[rayiner]

> Personally, I find it obvious that Republicans have crossed that line. Maybe they will come back, maybe not.

Republicans have just inherited a bunch of low-information voters in the Midwest that used to vote Democrat, and have kind of lost control of them. The one’s going on about Diebold machines and whatnot in 2004. I’ve had a bunch of weird ass conversations with Joe Rogan type democrats over the years. The lengths establishment republicans have to go to appease them are disconcerting. But Trump voters remind me a lot of the “common people” back in my home country of Bangladesh, not anything novel.

By contrast, the ideologies that have taken hold among progressive elite democrats are alarming precisely because of who has embraced those ideas. This happened at my law school, for example: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/northwestern-univers.... These are people with influence and power who can actually change society, and we can’t vote for them or anything! They want to run a large scale experiment on American culture, and unlike some unemployed veteran, they have the resources and positions to make those changes whether they rest of us like it or not. That’s way scarier.

[selimthegrim]

This is probably akin to the Latinos in Texas who lap up Ted Cruz calling Beto’s nickname pandering and ignore the face that Cruz’s Spanish is worse.

[rayiner]

Sure. They recognize someone who shares their values—his positions are quite typical of Cubans and Tejanos—but whose language skills are consistent with being a second generation immigrant, versus someone who speaks Spanish as window dressing for peddling white values. Cruz, moreover, is someone who has assimilated into white culture to the limited extent the GOP demands—speak English and believe in guns and capitalism—and does not hide the ball about it. Beto, by contrast, represents the strain of white culture that insists on complete assimilation while professing multiculturalism. You can have diversity, so long as it’s completely superficial and non-threatening.

My Bangla isn’t great, but I live 10 minutes away from my parents, worry what my aunties will think, and believe that my dad is right about most things. I find Trump voters quite relatable. Apart from the same skepticism of outsiders and lack of cosmopolitanism that’s nearly universal in Bangladesh, most are nice people in person. And they don’t want to teach my kids a bunch of weird things.

I came across this article today: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2022/08/18/do-not-se... (“Do not see yourselves as minorities, PM Hasina tells Hindus… Please do not undermine yourselves.”) Contrast the white guy in my link above declaring himself a “racist.” No Bangladeshi would ever do that! It’s alarming!