Month: August 2020

Hello from behind the Great Firewall!

As summer winds down and election season begins to heat up, we reflect on the political prospects of Asian America and the mess that is the Democratic Party. We discuss AOC’s speech at the DNC last week as evidence that the party has lost the thread. We then examine Trump’s WeChat ban and the many uses of this Chinese super app. This leads to a concluding conversation about whether first- and second- (and third-...) generation Asian Americans could trend rightward as part of a racial realignment in both parties.

0:00 – An update on the start of school, the wildfires in northern California, and failed Covid policies. 

10:40 – Who said it best? We debate the messaging of the Democrats during last week’s convention and whether the speech by the party’s rising star (and TTSG favorite), AOC, captured the urgency of the moment. Are accusations of elitism fair? Or just bad faith? Also, debater Jay makes his return and recites his own version of a convention speech in an effort to get AOC’s attention. 

26:05 – Why WeChat? The Trump administration’s ban on TikTok may claim, as a collateral casualty, the messaging-payment-social-media super app WeChat. The administration doesn’t seem to understand what the app is used for, but it’s clear that a WeChat ban would hurt hundreds of millions of Chinese in China and abroad—and tank iPhone sales in China.

While free-speech concerns are well founded, we consider how WeChat and other Asian apps have been used to organize right-wing diasporic activism, including anti-affirmative-action drives. We revisit Jay’s interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen about first-generation immigrant conservatism—and “Four Prisons,” an essay by Glenn Omatsu, on the rightward turn of earlier Asian activists. (Thanks to listener Naomi Hirahara.) 

Edit: see also this 2018 article from Alia Wong on WeChat and anti-affirmative action politics: “The App at the Heart of the Movement to End Affirmative Action.”

43:20 – Are we gonna go neocon? Jay worries that, on account of the weird politics around standardized testing and affirmative action, Asian Americans will become more conservative and eventually vote Republican. Is the conservative critique of the Democrats correct: that identity politics have superseded a universal economic focus? Have both parties engaged in a Black/white culture war that leaves many Asians and Latinos bereft? (Caveat: not the Bernie-crats!) Tammy argues that the debate over immigration policy will give the Democrats an edge in the foreseeable future.

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