“Asian-American” is an awfully vague term, and I don’t know how Asians actually see themselves—more clearly than Westerners see them, I’m sure—but most prominent Republican Asian-Americans come from India rather than China, Korea, or Japan. I’m thinking of Ramesh Ponnuru, Dinesh D’Souza, Avik Roy, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Three of the four are Catholics (I have no idea of Roy’s affiliation), which puts them in the minority of Indian-Americans, although Catholicism may be more attractive for Indians than any of the Protestant Churches, Protestantism being too “British.”As for the Jewish neo-cons† like my perennial bêtes noires William Kristol and Jennifer Rubin, they’re triple minorities—Jewish, right-wing, and secular.
Being an outsider makes you think. If you want to read something interesting about health-care policy, read Ponnuru or Roy. But it can also make you grouchy. If you want to read some nonsense, read D’Souza on Obama’s “colonial” mentality or Bill or Jennie on, well, anything.
Afterwords
This “analysis” is grossly oversimplified, of course, but as Niels Bohr said “if I can’t simplify, I can’t talk,” and he was a pretty smart guy.
*Other classic outsiders are Catherine the Great (German rather than Russian), Napoleon, Benjamin Disraeli, Franklin Roosevelt, and (not so good) Adolph Hitler. Roosevelt was a double outsider, a gentleman misfit, “a traitor to his class.” Roosevelt said that the greatest disappointment of his life was his failure to win acceptance at the Porcellian Club at Harvard, the most elite of the Harvard clubs. His father was a member, and so was Uncle Ted, but Franklin didn’t make the cut. And so the New Deal was born. Eleanor of course was a misfit as well, an awkward rather than an elegant one, which may have formed part of the basis for their marriage—in addition to the fact that she had her own money (Franklin didn’t) and was closely related to Teddy (Franklin wasn’t).
† “Neo-con” is, of course, “controversial.” Deal with it.
