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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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Love it or leave it, but woke.

This weekend, The University of Texas played The Ohio State University in Austin, TX. A screen shot went viral on Twitter showing a crowd of Indian students celebrating the victory.

"Heritage Americans", the dissident right, the Woke Reich, or whatever you want to call them went crazy, pointing out the massive demographic changes in Texas that are happening. This is true. Anyone who has been to Texas knows whites are a minority here in any medium sized and larger city. The changes have been stunning and within 30 years, it is unrecognizable.

Critics rightfully pointed out that they were pretty much just being racist. You talk about integration, and here are immigrants and children of immigrants celebrating a victory in football wearing cowboy hats. What is more American than that? You clearly just don't like Indian people.

An Indian politician said that this is what Texas is. If you don't like it, LEAVE! There is some truth to this. This is what Texas is now, but historically the South Asian population has been tiny. This is a very recent development. Is 20 years all it takes for Texas to become something new? If you are 30 and above, you probably grew up with almost no Indians. Now this is what Texas is and you have to leave if you don't like the changes?

This reminds me of the UK. Pre-Windrush, the UK was 99.9% white. As recently as 1991, it was 95% white. Now though, if you complain, you are going against British values. For thousands of years, the UK was essentially 100% white. Within a few generations, it is a multi-cultural country and if you don't like that, LEAVE! We are not a white society, and actually never were. I could go on and on, but with the exception of Reform, that is the general consensus now.

Back to Texas. It's crazy how quickly this can happen. Mass migration can happen and within one generation, this is seen as the new default and any complaints about this are seen as against the new values. Of course, the biggest gatekeepers of this isn't the left. They really have no control over their outgroup other than canceling people and social pressure, but if you don't care what they think, what can they really do? The center-right has also rushed to condemn people criticizing the massive demographic replacement in Texas. People like Dan Crenshaw rushed to condemn the racism and call out this anti-Indian racism and essentially sided with the left, who hates them. They have essentially said the same thing as the left and that these aren't Texas values to be racist. So basically, love it or leave it, but woke. If you don't like the new Texas, leave.

But where will they go? You basically have to live in a state like Texas for access to the best jobs. schools, dating, etc. It's insane to me how fast we can accept something new that is unprecedented as the new normal without considering the consequences. Only weirdos and disagreeable people point this out, and by the time people start to see the consequences, it will be too late (assuming there are negative consequences, which should be obvious is my POV).

The ethnic enclave in the stadium is scary. But overall they looked assimilated. I’ve repeatedly said prior generations of Indians some times do seem to assimilate very well to the point no one even notices they are Indian anymore.

The scary thing to me is if Texas could do a full Californication process. Despite California’s wealth it seems like it’s much more third worldification than elsewhere in America. I think the data is fairly clear that the State doesn’t work for the middle class anymore which is witnessed by population leaving every year. I tend to think demographic change has greatly influenced California’s political culture which is something we do not want to spread. I guess California has always been to the left of Texas but it was cowboy land too at one point. How do we maintain an Anglo form of government as demographics change? It doesn’t seem local level California governance has dealt with this well. By Anglo governance it feels to me like California has a lot more class/tribe politics than Texas.

Despite California’s wealth it seems like it’s much more third worldification than elsewhere in America.

Prop 13 deserves most, though not all, of the blame for California's high taxes on everything else, as well as contributing to municipal dysfunction by breaking the link between local tax bases and local government funding, was done by white conservatives. CEQA is ground zero of California NIMBYism and was bipartisan (signed by Governor Reagan), and predated the browning of the state. Local NIMBYism seems to be a bipartisan old white people thing much more than a third world immigrant thing.

So it looks like California was wrecked by Boomerism, not Third Worldification. The Asian-American vote is a powerful pro-sanity force in California politics, though mostly an isolated one.

Those policies can be viewed as pro-segregation/anti-immigration mitigation. Who does prop-13 = older and long time residents. Who does it hurt new residents. If I wanted to keep new people out of my community what would I do? I would invent higher taxes for immigrants. Which prop-13 essentially did.

Part of the argument that immigration ruins governance is that groups pass tribalistic policies. If the new residents to California trying to buy a home were just the old residents kids then you would see these policies being changed back or developing policies that would help their kids buy housing.

NIMBY policy is well within a framework of things caused by diversity because it creates voting blocks opposed to increased density because voters do not want other people living around them.

I am also not just referring to housing policy but other social dysfunction. You response reminds me of why I “Why Nations Fail” and Acemoglu getting a Nobel Prize. I believe his book basically concludes Third World Nations suck because they have bad governance/institutions …..and if we just had better governance/institutions then Africa be rich. Which sounds nice to a liberal because that sounds like you can help Africa by just importing a technology like giving them the US constitution. My view is the institutions will always be poor because you have Africans running the government.

You will always be able to point out 1 bad policy and explain why the policy is bad. Good institutions with good demographics fix bad policies. My argument would be that California sucks now because politicians have to sell to third world voters and people largely want NIMBY policies to mitigate living in a diverse society.