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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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It's pretty much entirely 2. Muslims were a republican demographic before the GWOT and the GOP doesn't, deep in its bones, care about Islam when not actually at war with it. Besides, it's not like democrats are anything less than ultra-pro-Israel.

Muslims were a somewhat Republican demographic before 2001 because there were very few of them and they were a largely well educated upper-middle class demographic, which used to be more Republican. Asians voted 42% for Bush in 2000 according to polling I just googled, in general before the WOT affluent minorities were more Republican since the culture war in the 1990s re. immigration was about illegal migration from Mexico, not skilled work visas.

The profile of American Muslims has changed substantially since 9/11 due to further large-scale immigration from Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Muslim parts of West and East Africa and the rest of MENA, making Muslim Americans more diverse in terms of wealth and background, and in any case affluent minorities in general (eg. East Asians, Indians) have turned against the GOP. After Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ proposal, even though it can be justified on grounds that aren’t strictly hostile or Islam as a religion, they’re unlikely to return to the Republicans any time soon.

Also, Muslims’ anti-Israel beliefs are different to anti-Israel reactionaries (who are in any case a tiny minority of conservatives). Conservative isolationists want the US to defund Israel and then leave the Middle East. This would not actually have much impact on the Palestinian situation (and might actually make things worse for them, it’s not as if Israel would collapse). By contrast, progressive and Muslim anti-Israel activists want more overt condemnation of the treatment of Palestinians, possible sanctions on Israel (eg. BDS) and so on. They want big state, big foreign policy, big intervention, just in the other direction.

The stats probably understate Muslim (and East and South Asian) income numbers because so many are students. The vast majority of Muslims near me are still in that middle-upper middle class demographic.

It's a funny reverse from my Euro family to my American family, "I don't get why Americans/Europeans are upset about Mexican/Muslim immigration, all the Mexicans/Muslims I know are smart professionals and small business owners, much more like 'us' than the Muslims/Mexicans WE have to deal with. I'd love to trade our immigrants for your immigrants."

There aren’t very many Mexicans in most of Europe at all. There are many Latin Americans (Brazilians in Portugal, Argentinians and Colombians and some Mexicans in Spain) in Iberia, but because of ancestral citizenship and visa costs they tend to precisely be the wealthier Iberian types. The average Brazilian who emigrates to Portugal is effectively Portuguese, they’re not indigenous amerindians from the Amazon or Afro-Brazilians from the poor north.

A Spaniard telling you Mexican immigrants seem to be nice is really just talking about his own countrymen, even if their ancestors spent 300 fruitless years in the New World before coming home.

There are many Latin Americans (Brazilians in Portugal)

There are a lot of Brazilians in Ireland too. The 2016 census showed 15,000 or so and now it's at 40,000.

Like the Polish before them (and unlike asylum seekers) there really isn't that much anti-migrant sentiment against them, though they do suffer a lot at the hands of Dublin's feral youths.