Month: October 2020

The Asian voter

The number of Asian eligible voters rose from 4.6 million in 2000 to 11.1 million in 2020, and from 2.4% to 4.7% of the electorate. (There remain 8 million Asians who are either not citizens or are citizens but under the age of 18).

Their party affiliations vary. Vietnamese Americans are more likely than Asian Americans overall to identify as Republican (42% vs. 28%). Indian Americans are the most likely to be Democrats of any Asian origin group, with 50% identifying as Democrats and just 18% as Republican. In 2018 poll, 64% of Vietnamese approved of Trump’s performance vs 28% of Indians and 24% of Chinese.

Based on polling between July 4 and August 16, 2020, among all those who had decided on a candidate to support in the upcoming Presidential race, 65% support Biden and 34% support Trump. These results are consistent with past trends.



 

If Dems win the WH and Senate, perhaps a surprise in immigration policy?

Trump’s immigration policies may be wrong but they are at least coherent. If the Dems take over Washington, I speculate that their approach to immigration might become more coherent. What shape will that take?

For some years, I have perceived that there is an underground consensus among liberals and conservatives on several aspects of immigration. First, that immigration needs to be more regulated. Jerry Kammer uses that word in his extremely valuable 2020 on immigration, Losing Control. There is an unexpressed feeling among the great majority of persons who pay attention to immigration that, for a country of immigrants, it is shameful that there is no coherent management of immigration.

The second shared but unexpressed consensus is that the unauthorized population needs to be normalized into legal status.

Then there are two ways in which a new consensus may emerge under Dem control.

First, it will emerge that key part of the Democratic constituencies want to limit low skilled immigration. Bernie Sanders has spoken that way. Kammer in his book reviews the misgivings in the organized labor community about low skilled immigration. Hispanics are ambivalent about low skilled, illegal immigration. With Dem control of Washington, it will be politically safe for some Dems to discuss this openly.

Second there is a slowly but then perhaps quick to emerge consensus, that immigration policy must be framed more in response to global trends, of which I see two major ones: the huge amount of skilled talent in the world, and the rise of China as a peer competitor. An immigration policy which addresses these trends will be relatively inclusive and relatively more focused on skilled immigration.

Get Kammer’s book. Lots of good stuff, including how Chuck Schumer screwed up immigration reform in the 1980s and 2010s.

Immigrants and ethnic diversity: decline of social trust and rise of Trump?

This is a relatively long post addressing an issue of great importance in this year in America: the contribution of immigration to social tensions. Is there a relationship? If so, what are the mechanisms? I summarize the case for a relationship and then suggest three somewhat overlapping mechanisms.

In the past 20 years, many researchers have looked at the impact of diversity on the level of social trust in a society. Much of that research focuses on ethnic/racial diversity, as opposed for example on religious and social class diversity. A recent review of 87 research articles found a statistically significant negative relationship betweem ethnic diversity, for example due to immigration, and social trust including social trust within groups.

The Center for Immigration Studies uses this review as evidence of ill effects of immigration.

A seminal study was done in around 2000 by one of America’s most respected social scientists, Robert Putnam. Fighting his personal pro-immigrant leanings, he warned, “The more ethnically diverse a residential context is, the less we trust …” He said the more racially diverse a community, the less trust exists among neighbors. Even trust within groups is lower in more diverse settings.

In thinking about these disturbing findings, it is useful to take several things into account:

First, the studies do not (as far as I can see) address other types of diversity – economic class, social class, religion. Would the emergence of an evangelical community within a traditional Christian domination community also affect social trust? Is increase in diversity related to, say, economic upheavals that erode trust?

Second, these studies do not deeply explore the mechanisms by which diversity reduces social trust within groups. There appears to be little attention given to psychology. I can think of three kinds of mechanisms.

One is the degree to which people sense that they can enjoy reciprocity with one another across ethnic boundaries. Diversity may erode one’s confidence in reciprocity in all instances.

Pre-existing low trust in public institutions may hasten the decline in trust. There appears to be a positive correlation between social trust and a society one the one hand, and trust in government, law and the police on the other hand. Pre-existing low trust in these institutions might aggravate a decline in social trust due to ethnic diversity.

A third possible mechanism is group politics. A culture of leadership may emphasize zero-sum game relations with out-groups, made up threats from outside, preach dependence on the leader to ward off threats, and enforce conformity, and undermine norms of government, law and policing. This might, in the face of diversity, increase psychological distress within the group. I have in mind Donald Trump.