on being, say, relatively pro-traditional-marriage and less pro-LGBT, but the underlying cultures that they seek to Conserve are different from traditional American culture (and different from each other, for that matter).
Or, to borrow Scott Alexander's terms from his piece " How the West was Won," US conservatives and immigrants may all be opposed to various aspects of Universal Culture, but that doesn't mean they all love each other's Particular Cultures. This is one example where a "political spectrum" model is very unhelpful. Traditionalist Christians and Traditionalist Muslims would probably both be placed on the "right" side of such a spectrum, but that does *not* mean that they believe the same things, nor that they will get along if one group immigrates into a country where the other is well-established.
Thank you for so clearly pointing out the blackmail: "support immigration, or else I will not vote for you and will work at demographically replacing you".
Bryan is an open-borders extremist and so maybe that's not why he's going to look hard at this, but I'd like a lot more evidence and causal connection to this post that a single poll saying "Republicans don't like illegal immigration" as justification for "Immigrants are right to fear voting republican".
Why would a legal immigrant (who's gone through considerable time and expense to follow the rules, no matter how stupid) support illegal immigration?
The standard economic story is the reverse. Once someone acquires a right and becomes an incumbent, they tend to want to reduce competition. This is true in the labor market and everywhere else.
Bryan needs to tell a compelling story why it's not true here, and he's not even trying. Are Republicans actually against legal immigration and hostile to legal immigrants? That's not proven by saying Republicans are hostile to illegal immigrants.
Because the empirical record shows zero support for the assertion in his post. Neither parties immigrant vote share has shown much relation to either party or candidate immigration stances or rhetoric. One of the biggest swings in 2020 was the entire nearly all Hispanic Texas border counties going massively Republican, based in good part on a rejection of illegal immigration. The Texas governor is about to sail to re-election when his signature policy is loading illegals on buses and sending them to NY and DC.
The simplest explanation for immigrants voting left is that they are more inherently leftists (culture, genetically), and because many of them have settled in leftist social groups and assimilated to those norms.
Bryan also celebrates the “great replacement”. I expect many whites to be offended by that. That’s far beyond, “Hey, don’t worry about political externalities, crime, etc.” But Open Borders in terms of massive non-white immigration actually needs the crutch of the PC state to become a reality. If the US had started with private roads, streets, etc., a great degree of non-white immigration likely would have been significantly limited by private restrictions. Open borders requires communism in terms of the streets, roads, parks, etc. of the entire West.
People on the right oppose immigration because they believe immigrants drive down wages for natives (this may be true for low-skill natives, at least in the short run). Right-wingers are more tribal than left-wingers.
Right-wingers often welcome highly educated or skilled immigrants, when they perceive the added human capital outweighs competitive effects on highly educated/skilled natives.
Right-wingers fear cultural dilution; immigrants who appear likely to assimilate into American culture are welcomed far more than others.
If your point were correct, then groups of immigrants' political beliefs ought to vary, both cross-sectionally and intertemporally, based on natives' / the GOP's attitudes towards each immigrant group. But this is not, as far as I can tell, a pattern we see -- rather, immigrants' political beliefs track country of origin much more closely (for example, Cuban vs. Venezuelan). So, QED, your point is not correct.
>If you’re right-wing, I know you’ll be tempted to reject this cartoon in a hundred different ways. But does it, too, not possess a kernel of truth?
It doesn't matter if it's true or not.
*We shouldn't have to be changing our views to accomodate foreigners in order to avoid losing political power*
The fact that we have to change our beliefs and actions to avoid offending people who are diluting our political power is precisely the problem in the first place.
>If conservatives can offer a warm welcome to outcast left-wing intellectuals, why not extend the same hospitality to the millions of apolitical non-intellectuals who want to build a life here?
Because they're not conservatives, they will never be conservatives, and we can never compete with leftists offering them welfare statism.
And then there's the fact that if Americans become a minority, then this countries ceases to be meaningfully America anymore.
Diversity undermines social cohesion and social trust, this is replicated research finding. And open borders would make us vastly more diverse along almost all dimensions.
Do you imagine there's something magical about American soil? No? Then why would these people who failed to build successful countries themselves be able to run America successfully?
This seems to be an admission of defeat before even engaging battle. Why then persist with ancillary policies which are unattractive to potential voters? The core conservative position could be highly attractive to high skilled immigrants to the US, if it didn't come garlanded with strange ideological choices which seem to have little to do with the underlying philosophy, and more to do with short term political choices made decades ago and which are now creaking with age.
Which choices have little to do with the underlying philosophy?
Let's take a commentators list above. Comments in ***.
---
1. Gun rights
***Polls show basically nobody votes based on gun rights, so I don't think this is a problem***
2. Free speech absolutism (many other countries have exceptions for hate speech)
***I'd say free speech is a core value of the right, if we have to give that up we are giving up a lot***
3. Opposition to ANY abortion
***Despite the reversal of Dobbs, my Republican governor has not outlawed abortions. Polling indicates broad support for a bad sometime between 15-22 weeks, which is were this will eventually settle. Supporting abortion past that is ghoulish.
4. Individualism, or "lifting by bootstraps" approach, as expressed in opposition to government healthcare
***Apparently individualism, self reliance, and not wanting to have government healthcare are dealbreakers***
5. Overall Christian worldview which seeps into things like supporting creationism
***Seriously??? This is ridiculous that you think this is a real thing. At least the right believes in genetics, lord knows the left doesn't***
Many Indian immigrants are against at least one of the above points.
Indian conservative values are very different:
1. Family centred rather than individual centred
***This is kind of vague beyond the broad swipe at individualism***
2. Religious but not Christian
***Duh?????***
3. Safety prioritized over risk taking
***Yeah, I noticed that Asia gave up on breathing air freely, going outside their homes unless the government says its OK, and having children***
4. Conformist ("keep your head down and study")
***Sounds horrid, I have nothing in common with these people***
Some of what Bryan suggests may be happening in the UK, but with the added detail of tension between different immigrant groups. Both British-Indian and British-Pakistani voters used to be heavily pro-Labour (the leftwing party), but British-Indian voters have increasingly moved towards the Conservatives (right-wing party in theory).
Partly this is due to income and education consideration (British-Indians have done better than most other groups) but also down to specific political factors. The Labour party has increasingly explicitly sided with Pakistan on issues like Kashmir, alienating some British-Indians.
So another 'lesson for the right' might be to make suitable choices in the realm of international politics as many members of immigrant-descended groups seem to are about this a great deal. Probably there is something like this going on with Cuban emigres in Florida and elsewhere?
As a legal immigrant myself, I don't really feel any animus towards me personally from the right. I have several times have conservatives ask me if I resent the illegal immigrants, clearly hoping for an answer in the affirmative, but I haven't felt they objected to my presence.
I have an alternative theory. PJ O'Rourke said that Democrats have smart candidates and dumb voters, while the Republicans have smart voters and dumb candidates. Politics are messed up everywhere, but they seem marginally more messed up in the US, and the Republicans seems marginally more messed up than the Democrats. You have pointed out yourself many times that one driving philosophy of the American right is hatred of the American left. It's not an impressive thing to watch as a newcomer. Maybe it's just that the GOP really is the stupid party.
I disagree that right of center people are against immigration.
They just want a different set of rules for immigration. Most right of center people would agree with a Canadian style set of rules (based on points), or the Australian one.
By the way, there are commenters complaining about immigrant attitudes in the US. Try to immigrate into Australia and see how difficult it is.
I don't get it. The conversation is about "open borders" and enforcement of immigration laws. If anything, I see people on the right embracing people who immigrate here legally and become productive citizens. What they opposed is simply letting anyone walk over the border unvetted. If the left "swallowed their pride" and took the first move, a productive conversation could likely be had about securing the border and then deciding how many people to allow in legally and how to prioritize them.
As an immigrant from India myself, this is only part of the story. The other part is that there are certain uniquely American values that are repulsive to most non-Americans (especially those from non-developed non-Western countries) which are guarded primarily by the Republican party.
Some of these are:
1. Gun rights
2. Free speech absolutism (many other countries have exceptions for hate speech)
3. Opposition to ANY abortion
4. Individualism, or "lifting by bootstraps" approach, as expressed in opposition to government healthcare
5. Overall Christian worldview which seeps into things like supporting creationism
Many Indian immigrants are against at least one of the above points.
Indian conservative values are very different:
1. Family centred rather than individual centred
2. Religious but not Christian
3. Safety prioritized over risk taking
4. Conformist ("keep your head down and study")
In general, I don't feel that there is a natural connection to the Republican party at all. Trying to court Indian immigrants at least might not be effective. And according to you, Indians are closest to the Republicans!
I have seen the same with Chinese immigrants. Conservative in many ways, but big government, socialist instead of individualist, take what you can get from the government instead of limiting what can be taken, etc. Safetyism is a big thing, to be enforced by government. Credentialism is another very popular one. Gun control yet another.
Part of the problem seems to be that people the world over are much more left leaning than the average American when it comes to what they expect the state to do, so while they may be socially conservative they are very left leaning in everything else.
I could be wrong about that, of course, but I fear that a detailed survey would bear it out. Most people, including immigrants, just aren’t the “you leave me alone and I will leave you alone” types.
The average American is just as 'left' as many other places. What's coded as left and right just switches around a bit between places.
So eg the average American, including the average GOP voter, would recoil at the thought of abandoning their government mail service (USPS). Nominally leftist Germany has privatised their government mail long ago. And they weren't the only country to do so.
Similarly: Americans might squabble how high their minimum wages should be, but the existence of a minimum wage is widely supported, and has been for ages. Germany got their minimum wage legislation only fairly recently.
Minimum wage in the USA began as a way to exclude immigrants from the workforce.
For sure, that was a logical *effect* of the price floor, but are you suggesting that xenophobia per se was more of a motivation than the higher price that those already in the door could sell their labor for?
When immigrant workers arrive wages go down in the short term, then people vote for a minimum wage so that immigrants can't outcompete them on price.
Whether it should count as xenophobia is a matter of debate. It's nothing personal, only business.
Yep. In "less free" Korea, you can open up a hair salon without prohibitive and unnecessary licenses. Young kids walk themselves to school and academies, have "paper knives" ("Exacto" razors), play dodgeball, and are generally expected to not get themselves killed.
Sure, marijuana is criminalized, but you can drink alcohol in a public park -- oh and by the way, even when someone does get busted for marijuana or other illegal drugs, the police knock on their door, not bust it down with a SWAT team.
It might swing a bit on specific issues, but I don't think one can claim that Americans are on average just as left (broadly defined as more government intervention, less social issues) than most places. Particularly not places where lots of immigrants come from, but even compared to Europe. Your example of the USPS is a lot less popular than you think, surely not such that your average GOP member would "recoil" at the thought of abolishing or privatizing it. Consider issues like nationalized health care, gun control, taxation, state vs individual rights, ease of starting a business etc. States might vary a little here or there, but in general most are more to the left of the USA across most issues. The American left pines to be more like the social welfare states of Europe, even if on some specific issues Europe doesn't really match their ideals.
I've been against low skill immigration forever, but was more sanguine about high skill immigration (basically Asians) until 2020. Watching how Asia and Asians (as well as leftists generally) responded to COVID has convinced me that the cultural difference is too great. Having a few more dentists and accountants around definitely doesn't make up for being told you can't breath the air freely. I've also watched Asians I know make the Vaisya to Brahmin transition.
On the other hand, I worked with a Belgian immigrant (who became a US citizen while we worked together) who wont go back because he cant take his "arsenal" with him. He would sometimes post pics of his firearm collection on facebook to freak out his Belgian friends.
Oh yea, there are definitely some that come for the standard of living and stay for the guns :) Just talking averages, or really distributions, here. Not all immigrants lean left and vote Democrat, but it does seem like the majority tend to. The question is why.
(Personally I am all for encouraging people to learn to use guns and be responsible owners. Most people I have known who "don't like guns" were really just "not comfortable with guns" and after an hour or two at the range learning to use them changed their minds. Powerful machines are always scary till you know what you are doing.)
I don't think that the majority are left leaning. I think it's social engineering AKA another media lie to get immigrants to believe that all of their immigrant friends are left as well. Most people only change parties once in their lives (myself included), and we'll see how this turns out demographically with immigrants in 2022/2024.
IMHO The leftists get them here, and the rightists get them and their legalized tax-paying children to stay here.
Some of these might be inaccurate, but I think it gets to the reality that "it's all about the vibes".
For high skill groups, in addition to being culturally and economically more statist to begin with, the main motivation is to climb to liberal elite coastal hierarchy. You don't climb the liberal elite coastal hierarchy by adopting conservative values or voting GOP. Ain't gonna get you into Harvard or Google. Once you determine who you want your friends to be, you can come up with whatever worldview and rationalizations are necessary to do so.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/castes-of-united-states/
In short, Caplan asks why the GOP can't win a bunch of Vaisya immigrants, without noticing that all those immigrants aspire to be Brahmins.
For low skill groups (basically Hispanics and America or Muslims in Europe) the simplest answer is that they want free stuff from the government they don't pay enough in taxes to get, and the Democrats are the ones that promise those things.
Caplan asks, why can't you get all these Helots to vote for you, without noticing that the Dems have perfected turning them into Dalit vote banks within a generation.
Summing up, the simplest answer is that immigrants aren't all that conservative (or libertarian) and become much less so the longer they are here.
That "coastal hierarchy" point is interesting. One doesn't see many immigrants move to rural areas, or other GOP heavy areas, outside of migrant farm workers. I can think of a few exceptions, but on the whole one expects to meet immigrants in big cities, not small towns. (Although I have seen a few Asian Amishmen in central PA.) I never really thought about that much past "I don't know why immigrants don't move out of the cities; I like it out here a lot better myself."
It wonder how much is that immigrants like the city culture more (more left leaning) or how much is that they start in cities, and cities cause people to be more leftist over time. (Before one dismisses that second point, the fact that major US cities are overwhelmingly filled with Democrats and run by Democratic governments at all levels and have been for some time is widely recognized. Maps of registered voters' parties look like a red sea with big blue islands scattered around. It is suggestive.)
It's common for minorities to start in cities for a number of reasons. Including the simple fact that they want to live near other people like yourself and that's the only place you can get a critical mass.
The place that the GOP has made the most inroads with are white Hispanics living in red states, usually in the suburbs and exurbs. But it's a mistake to think you can get a dark skinned poor NYC Hispanic to vote the way a light skinned middle class Cuban in the Miami suburbs does.
Karl Rove and GWB learned the wrong lesson from Texas Hispanics and thought it could be applied to Hispanics everywhere (and that running as a virtually unopposed incumbent in 1998 could be applied everywhere). But Asians and Hispanics are just census categories, there is a lot of contextual difference in there.
Hispanics are sorting themselves by region in much the same way whites are. Conservatives are moving towards conservatives and leftists are moving towards leftists.
Yes, they start in cities, but it is interesting that they don't move away from cities much.
If they find 1-5 so repulsive, why are they in the US? There are other countries to immigrate into, like Brazil or Vietnam or South Africa.
Income levels. That is 90% of it I expect. That would seem to be the same reason why people leave CA for more rightwing states then vote for the same policies they did in CA. People don't understand the link between policies and outcomes they like.
… which is a lot of why Republicans are suspicious of mass (legal) immigration. If you dislike American values and only seek residency and citizenship because it's economically beneficial to you, well… a country can deal with a few citizens like that, but bringing in huge numbers of them will damage the country's political culture.
Yes, I think that is the most defensible objection to increasing immigration. Unfortunately, I think it is a pretty strong objection, and while I think Caplan is correct that making a compromise along the lines of "immigrants can't vote ever" or something similar might solve that problem to an extent, I doubt any such compromise would ever happen.
Of course, native Americans are not a lot better, but they are on average.
IMHO The leftists get them here, and the rightists get them and their legalized tax-paying children to stay here.
Money
Exactly. I am sick of Caplan pretending like race isn't real. The left is not importing WASPs from Europe, of the same stock that created this country, its culture, and its values -- they are importing un-American races who intrinsically support the leftist agenda more than American conservatism. The Republicans have the choice of a) giving up all of the values that make them Republican to court non-WEIRD, or non-Christian immigrants or b) rejecting those immigrants implicitly.
Caplan's post boils down to "just choose A! I am very smart."
Most red states don't ban "all" abortions, even post-Dobbs. Florida has a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled legislature, yet abortion is legal in all cases for the first 15 weeks. So when you say "Republicans oppose any abortion", I say, "Which Republicans?"
Christianity, I don't see how that is legislated in a way that interferes with the lives of the non-religious, particularly outside of the Deep South.
As to guns, let me tell you something, I'm sure the LA Koreans didn't think they wanted them in the 1990s, until the race riots got to their businesses and they learned to love them. It's true that it's hard to imagine an Indian with a gun, but the US is a violent country, with one side of politics liking to free prisoners and reducing police for social justice and such, that you'll learn to love them to feel safe.
There are also other things. Asians are smaller, thus more vulnerable to crime. Asians do better academically, thus more vulenerable to affirmative action and DEI initiatives. Asians make more money, and thus feel more of a pinch of higher taxes.
Anyway, I think that's only true of the early generations. Hispanics were very biased towards the Dems too, and now they're slowly moving rightward as more of them get accustomed to cultural American traits.
Don't a lot of these have fundamental differences with conservatives (and libertarians)?
Like, its almost like the real problem is that people in Asia have very different values and beliefs then our own, and that makes it very difficult to get their allegiance without sacrificing important aspects of how we want to live.
Let's take you comments. My comments in ***.
---
1. Gun rights
***Polls show basically nobody votes based on gun rights, so I don't think this is a problem***
2. Free speech absolutism (many other countries have exceptions for hate speech)
***I'd say free speech is a core value of the right, if we have to give that up we are giving up a lot***
3. Opposition to ANY abortion
***Despite the reversal of Dobbs, my Republican governor has not outlawed abortions. Polling indicates broad support for a ban sometime between 15-22 weeks, which is were this will eventually settle. Supporting abortion past that is ghoulish, and generally accompanied by very un-conservative positions on family and promiscuity.
4. Individualism, or "lifting by bootstraps" approach, as expressed in opposition to government healthcare
***Apparently individualism, self reliance, and not wanting to have government healthcare are dealbreakers. Are these the natural libertarians you are talking about Bryan?***
5. Overall Christian worldview which seeps into things like supporting creationism
***Seriously??? Have you met a conservative? This is ridiculous that you think this is a real thing. At least the right believes in genetics, lord knows the left doesn't.***
Many Indian immigrants are against at least one of the above points.
Indian conservative values are very different:
1. Family centred rather than individual centred
***This is kind of vague beyond the broad swipe at individualism***
2. Religious but not Christian
***Duh?????***
3. Safety prioritized over risk taking
***Yeah, I noticed that Asia gave up on breathing air freely, going outside their homes unless the government says its OK, and having children***
4. Conformist ("keep your head down and study")
***Sounds horrid, I have nothing in common with these people***
---
In a lot of ways it's kind of a parody of why conservatives reject the left. For instance, they also think cultural standards are good and hedonism is bad, but not because they are blind conformist followers with no free will.
I reiterate my belief that COVID lifted the veil for me on Asian safetyism and conformity. If that's what life is like under Asian rule, I can't see how any conservative or libertarian would want it.
A lot of people are single-issue voters. Sure, Asians immigrants might support safetyist policies, but many of them care about getting their kids into good colleges more, and will prioritize that issue in voting. So a Republican that runs on ending affirmative action and DEI programs can still win among Asians even if that Republican also supports less popular issues like being pro-life or pro-gun. Not to mention conservatives' (but not libertarians') obsession with being the party of "law and order".
Sorry but when you move to another country you are supposed to know the history, the constitution, the values that stand behind that nation. Nobody forced you or any other Indian to go to the US. If you have full citizenship you will be allowed to express your opinion democratically through election. Until then you should simply not spit in the plate you are eating from. And I am an expatriate myself for 25 years.
hate speech is a meaningless buzzword
I've always wondered why in Canada the immigrants (400k per year) mostly come from conservative leaning countries, but vote overwhelmingly NDP + Liberal
Especially because our conservative party doesn't really have the same right-wing hostility/rhetoric that some Republicans have in the USA, like, if you were drawing that same cartoon, the Canadian conservative party wouldn't be pushing the immigrants to the other parties, I don't think. The immigrants would just be jumping away from the conservative party, into the open arms of the Liberals + NDP.
The most plausible explanation I can come up with is that immigrants to Canada prefer the Liberals + NDP because they promise more handouts
Two other possible explanations
1. Canada and America don't have totally separate political cultures. I think pretty much everyone maps the R/D divide onto Canadian politics somehow, and while the details may vary, republicans behaving badly is almost always going to damage the reputation of the CPC. Should it? No, but I think it very obviously does.
2. Immigrants to Canada are generally (a) people who chose Canada over the US or (b) people who couldn't get permission to live in the US. In either case, there's an easy path to assimilating into Canada's anti-American culture, which leads to the Liberal and NDP parties.
Have you considered the possibility that they're emigrating from conservative-leaning countries because they're not conservative-leaning?
GOP leaders spent 50 years telling its voters they were wrong and they needed to be more pro immigration to win over Hispanics. Most anti immigration GOP candidate in recent memory (Trump) is more popular with Hispanics than any other GOP pol before him. Obviously Hispanic =/= immigrant but would seem to fly in the face of some of the analysis here.
There is absolutely zero empirical evidence to show that being pro-immigration actually wins over immigrants. This applies to both the GOP and the DEM. Trump did better than Romney. And Bill Clinton launching a jihad against illegal immigration in the 1990s did little to damage the DEM position with them.
It's clear that immigrants vote mostly on non-immigration concerns. The GOP can safely court them without importing more of them.
The need to “win over” is an example of a political externality, no?
Are you saying that the GOP could easily win over immigrants by abandoning conservatism and becoming the statist leftists party these people want to begin with.
I guess the only problem is...then what's the point?
I used the be “right wing” and against “illegal” immigration. That typically is nonsense once you ask if they want to reduce “legal” immigration as well, they typically do. What turned me was initially Milton Friedman and the idea that illegal immigration is better because they can’t take advantage of welfare. Then seeing the studies that all of the crime, welfare, and steal jobs arguments are just either fear mongering or the desire to not look into it further. Then I became libertarian and started to believe restricting immigration was immoral.
Oh, they can't use welfare? Great. That lasts one generation (or less). They they have naturalized children.
Oh, and hispanics commit more crime than whites and use more welfare. And we already have a partially selective immigration system which open borders would eliminate, meaning that future immigrants would be of a lower quality than what we have now.
Immigrants at worst break even in terms of tax revenue vs any benefits received. At best they are a profit, that’s in Bryan’s book and in most studies you find. The crime comment couldn’t be further from the truth. 1st generation immigrants commit roughly 1/3 the amount of crime as natural born citizens. That number increases the more generations that are in American. The crime rate catches natural born citizens at the 3rd generation.
"Immigrants at worst break even in terms of tax revenue vs any benefits received."
False and not even close.
"At best they are a profit, that’s in Bryan’s book and in most studies you find."
I've seen better studies, but the people who publish them pay a price for getting an unacceptable answer.
"1st generation immigrants commit roughly 1/3 the amount of crime as natural born citizens. That number increases the more generations that are in American. The crime rate catches natural born citizens at the 3rd generation."
I think the insight you're missing isn't the "native crime rate", but the "white crime rate".
Like we all understand that Hispanics aren't as bad as Blacks, but if Black and Hispanic neighborhoods are both considered "too high crime" for whites to live in, they have effectively been displaced.
It’s easy to find studies that confirm what you believe, anyone can do it. I know I used to when I believed what you did. Then I stumbled upon the overwhelming data to the contrary.
Can you only be considered native born if you’re white? That’s a line I never came close to crossing. If your argument is if we take crime rates among different races and based off of that we can decided who is allowed to have natural rights I’m not sure you’re worth saving.
It's extremely intuitive that people with low IQs are a net burden on the state. It would take a miracle for that not to be the case. You've got to twist yourself into knots to pretend they aren't.
The question is if immigrants make life in the country better. They can be not as bad as blacks (who isn't) and still be a net negative.
Good lord I’m for open borders but may be in favor of deporting you.
I’m glad to read your posting. I’m a pro-immigration conservative. Very pro. Usually silent about it.
As far as govt. benefits, no non citizen should receive any largesse except for humanitarian reasons.
That said, immigrants come to America to work. And work they do. And mind their own business. Unlike the vast majority of my fellow citizens.
Building on Sriram's comment, I think that the phrase "All the main immigrant groups are socially conservative" is misleading. All of those groups may agree with conservatives on being, say, relatively pro-traditional-marriage and less pro-LGBT, but the underlying cultures that they seek to Conserve are different from traditional American culture (and different from each other, for that matter).
Or, to borrow Scott Alexander's terms from his piece " How the West was Won," US conservatives and immigrants may all be opposed to various aspects of Universal Culture, but that doesn't mean they all love each other's Particular Cultures. This is one example where a "political spectrum" model is very unhelpful. Traditionalist Christians and Traditionalist Muslims would probably both be placed on the "right" side of such a spectrum, but that does *not* mean that they believe the same things, nor that they will get along if one group immigrates into a country where the other is well-established.
Thank you for so clearly pointing out the blackmail: "support immigration, or else I will not vote for you and will work at demographically replacing you".
Bryan is an open-borders extremist and so maybe that's not why he's going to look hard at this, but I'd like a lot more evidence and causal connection to this post that a single poll saying "Republicans don't like illegal immigration" as justification for "Immigrants are right to fear voting republican".
Why would a legal immigrant (who's gone through considerable time and expense to follow the rules, no matter how stupid) support illegal immigration?
The standard economic story is the reverse. Once someone acquires a right and becomes an incumbent, they tend to want to reduce competition. This is true in the labor market and everywhere else.
Bryan needs to tell a compelling story why it's not true here, and he's not even trying. Are Republicans actually against legal immigration and hostile to legal immigrants? That's not proven by saying Republicans are hostile to illegal immigrants.
Because the empirical record shows zero support for the assertion in his post. Neither parties immigrant vote share has shown much relation to either party or candidate immigration stances or rhetoric. One of the biggest swings in 2020 was the entire nearly all Hispanic Texas border counties going massively Republican, based in good part on a rejection of illegal immigration. The Texas governor is about to sail to re-election when his signature policy is loading illegals on buses and sending them to NY and DC.
The simplest explanation for immigrants voting left is that they are more inherently leftists (culture, genetically), and because many of them have settled in leftist social groups and assimilated to those norms.
Bryan also celebrates the “great replacement”. I expect many whites to be offended by that. That’s far beyond, “Hey, don’t worry about political externalities, crime, etc.” But Open Borders in terms of massive non-white immigration actually needs the crutch of the PC state to become a reality. If the US had started with private roads, streets, etc., a great degree of non-white immigration likely would have been significantly limited by private restrictions. Open borders requires communism in terms of the streets, roads, parks, etc. of the entire West.
This is true. The few Indian Republicans I know all support them because of opposition to illegal immigration and affirmative action.
People on the right oppose immigration because they believe immigrants drive down wages for natives (this may be true for low-skill natives, at least in the short run). Right-wingers are more tribal than left-wingers.
Right-wingers often welcome highly educated or skilled immigrants, when they perceive the added human capital outweighs competitive effects on highly educated/skilled natives.
Right-wingers fear cultural dilution; immigrants who appear likely to assimilate into American culture are welcomed far more than others.
If your point were correct, then groups of immigrants' political beliefs ought to vary, both cross-sectionally and intertemporally, based on natives' / the GOP's attitudes towards each immigrant group. But this is not, as far as I can tell, a pattern we see -- rather, immigrants' political beliefs track country of origin much more closely (for example, Cuban vs. Venezuelan). So, QED, your point is not correct.
>If you’re right-wing, I know you’ll be tempted to reject this cartoon in a hundred different ways. But does it, too, not possess a kernel of truth?
It doesn't matter if it's true or not.
*We shouldn't have to be changing our views to accomodate foreigners in order to avoid losing political power*
The fact that we have to change our beliefs and actions to avoid offending people who are diluting our political power is precisely the problem in the first place.
>If conservatives can offer a warm welcome to outcast left-wing intellectuals, why not extend the same hospitality to the millions of apolitical non-intellectuals who want to build a life here?
Because they're not conservatives, they will never be conservatives, and we can never compete with leftists offering them welfare statism.
And then there's the fact that if Americans become a minority, then this countries ceases to be meaningfully America anymore.
Diversity undermines social cohesion and social trust, this is replicated research finding. And open borders would make us vastly more diverse along almost all dimensions.
Do you imagine there's something magical about American soil? No? Then why would these people who failed to build successful countries themselves be able to run America successfully?
This seems to be an admission of defeat before even engaging battle. Why then persist with ancillary policies which are unattractive to potential voters? The core conservative position could be highly attractive to high skilled immigrants to the US, if it didn't come garlanded with strange ideological choices which seem to have little to do with the underlying philosophy, and more to do with short term political choices made decades ago and which are now creaking with age.
Which choices have little to do with the underlying philosophy?
Let's take a commentators list above. Comments in ***.
---
1. Gun rights
***Polls show basically nobody votes based on gun rights, so I don't think this is a problem***
2. Free speech absolutism (many other countries have exceptions for hate speech)
***I'd say free speech is a core value of the right, if we have to give that up we are giving up a lot***
3. Opposition to ANY abortion
***Despite the reversal of Dobbs, my Republican governor has not outlawed abortions. Polling indicates broad support for a bad sometime between 15-22 weeks, which is were this will eventually settle. Supporting abortion past that is ghoulish.
4. Individualism, or "lifting by bootstraps" approach, as expressed in opposition to government healthcare
***Apparently individualism, self reliance, and not wanting to have government healthcare are dealbreakers***
5. Overall Christian worldview which seeps into things like supporting creationism
***Seriously??? This is ridiculous that you think this is a real thing. At least the right believes in genetics, lord knows the left doesn't***
Many Indian immigrants are against at least one of the above points.
Indian conservative values are very different:
1. Family centred rather than individual centred
***This is kind of vague beyond the broad swipe at individualism***
2. Religious but not Christian
***Duh?????***
3. Safety prioritized over risk taking
***Yeah, I noticed that Asia gave up on breathing air freely, going outside their homes unless the government says its OK, and having children***
4. Conformist ("keep your head down and study")
***Sounds horrid, I have nothing in common with these people***
Some of what Bryan suggests may be happening in the UK, but with the added detail of tension between different immigrant groups. Both British-Indian and British-Pakistani voters used to be heavily pro-Labour (the leftwing party), but British-Indian voters have increasingly moved towards the Conservatives (right-wing party in theory).
Partly this is due to income and education consideration (British-Indians have done better than most other groups) but also down to specific political factors. The Labour party has increasingly explicitly sided with Pakistan on issues like Kashmir, alienating some British-Indians.
So another 'lesson for the right' might be to make suitable choices in the realm of international politics as many members of immigrant-descended groups seem to are about this a great deal. Probably there is something like this going on with Cuban emigres in Florida and elsewhere?
As a legal immigrant myself, I don't really feel any animus towards me personally from the right. I have several times have conservatives ask me if I resent the illegal immigrants, clearly hoping for an answer in the affirmative, but I haven't felt they objected to my presence.
I have an alternative theory. PJ O'Rourke said that Democrats have smart candidates and dumb voters, while the Republicans have smart voters and dumb candidates. Politics are messed up everywhere, but they seem marginally more messed up in the US, and the Republicans seems marginally more messed up than the Democrats. You have pointed out yourself many times that one driving philosophy of the American right is hatred of the American left. It's not an impressive thing to watch as a newcomer. Maybe it's just that the GOP really is the stupid party.
Stupid Party and Evil Party. About every 20 years they switch labels.
Ted Cruz is cringe, but people in Texas have no income tax and got to live free during COVID.
At some point you gotta choose between mood affiliation and better living.
I disagree that right of center people are against immigration.
They just want a different set of rules for immigration. Most right of center people would agree with a Canadian style set of rules (based on points), or the Australian one.
By the way, there are commenters complaining about immigrant attitudes in the US. Try to immigrate into Australia and see how difficult it is.
I'm triggered because the army summoned by Aragorn is know as the "Oathbreakers," which is an obvious sly reference to the Oathkeepers!
Seriously, I think both cartoons have more than a kernel of truth. Immigration is such a boon for this country.
I don't get it. The conversation is about "open borders" and enforcement of immigration laws. If anything, I see people on the right embracing people who immigrate here legally and become productive citizens. What they opposed is simply letting anyone walk over the border unvetted. If the left "swallowed their pride" and took the first move, a productive conversation could likely be had about securing the border and then deciding how many people to allow in legally and how to prioritize them.