Questions About Other Countries' Politics that You Were Too Afraid To Ask

[King of Kensington]

if the United States had Canada's federal party system (i.e. Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP), what in general would our congressional elections look like?

What sorts of places would vote NDP and where would vote Liberal? Which states (or districts) would support one over the other by the largest margins?

How closely would the Conservative vote match the irl Republican vote? Where (if anywhere) would Conservatives significantly overperform and underperform relative to the GOP?

NDP would have been in past your heavily unionized blue collar towns, but those would be Conservative today.  Nowadays NDP would largely be confined to college towns and maybe some central parts of super liberal cities with large renter population like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and again only certain parts not all of city. 

Conservatives would probably do better in suburbs than GOP has as Canada's conservatives are somewhat more moderate and also usually about a decade or so behind GOP in trends so map would look more like 2008 or 2012 not 2016 or 2020 at least in suburbs.  Essentially 2020 map for rural areas and 2012 for suburbs would be areas Conservatives would win in thus would win nationally.

Likewise platforms would be different as Conservatives in Canada support universal health care as opposing it is political suicide so support it for same reason British Tories support NHS.  By contrast in US they would likely oppose it as huge cohort against idea unlike Canada where debate is more should private options be banned outright or allowed in addition to public universal system.  Almost no one talks about getting rid of universal health care in Canada.

On guns also would be different.  Yes both GOP and Conservatives are pro-gun and on whether assault weapons should be allowed or not you see similar split in Canada and US.  But on things like concealed carry and handgun ownership huge divergence.  No party in Canada favors concealed carry while in US no party favors an outright handgun ban which many in NDP and Liberals do.  While both on right pro-gun and left more anti-gun huge differences.  GOP see gun ownership as a fundamental right, Conservatives in Canada simply believe law abiding citizens are not the problem and focus should be on criminals not legal gun owners.  Democrats may favor some restrictions but still favor 2nd amendment while NDP and Liberals believe guns should only be allowed for hunting and banned for everything else. 

A Congressional district has about 700,000 people - I don't know if you could have an "NDP district."  Maybe Minneapolis or Seattle? 

[mileslunn]

Seattle, San Francisco, Multonomah County (yes suburbs more conservative but Portland itself massively outvotes them) I think might.  New York City and Chicago big enough could probably find one or two but most would go Liberal.  Boston might depending on design if encompassed most of the universities including nearby suburbs.  Now places like Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington would not despite being super safe Democrat as those are more due to large ethnic community and I suspect African-Americans and Latinos would vote Liberal not NDP. 

[King of Kensington]

And perhaps a few oddities like Vermont or maybe Western Massachusetts.

The much larger districts, the larger swaths of the country that are heavily evangelical and have a weak tradition of industrial unions etc. - would have made the situation of a viable American NDP more difficult.

[Kamala's side hoe]

^ I think Los Angeles would be more likely to have at least one NDP-type party seat than Detroit, Philly, or DC. DC strikes me as the kind of anchor city that would be particularly immune to left-wing insurgencies from a Liberal-type establishment party.

[mileslunn]

And perhaps a few oddities like Vermont or maybe Western Massachusetts.

The much larger districts, the larger swaths of the country that are heavily evangelical and have a weak tradition of industrial unions etc. - would have made the situation of a viable American NDP more difficult.

NDP would win more in your urban progressive areas with large university populations, not your industrial heavily unionized areas.  Even in Canada that cohort drifting away from NDP and Conservatives gaining.

^ I think Los Angeles would be more likely to have at least one NDP-type party seat than Detroit, Philly, or DC. DC strikes me as the kind of anchor city that would be particularly immune to left-wing insurgencies from a Liberal-type establishment party.

Los Angeles is big enough it might but just trying to think where.  The coastal suburbs like Santa Monica very liberal but fairly wealthy so probably go Liberal and ditto areas near Hollywood.  South Central and Eastern parts very Democratic but also non-Hispanic whites are less than 10% in those areas and I suspect NDP would win more in white progressive areas while heavily minority areas would go Liberal.  Now LA has 3.8 million people so possible depending on how you drew map and LA county has over 10 million so I agree probably could get an NDP but not sure where and probably have to gerrymander.

Agree on DC.  It is basically as pro establishment as you get so may vote 95% Democrat but its extremely establishment types.

[pikachu]

Not a specific question, but how much name rec do politicians have in other countries? E.g. in the UK, what politicians would >50% of the public be able to recognize? Hard to get a sense of this sort of thing just from the internet.

US is really only country president always well known.  UK and France usually is, Germany depends.  Merkel well known globally Scholz much less.  In other countries it is more limited to if you have a controversial, charismatic or eccentric leader. 

Orban, Mugabe, Kim Jong un household names as controversial.

Charismatic would Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern as both were household names but few could name any other Canadian or Kiwi PM in past 40 years.

Thanks! Not really the question I was asking though. In the case of e.g. Canada, it's more like how many cabinet members, provincial premiers, MPs, MLAs, etc can the average person name?

[RilakkuMAGA]

1) Is the Pakistani military/ISI/Deep State in general (and specifically at the senior levels) actually ideologically sympathetic to violent Islamists/jihadists, or is their support of said groups mostly a cynical means of maintaining the military-intelligence Deep State’s power in Pakistan?

2) Same question as above but re: the Pakistani military’s strategic obsession with India, at least in more recent years (even as India itself has become more uh, Bad in terms of politics and religious hatred—not exactly unlike Pakistan!)?

3) Is it accurate to say that Pakistani civilian leaders and political parties exist serve at the pleasure of the military?

Curious when this will be answered, if it is at all. I don't think this is something any of the Subcontinental AAPI diaspora posters are equipped to answer, nor would their counterparts in other countries.

if the United States had Canada's federal party system (i.e. Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP), what in general would our congressional elections look like?

What sorts of places would vote NDP and where would vote Liberal? Which states (or districts) would support one over the other by the largest margins?

How closely would the Conservative vote match the irl Republican vote? Where (if anywhere) would Conservatives significantly overperform and underperform relative to the GOP?

Participated in the UK with US-style parties and vice versa thread some time ago so I feel qualified to answer.

The one demographic I have any confidence a CA Conservatives-type right-of-center party would overperform against the US Republicans would be ethnic Chinese. (This isn't to say that Chinese Americans would actually favor the hypothetical Conservative party over the Liberals or the NDP.) Canada has a higher proportion of non-indigenous visible minority groups than the US does and the CA Tories probably need to pander to those ambiguously brown people with funny accents and weird food more than the US GOP does. But I do actually think there are cultural factors inherent to Chinese culture- and the areas of greater China that are overrepresented among the Anglosphere diaspora- that would make Overseas Chinese more receptive to right-of-center political parties than the other Confucianist East Asian groups, let alone non-Confucianist East Asians or South Asians. Recent shifts and trends within local NYC politics seem to suggest this, as do pre-pandemic voting patterns among Chinese Canadians.

(Re: "the rest of Confucianist East Asia"- I'm tempted to argue that Vietnamese Americans might be more supportive of a Liberal-type party than most would expect, but that's partly based on how Vietnamese Australians seem relatively supportive of the ALP, and the Canadian Liberals allegedly being the party of Canadian nationalism/federalism).

I'm not going to say this is purely wrong, but it's a huge oversimplification that glosses over a lot of the drivers of political affiliation. Because quite frankly, I strongly suspect these cultural factors are less Chinese and more specific to certain subgroups.

The Conservatives in Canada, especially in British Columbia, have historically done significantly better with Chinese voters than American conservatives. But a lot of that is Vancouver Chinese being disproportionately people who moved from Hong Kong before handover. Not only are they disproportionately likely to be conservative or anti-Communist, on net aggregate, Cantonese are also somewhat more mercantile/ bourgeoise and socially traditionalist relative to other Chinese. Vancouver is a Cantonese-dominant city, which is pretty much not true of anywhere in the United States besides small, very old Chinatowns.

What NYC and to an extent Canada both indicate is that Chinese voters can shift like mad if you engage in explicitly anti-Chinese politics. There are good estimates that the Conservatives under O'Toole collapsed to single digits among Chinese voters due to racebaiting against Chinese. Democratic policies on crime and education were widely viewed as specifically targeting Chinese. In those circumstances, there was a stampede against the party perceived to be racist.

Other than that, they tend to vote like...how you'd expect based on socioeconomic class and religion.

To the extent the GOP would improve among Chinese by being less...weirdly religious right, it'd probably improve among /everyone/. In 2012, Asian-Americans voted pretty much identically to white people if you adjusted for religion.

As of 2023, I don't have hard numbers, but I strongly suspect that if you adjusted for both religion and education, almost every Asian ethnicity would be more Republican than white Americans.

[mileslunn]

1) Is the Pakistani military/ISI/Deep State in general (and specifically at the senior levels) actually ideologically sympathetic to violent Islamists/jihadists, or is their support of said groups mostly a cynical means of maintaining the military-intelligence Deep State’s power in Pakistan?

2) Same question as above but re: the Pakistani military’s strategic obsession with India, at least in more recent years (even as India itself has become more uh, Bad in terms of politics and religious hatred—not exactly unlike Pakistan!)?

3) Is it accurate to say that Pakistani civilian leaders and political parties exist serve at the pleasure of the military?

Curious when this will be answered, if it is at all. I don't think this is something any of the Subcontinental AAPI diaspora posters are equipped to answer, nor would their counterparts in other countries.

if the United States had Canada's federal party system (i.e. Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP), what in general would our congressional elections look like?

What sorts of places would vote NDP and where would vote Liberal? Which states (or districts) would support one over the other by the largest margins?

How closely would the Conservative vote match the irl Republican vote? Where (if anywhere) would Conservatives significantly overperform and underperform relative to the GOP?

Participated in the UK with US-style parties and vice versa thread some time ago so I feel qualified to answer.

The one demographic I have any confidence a CA Conservatives-type right-of-center party would overperform against the US Republicans would be ethnic Chinese. (This isn't to say that Chinese Americans would actually favor the hypothetical Conservative party over the Liberals or the NDP.) Canada has a higher proportion of non-indigenous visible minority groups than the US does and the CA Tories probably need to pander to those ambiguously brown people with funny accents and weird food more than the US GOP does. But I do actually think there are cultural factors inherent to Chinese culture- and the areas of greater China that are overrepresented among the Anglosphere diaspora- that would make Overseas Chinese more receptive to right-of-center political parties than the other Confucianist East Asian groups, let alone non-Confucianist East Asians or South Asians. Recent shifts and trends within local NYC politics seem to suggest this, as do pre-pandemic voting patterns among Chinese Canadians.

(Re: "the rest of Confucianist East Asia"- I'm tempted to argue that Vietnamese Americans might be more supportive of a Liberal-type party than most would expect, but that's partly based on how Vietnamese Australians seem relatively supportive of the ALP, and the Canadian Liberals allegedly being the party of Canadian nationalism/federalism).

I'm not going to say this is purely wrong, but it's a huge oversimplification that glosses over a lot of the drivers of political affiliation. Because quite frankly, I strongly suspect these cultural factors are less Chinese and more specific to certain subgroups.

The Conservatives in Canada, especially in British Columbia, have historically done significantly better with Chinese voters than American conservatives. But a lot of that is Vancouver Chinese being disproportionately people who moved from Hong Kong before handover. Not only are they disproportionately likely to be conservative or anti-Communist, on net aggregate, Cantonese are also somewhat more mercantile/ bourgeoise and socially traditionalist relative to other Chinese. Vancouver is a Cantonese-dominant city, which is pretty much not true of anywhere in the United States besides small, very old Chinatowns.

What NYC and to an extent Canada both indicate is that Chinese voters can shift like mad if you engage in explicitly anti-Chinese politics. There are good estimates that the Conservatives under O'Toole collapsed to single digits among Chinese voters due to racebaiting against Chinese. Democratic policies on crime and education were widely viewed as specifically targeting Chinese. In those circumstances, there was a stampede against the party perceived to be racist.

Other than that, they tend to vote like...how you'd expect based on socioeconomic class and religion.

To the extent the GOP would improve among Chinese by being less...weirdly religious right, it'd probably improve among /everyone/. In 2012, Asian-Americans voted pretty much identically to white people if you adjusted for religion.

As of 2023, I don't have hard numbers, but I strongly suspect that if you adjusted for both religion and education, almost every Asian ethnicity would be more Republican than white Americans.

I think Chinese community can go either way as a lot are quite entrepreneurial, pro business, tough on crime but at same time many university educated so little time for anti-science stuff and generally turned off by anything seen as racist or just based on conspiracies.  Also Asian cultures have very high level deference to authority and respect for others so trying to smash establishment and coming across as nasty is a huge turn off.

After all GOP doing bad amongst Asians is more a recent thing.  Ronald Reagan won Asian vote both times and even in 90s, George HW Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole did as well.  In fact Dole did better amongst Asians than whites (last time that happened).  So I believe its more what style of conservatism.  I think your Reagan pro market conservatism can be very successful with Asian community but your more Trumpian populist conservative not so much.  In BC prior to merger on right federally, Chinese community would go heavily BC Liberals but federally avoid Reform Party like a plague for same reason.  Had no problem going for Mulroney PCs but Preston Manning's Reform Party wouldn't.  In Australia and NZ, pretty sure Chinese community go National and L/NP.  While only 0.8% of population, pretty sure British Tories usually win amongst them too.  Yes Asians overall go heavily Labour, but vast majority in UK are from Indian subcontinent. 

So not sure difference as big between two countries as more a certain style of conservatism can win but other styles are toxic.  Off course once you get into second generation, then voting patterns largely mimic general population and it seems right really struggles with second generation as many are university educated and often in fields like tech, medicine, science or other areas where right just doesn't do well in general.  And most live in large cities where right does poorly across the board.  In fact I suspect Asians living in suburbs while favoring Democrats, have a lot more GOP supporters than city itself so location matters.  GOP probably gets in single digits of Asians in San Francisco, but in Orange County, likely gets in 40s.  Even in Canada, Conservatives tend to do better with Chinese community in BC & Alberta than they do in Ontario.

[RilakkuMAGA]

1) Is the Pakistani military/ISI/Deep State in general (and specifically at the senior levels) actually ideologically sympathetic to violent Islamists/jihadists, or is their support of said groups mostly a cynical means of maintaining the military-intelligence Deep State’s power in Pakistan?

2) Same question as above but re: the Pakistani military’s strategic obsession with India, at least in more recent years (even as India itself has become more uh, Bad in terms of politics and religious hatred—not exactly unlike Pakistan!)?

3) Is it accurate to say that Pakistani civilian leaders and political parties exist serve at the pleasure of the military?

Curious when this will be answered, if it is at all. I don't think this is something any of the Subcontinental AAPI diaspora posters are equipped to answer, nor would their counterparts in other countries.

if the United States had Canada's federal party system (i.e. Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP), what in general would our congressional elections look like?

What sorts of places would vote NDP and where would vote Liberal? Which states (or districts) would support one over the other by the largest margins?

How closely would the Conservative vote match the irl Republican vote? Where (if anywhere) would Conservatives significantly overperform and underperform relative to the GOP?

Participated in the UK with US-style parties and vice versa thread some time ago so I feel qualified to answer.

The one demographic I have any confidence a CA Conservatives-type right-of-center party would overperform against the US Republicans would be ethnic Chinese. (This isn't to say that Chinese Americans would actually favor the hypothetical Conservative party over the Liberals or the NDP.) Canada has a higher proportion of non-indigenous visible minority groups than the US does and the CA Tories probably need to pander to those ambiguously brown people with funny accents and weird food more than the US GOP does. But I do actually think there are cultural factors inherent to Chinese culture- and the areas of greater China that are overrepresented among the Anglosphere diaspora- that would make Overseas Chinese more receptive to right-of-center political parties than the other Confucianist East Asian groups, let alone non-Confucianist East Asians or South Asians. Recent shifts and trends within local NYC politics seem to suggest this, as do pre-pandemic voting patterns among Chinese Canadians.

(Re: "the rest of Confucianist East Asia"- I'm tempted to argue that Vietnamese Americans might be more supportive of a Liberal-type party than most would expect, but that's partly based on how Vietnamese Australians seem relatively supportive of the ALP, and the Canadian Liberals allegedly being the party of Canadian nationalism/federalism).

I'm not going to say this is purely wrong, but it's a huge oversimplification that glosses over a lot of the drivers of political affiliation. Because quite frankly, I strongly suspect these cultural factors are less Chinese and more specific to certain subgroups.

The Conservatives in Canada, especially in British Columbia, have historically done significantly better with Chinese voters than American conservatives. But a lot of that is Vancouver Chinese being disproportionately people who moved from Hong Kong before handover. Not only are they disproportionately likely to be conservative or anti-Communist, on net aggregate, Cantonese are also somewhat more mercantile/ bourgeoise and socially traditionalist relative to other Chinese. Vancouver is a Cantonese-dominant city, which is pretty much not true of anywhere in the United States besides small, very old Chinatowns.

What NYC and to an extent Canada both indicate is that Chinese voters can shift like mad if you engage in explicitly anti-Chinese politics. There are good estimates that the Conservatives under O'Toole collapsed to single digits among Chinese voters due to racebaiting against Chinese. Democratic policies on crime and education were widely viewed as specifically targeting Chinese. In those circumstances, there was a stampede against the party perceived to be racist.

Other than that, they tend to vote like...how you'd expect based on socioeconomic class and religion.

To the extent the GOP would improve among Chinese by being less...weirdly religious right, it'd probably improve among /everyone/. In 2012, Asian-Americans voted pretty much identically to white people if you adjusted for religion.

As of 2023, I don't have hard numbers, but I strongly suspect that if you adjusted for both religion and education, almost every Asian ethnicity would be more Republican than white Americans.

I think Chinese community can go either way as a lot are quite entrepreneurial, pro business, tough on crime but at same time many university educated so little time for anti-science stuff and generally turned off by anything seen as racist or just based on conspiracies.  Also Asian cultures have very high level deference to authority and respect for others so trying to smash establishment and coming across as nasty is a huge turn off.

After all GOP doing bad amongst Asians is more a recent thing.  Ronald Reagan won Asian vote both times and even in 90s, George HW Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole did as well.  In fact Dole did better amongst Asians than whites (last time that happened).  So I believe its more what style of conservatism.  I think your Reagan pro market conservatism can be very successful with Asian community but your more Trumpian populist conservative not so much.  In BC prior to merger on right federally, Chinese community would go heavily BC Liberals but federally avoid Reform Party like a plague for same reason.  Had no problem going for Mulroney PCs but Preston Manning's Reform Party wouldn't.  In Australia and NZ, pretty sure Chinese community go National and L/NP.  While only 0.8% of population, pretty sure British Tories usually win amongst them too.  Yes Asians overall go heavily Labour, but vast majority in UK are from Indian subcontinent. 

So not sure difference as big between two countries as more a certain style of conservatism can win but other styles are toxic.  Off course once you get into second generation, then voting patterns largely mimic general population and it seems right really struggles with second generation as many are university educated and often in fields like tech, medicine, science or other areas where right just doesn't do well in general.  And most live in large cities where right does poorly across the board.  In fact I suspect Asians living in suburbs while favoring Democrats, have a lot more GOP supporters than city itself so location matters.  GOP probably gets in single digits of Asians in San Francisco, but in Orange County, likely gets in 40s.  Even in Canada, Conservatives tend to do better with Chinese community in BC & Alberta than they do in Ontario.

A lot of the Democratic improvement among Asian-American voters is less Republican-voting Asians deciding to become Democrats - and more so that the newcomers were much more liberal than the older immigrants. Like the Asian vote in 2008 was like 3 or 4x the size it was in 1988. So the vast majority of these voters are new.

Asian-Americans in the 1980's were unusually right-wing because they were disproportionately anti-Communist refugees from places like Vietnam and Laos - or conservative KMT-linked Taiwanese. Same reason why Cuban voters are so right-wing. Newer immigrants were much more liberal/left-wing, which is why Democrats had consistent improvement.

Also, I'd be shocked if Republicans only got 40% among Asians in Orange County. The Asian parts are the parts that trended even harder red under Trump! Orange County is basically the capital of the Republic of Vietnam-in-exile. Vietnamese community events in OC pretty much all use the old flag of South Vietnam. This is just a very conservative group of voters, lol.

Also, the argument that "Reagan-style conservatism" is the key to improving among pro-business, upscale Asian voters seems very false, largely because only white people seem to believe in market fundamentalism. Even "pro-business" types are going to think ideas like climate change denial, eliminating the federal government, and cutting public healthcare/education are stupid. The type of voter you're describing isn't a Reagan Conservative - they're a Bill Clinton Democrat. Of course, the actual Ronald Reagan was not actually a hardline market fundamentalist Nikki Haley type, but pretty much everyone who identifies as a Reagan conservative today would call Ronald Reagan a statist tankie RINO.

[mileslunn]

1) Is the Pakistani military/ISI/Deep State in general (and specifically at the senior levels) actually ideologically sympathetic to violent Islamists/jihadists, or is their support of said groups mostly a cynical means of maintaining the military-intelligence Deep State’s power in Pakistan?

2) Same question as above but re: the Pakistani military’s strategic obsession with India, at least in more recent years (even as India itself has become more uh, Bad in terms of politics and religious hatred—not exactly unlike Pakistan!)?

3) Is it accurate to say that Pakistani civilian leaders and political parties exist serve at the pleasure of the military?

Curious when this will be answered, if it is at all. I don't think this is something any of the Subcontinental AAPI diaspora posters are equipped to answer, nor would their counterparts in other countries.

if the United States had Canada's federal party system (i.e. Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP), what in general would our congressional elections look like?

What sorts of places would vote NDP and where would vote Liberal? Which states (or districts) would support one over the other by the largest margins?

How closely would the Conservative vote match the irl Republican vote? Where (if anywhere) would Conservatives significantly overperform and underperform relative to the GOP?

Participated in the UK with US-style parties and vice versa thread some time ago so I feel qualified to answer.

The one demographic I have any confidence a CA Conservatives-type right-of-center party would overperform against the US Republicans would be ethnic Chinese. (This isn't to say that Chinese Americans would actually favor the hypothetical Conservative party over the Liberals or the NDP.) Canada has a higher proportion of non-indigenous visible minority groups than the US does and the CA Tories probably need to pander to those ambiguously brown people with funny accents and weird food more than the US GOP does. But I do actually think there are cultural factors inherent to Chinese culture- and the areas of greater China that are overrepresented among the Anglosphere diaspora- that would make Overseas Chinese more receptive to right-of-center political parties than the other Confucianist East Asian groups, let alone non-Confucianist East Asians or South Asians. Recent shifts and trends within local NYC politics seem to suggest this, as do pre-pandemic voting patterns among Chinese Canadians.

(Re: "the rest of Confucianist East Asia"- I'm tempted to argue that Vietnamese Americans might be more supportive of a Liberal-type party than most would expect, but that's partly based on how Vietnamese Australians seem relatively supportive of the ALP, and the Canadian Liberals allegedly being the party of Canadian nationalism/federalism).

I'm not going to say this is purely wrong, but it's a huge oversimplification that glosses over a lot of the drivers of political affiliation. Because quite frankly, I strongly suspect these cultural factors are less Chinese and more specific to certain subgroups.

The Conservatives in Canada, especially in British Columbia, have historically done significantly better with Chinese voters than American conservatives. But a lot of that is Vancouver Chinese being disproportionately people who moved from Hong Kong before handover. Not only are they disproportionately likely to be conservative or anti-Communist, on net aggregate, Cantonese are also somewhat more mercantile/ bourgeoise and socially traditionalist relative to other Chinese. Vancouver is a Cantonese-dominant city, which is pretty much not true of anywhere in the United States besides small, very old Chinatowns.

What NYC and to an extent Canada both indicate is that Chinese voters can shift like mad if you engage in explicitly anti-Chinese politics. There are good estimates that the Conservatives under O'Toole collapsed to single digits among Chinese voters due to racebaiting against Chinese. Democratic policies on crime and education were widely viewed as specifically targeting Chinese. In those circumstances, there was a stampede against the party perceived to be racist.

Other than that, they tend to vote like...how you'd expect based on socioeconomic class and religion.

To the extent the GOP would improve among Chinese by being less...weirdly religious right, it'd probably improve among /everyone/. In 2012, Asian-Americans voted pretty much identically to white people if you adjusted for religion.

As of 2023, I don't have hard numbers, but I strongly suspect that if you adjusted for both religion and education, almost every Asian ethnicity would be more Republican than white Americans.

I think Chinese community can go either way as a lot are quite entrepreneurial, pro business, tough on crime but at same time many university educated so little time for anti-science stuff and generally turned off by anything seen as racist or just based on conspiracies.  Also Asian cultures have very high level deference to authority and respect for others so trying to smash establishment and coming across as nasty is a huge turn off.

After all GOP doing bad amongst Asians is more a recent thing.  Ronald Reagan won Asian vote both times and even in 90s, George HW Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole did as well.  In fact Dole did better amongst Asians than whites (last time that happened).  So I believe its more what style of conservatism.  I think your Reagan pro market conservatism can be very successful with Asian community but your more Trumpian populist conservative not so much.  In BC prior to merger on right federally, Chinese community would go heavily BC Liberals but federally avoid Reform Party like a plague for same reason.  Had no problem going for Mulroney PCs but Preston Manning's Reform Party wouldn't.  In Australia and NZ, pretty sure Chinese community go National and L/NP.  While only 0.8% of population, pretty sure British Tories usually win amongst them too.  Yes Asians overall go heavily Labour, but vast majority in UK are from Indian subcontinent. 

So not sure difference as big between two countries as more a certain style of conservatism can win but other styles are toxic.  Off course once you get into second generation, then voting patterns largely mimic general population and it seems right really struggles with second generation as many are university educated and often in fields like tech, medicine, science or other areas where right just doesn't do well in general.  And most live in large cities where right does poorly across the board.  In fact I suspect Asians living in suburbs while favoring Democrats, have a lot more GOP supporters than city itself so location matters.  GOP probably gets in single digits of Asians in San Francisco, but in Orange County, likely gets in 40s.  Even in Canada, Conservatives tend to do better with Chinese community in BC & Alberta than they do in Ontario.

A lot of the Democratic improvement among Asian-American voters is less Republican-voting Asians deciding to become Democrats - and more so that the newcomers were much more liberal than the older immigrants. Like the Asian vote in 2008 was like 3 or 4x the size it was in 1988. So the vast majority of these voters are new.

Asian-Americans in the 1980's were unusually right-wing because they were disproportionately anti-Communist refugees from places like Vietnam and Laos - or conservative KMT-linked Taiwanese. Same reason why Cuban voters are so right-wing. Newer immigrants were much more liberal/left-wing, which is why Democrats had consistent improvement.

Also, I'd be shocked if Republicans only got 40% among Asians in Orange County. The Asian parts are the parts that trended even harder red under Trump! Orange County is basically the capital of the Republic of Vietnam-in-exile. Vietnamese community events in OC pretty much all use the old flag of South Vietnam. This is just a very conservative group of voters, lol.

Also, the argument that "Reagan-style conservatism" is the key to improving among pro-business, upscale Asian voters seems very false, largely because only white people seem to believe in market fundamentalism. Even "pro-business" types are going to think ideas like climate change denial, eliminating the federal government, and cutting public healthcare/education are stupid. The type of voter you're describing isn't a Reagan Conservative - they're a Bill Clinton Democrat. Of course, the actual Ronald Reagan was not actually a hardline market fundamentalist Nikki Haley type, but pretty much everyone who identifies as a Reagan conservative today would call Ronald Reagan a statist tankie RINO.

That is true and also in 80s Indian community small while now quite large and I believe they are quite Democratic.  You are right on market fundamentalism and perhaps why parties on right in not just Canada, Australia, and New Zealand do better as market fundamentalism is largely unique to United States.  Sure such exists elsewhere but they never win elections.  Universal health care is pretty much norm in all other developed countries and even right is for it.  And also different between rhetoric and reality too.  On tax rates for corporations, US is middle of pack not super low while for top marginal rates GOP often runs on idea of flat tax and idea growth will exploded but once in office most their tax cuts for rich are a few points due to challenge of getting through congress and reconciliation rules. But yeah agree most are against market fundamentalism.  Generally in Asian culture there is little support for libertarianism which runs strong in GOP.  You saw that with covid where wearing a mask, getting vaccinated and staying home was a non-issue in Asian community while many on GOP made a big stink about it.  In fact coming back to Canada, I think O'Toole's reluctant to embrace vaccine mandates and many in his party opposing covid restrictions hurt him with Asian community where rules just seen as doing civic duty to protect public, not as some major rights violation.

[mileslunn]

Ireland's politics some to be bucking European trend as unlike most of Europe, social democratic parties traditionally very weak there and never made it beyond junior partner.  Yet today left is doing really well in polls and at record highs not record lows like elsewhere.  Never mind along with Iceland are only two countries I can think of where no far right anti immigrant party has emerged.  UK has none in parliament more because their system of FTFP does better job of keeping such out than PR but UKIP prior to Brexit got similar levels to right wing populists in rest of Europe and it seems there more Brexit has taken temporary wind out of them.

So why is Ireland going in opposite direction.  Any reason why left historically so weak, yet quite strong now?  And while I get they have less immigration than most European countries, they are no whiter than say Portugal which has Chega so why has no far right emerged or is it more just timing as in 2000 only a handful of European countries had them so they are just last holdout and will emerge sooner or later?  Anyone from there or familiar with Irish politics able to comment?

[mileslunn]

Is rural/urban divide weaker in Europe than North America due to distribution of population?  To be specific while predominately urban, only in a handful of European countries do majority live in urban areas over 100K whereas in Australia, Canada and US it is over 60% and likewise over 500K it is about half in Canada & US while 2/3 in Australia while in Europe typically 25% to 1/3 but none over 40%.  That would suggest more live in smaller urban areas so less opportunity for strong left wing party to do well and also easier for right to win.  But at same token population density way higher so even rural areas are much more densely populated than are in Canada, US and especially Australia so I would think right would have less lopsided margins in Europe than those three.  Australia seems one of few still class based not urban/rural so right does well while in US they used to do well in suburbs but now only strong as pile up margins in rural areas and even if US less rural than Europe, lower density means bigger margins to compensate for weakness in urban.  I mean, areas where left gets over 80% seem common in Canada and US but largely outside UK non-existent in Europe.  At same time areas where right tops 80% seem unique to Canada and US and don't see elsewhere. 

So wondering if fewer in large metro areas but higher density rural areas creates different type of politics than majority in large metro but rural areas much more remote and more sparsely populated?

[mileslunn]

To anyone living in country where retirement age was raised to above 65, how did politicians do it without massive backlash?  France we saw riots while in Canada where I live Trudeau reversed it and in New Zealand Winston Peters blocked current coalition from raising it.  Yet it seems vast majority in developed world be it US, most Western European countries, Israel or Australia have raised retirement age to 66 or 67 or have plans to so how were they able to manage as don't recall seeing kind of protests France did or same backlash?  Is reason why easier in countries asides France?  So for those living in such country how was it done successfully?

[EastwoodS]

what would UK general elections look like with only two parties. Would lib Dems in southern England switch to the Tories in that case?

[OSR stands with Israel]

what would UK general elections look like with only two parties. Would lib Dems in southern England switch to the Tories in that case?

Depends on who is the candidate though. I think in 2010 the Tories beat Labour as Cameron was pretty much a moderate conservative and 13 years of Labour plus Iraq/Financial crises would cause lib Dems to oppose them .

2015 though it’s a complete tossup as lib Dems probably go back to Labour here after 5 years of way more austerity then they expected(and SNP would definitely prefer Labour to Tories) so the deciding factor here is whether or not Cameron can get over 3/4th of the UKIP vote or not .

2017/19 I think the Tories wins thanks To Corbyn alienating moderates

And of course the next election is still a gigantic Labour landslide

[EastwoodS]

Another one, is the Democratic Alliance of South Africa similar to the US Democrats on social and fiscal policy? How would the ANC and DA fit into the American overton window?

[CumbrianLefty]

Of course, the actual Ronald Reagan was not actually a hardline market fundamentalist Nikki Haley type, but pretty much everyone who identifies as a Reagan conservative today would call Ronald Reagan a statist tankie RINO.

The way their self-proclaimed advocates have totally mythologised both Reagan and Thatcher hasn't done either the GOP or Tories much good in the long run.

[Kamala's side hoe]

Also, I'd be shocked if Republicans only got 40% among Asians in Orange County. The Asian parts are the parts that trended even harder red under Trump! Orange County is basically the capital of the Republic of Vietnam-in-exile. Vietnamese community events in OC pretty much all use the old flag of South Vietnam. This is just a very conservative group of voters, lol.

I'm skeptical of this claim because Orange County also contains Irvine, and because OC Asians aren't monolithically 1975er Vietnamese. 40% is above the national average though, which fits OC's right-wing reputation. Will respond to your other points elsewhere later to avoid derailing this thread further. I agree with you on how Reaganism is perceived among many AAPI voters.

[King of Kensington]

How Reagan and Thatcher would react to "today's conservatives" is anybody's guess. 

[King of Kensington]

I could see Vermont and Western Mass going NDP because they're very secular and culturally liberal, have quite educated populations, an "alternative" presence. etc. but not high income.

(Vermont also seems ripe for the Greens)

[LabourJersey]

Ireland's politics some to be bucking European trend as unlike most of Europe, social democratic parties traditionally very weak there and never made it beyond junior partner.  Yet today left is doing really well in polls and at record highs not record lows like elsewhere.  Never mind along with Iceland are only two countries I can think of where no far right anti immigrant party has emerged.  UK has none in parliament more because their system of FTFP does better job of keeping such out than PR but UKIP prior to Brexit got similar levels to right wing populists in rest of Europe and it seems there more Brexit has taken temporary wind out of them.

So why is Ireland going in opposite direction.  Any reason why left historically so weak, yet quite strong now?  And while I get they have less immigration than most European countries, they are no whiter than say Portugal which has Chega so why has no far right emerged or is it more just timing as in 2000 only a handful of European countries had them so they are just last holdout and will emerge sooner or later?  Anyone from there or familiar with Irish politics able to comment?

I'm not Irish (so Irish posters please correct me if I'm wrong), but the Irish left was so weak historically because Ireland wasn't really an "industrial" nation, and the modern left came out of industrialization.

Ireland was a nation of villages and small towns - you have very few industrial hubs outside of Dublin and Belfast, unlike the UK or European nations where industrialization was very widespread. Ireland to this day has a small percentage of its population living in cities than any other Western European country (again could be wrong on this but this aligns with both other analysis & my own anecdotes).

I would also push back at the notion that SF (which I assume you're referring to) is "Left." SF's voter base seems to have a lot of young progressives who are demoralized by the perceived "FFG establishment" who have failed in dealing with the housing/cost of living crisis, and older nationalist voters who aren't exactly "left wing" but support SF for other reasons. 

[mileslunn]

Ireland's politics some to be bucking European trend as unlike most of Europe, social democratic parties traditionally very weak there and never made it beyond junior partner.  Yet today left is doing really well in polls and at record highs not record lows like elsewhere.  Never mind along with Iceland are only two countries I can think of where no far right anti immigrant party has emerged.  UK has none in parliament more because their system of FTFP does better job of keeping such out than PR but UKIP prior to Brexit got similar levels to right wing populists in rest of Europe and it seems there more Brexit has taken temporary wind out of them.

So why is Ireland going in opposite direction.  Any reason why left historically so weak, yet quite strong now?  And while I get they have less immigration than most European countries, they are no whiter than say Portugal which has Chega so why has no far right emerged or is it more just timing as in 2000 only a handful of European countries had them so they are just last holdout and will emerge sooner or later?  Anyone from there or familiar with Irish politics able to comment?

I'm not Irish (so Irish posters please correct me if I'm wrong), but the Irish left was so weak historically because Ireland wasn't really an "industrial" nation, and the modern left came out of industrialization.

Ireland was a nation of villages and small towns - you have very few industrial hubs outside of Dublin and Belfast, unlike the UK or European nations where industrialization was very widespread. Ireland to this day has a small percentage of its population living in cities than any other Western European country (again could be wrong on this but this aligns with both other analysis & my own anecdotes).

I would also push back at the notion that SF (which I assume you're referring to) is "Left." SF's voter base seems to have a lot of young progressives who are demoralized by the perceived "FFG establishment" who have failed in dealing with the housing/cost of living crisis, and older nationalist voters who aren't exactly "left wing" but support SF for other reasons. 

It is true Ireland is one of the most rural in Western Europe.  Austria is similar is Vienna large like Dublin and a few smaller cities but quite rural.  Now in Eastern Europe different story as Eastern Europe asides Russia is significantly more rural than Western Europe.  To be fair part of that is standard of living as nowadays generally strong correlation between urbanization and GDP per capita.  Ireland is sort of anomaly on that one being quite wealthy but yet still large rural population.  Some Latin American countries like Brazil and Mexico anomalies in other ones as urbanization comparable to richest countries but still middle income.  So lack of industrial base makes sense for past.

I guess question is what about today as Sinn Fein is most definitely on left and if you combine all the other parties labeled as left wing, left is over 40% in Ireland now and that is quite high for Europe today (used to be norm, but not anymore) while historically left was usually only around 20% there and as mentioned almost all in Dublin and even with all the problems left is having, almost no country is it at 20%.  Maybe France but there it is more strategic voting than lack of support thus comparable to Canada and US where lots are more socialistic vote Liberal or Democrat just to keep right out of office.  Netherlands is next but even there left is still around 25% and that is record low for them.

So my question is why is Ireland bucking trend or are with younger people we are just at stage where they are mad at previous generation thus left struggling where used to do well and gaining where traditionally weak as young feel parents generation screwed up and want opposite.  And Ireland is a fairly young country as I believe it has one of the lowest median ages in EU.  If UK had same age profile as Ireland, Brexit would have failed and Corbyn would have won in 2017 but different results as UK much older and older voters voted for Brexit and massively rejected Corbyn.  I guess I sort of answered question, but still wondering if that is reason as it is a guess.  Finally while different, referendums on abortion and gay marriage also suggest Ireland at least on social issues may be seeing massive shift as Catholic church used to have huge influence whereas now it seems they are becoming increasingly secular like rest of Europe.

[JimJamUK]

what would UK general elections look like with only two parties. Would lib Dems in southern England switch to the Tories in that case?

Lib Dem voters have usually been relatively more Labour friendly than Tory friendly, and that’s become much more pronounced the past couple of elections. Nationally, these are people who are socially liberal and therefore, if you pushed them, most would reluctantly vote Labour (including many who used to vote Tory). The Green vote would overwhelmingly go Labour, who the UKIP Brexit Party vote would largely go Tory. The SNP vote would largely go Labour (and there’s questions of what would happen to the Scottish Tory vote without the SNP threat), albeit as with the Lib Dems there would be enough leakage in posh/rural areas for the Tories to gain a number of their seats. No idea in Northern Ireland, except Belfast/Londonderry would be Labour and presumably places like North Down and North Antrim would be Tory.

[mileslunn]

what would UK general elections look like with only two parties. Would lib Dems in southern England switch to the Tories in that case?

Lib Dem voters have usually been relatively more Labour friendly than Tory friendly, and that’s become much more pronounced the past couple of elections. Nationally, these are people who are socially liberal and therefore, if you pushed them, most would reluctantly vote Labour (including many who used to vote Tory). The Green vote would overwhelmingly go Labour, who the UKIP Brexit Party vote would largely go Tory. The SNP vote would largely go Labour (and there’s questions of what would happen to the Scottish Tory vote without the SNP threat), albeit as with the Lib Dems there would be enough leakage in posh/rural areas for the Tories to gain a number of their seats. No idea in Northern Ireland, except Belfast/Londonderry would be Labour and presumably places like North Down and North Antrim would be Tory.

Also axis of what drives votes has changed.  Cultural issues play bigger role while economic less.  LibDems on social and cultural issues quite liberal even more so than Labour in many ways.  They are probably most pro EU and pro-immigration party.  They were really only somewhat conservative on economic policies as the Orange book types tend to believe in lower taxes and smaller government combined with social liberalism, but outside some posh areas this type of policy doesn't seem to a vote winner.  And I think even LibDems on economics starting to focus more on social safety net and helping those left behind and even some elements that support mansion tax or other taxes on high earners which party traditionally opposed.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

How is Engelbert Dollfuss seen in modern Austria?