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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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What's crazy is that Texas really isn't like this. Only 2.7% of people in Texas are South Asian. It's similar to the Somali thing in a lot of ways. It's a very small absolute number, but it's concentrated, so the changes seem huge.

It's basically this quote, but for ethnic spoil systems:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Now obviously its unfair to compare these Texas fans to Somalians. They are probably, individually, quite lovely people. And, when voting, they are going to fall somewhere between Dennis Kucinich and Mao.

Almost all recent immigrant groups have voting patterns which are far to the left of longtime populations. It doesn't matter how "good" Indian and Chinese immigrants are if they vote for open borders. Our institutions won't save us. Even low single digit numbers can tip the scales. If Texas goes blue, the Republic will fall.

And, when voting, they are going to fall somewhere between Dennis Kucinich and Mao.

Almost all recent immigrant groups have voting patterns which are far to the left of longtime populations.

Canada's different in this regard, or at least Ontario is (was?). IIRC, Indian immigrants were a big reason why Ford won again, voting for reasons that would be very legible to conservative voters.

That does raise the question of why Chinese and Indians are so far left in the United States. Naively, we might expect the opposite. India and China are far-right places. They are so far right they could fairly be called fascist or theocratic by western standards. I'll propose a couple possibilities.

  1. Indians and Chinese assimilate well and correctly recognize that leftism is the high-status choice in the US

  2. Indians and Chinese care more about racial solidarity than about other things like abortion, taxes, and crime

India and China are far-right places.

What? China is a communist nation and India was explicitly ruled by socialists for most of it's modern history.

Gay representation in media is illegal in China.

  • Films with gay characters are banned and don't play in Chinese theaters.

  • Phone app games can't have characters with ambiguous genders, or effeminate men or anyone gay.

  • China has illegal gay romance stories published on websites. This is hypothetically illegal but the laws weren't enforced. Then they were. The women who write these gay romances were arrested and held in prison for long periods of time awaiting trial.

Us Americans are culture waring about trans women in combat sports. China is on a completely different level.

Their leaders are billionaires. They're whatever form of communism is rule by billionaires.

They are nationalists in the way I wish Americans were. We have a tragic deficit of nationalism. It might be terminal.

I once saw a homeless beggar in China. Two Chinese cops were standing in front of him and very kindly asking him to go away. My main complaint about American urban decay is forbidden in China. They have the will to ban it and enforce the ban.

It is hard to shoehorn everything into a simple left-right dichotomy. They like abortion and dislike economic liberalism. They aren't "right wing" in that sense. They are culturally conservative in a way some Americans would consider far right. If Republicans endorsed a fraction of Chinese state policy, it would be loudly denounced as far-right extremism.

Gay representation in media is illegal in China.

It was a problem in the USSR, too. It will probably become a problem in the West if actual leftists ever acquire real power.

I don't know if it is true, but supposedly gay Germans are very disproportionately supporters of AfD. The point being Western culture is fine with them being gay. Some other cultures not so much.

Alice Weidel is cringing thinking about what would happen to her and her domestic partner if Islamists ruled Europe. She wants her gay family to thrive. She's of course portrayed as a crazed right winger and a nazi for doing so.

This overrates the degree to which gays predict islamization. Most, as far as I know, are bog-standard mainstream progressives.

True, but gays who are not bog-standard mainstream progressives are relatively more likely to be anti-Muslim-immigration right-populists than they are to be other varieties of right-winger.