 Will Asians ever be an impactful voting block in America or will they remain invisible? David, this article says that things are changing. It's election season. And the New York Times just dropped a banger of article going viral in the Asian community right now. Asian Americans are often invisible and polling. That's changing without much survey data. There's little information on what issues matter to Asian Americans. We are going to get into this because there were some very interesting comments from Reddit. Make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. Check out SmileySauce at SmileySauce.com. Sold out right now from Sichuanas, Sicily, Andrew. Um, when Dr. Michelle Au ran for state senate in Georgia, somebody in her own party as a consultant told her, don't worry about Asians. They don't vote. And that's crazy because she's Asian. Right. And she doubled the Asian American turnout for her particular seat. And she ended up being the first Asian American woman to be elected to the state senate. So she had something to say being like, they told me to not worry about it even though I'm Asian myself and it worked. So, but then the article kind of goes into why it has been difficult for politicians to one care about the Asian electorate. And number two, even gather data on the Asian electorate in terms of what they really feel and want. Because when it comes to elections and especially the larger the election, like presidential election, there's so many people that are strategists trying to figure out, yo, this voting block, this city, this county, this demographic. How do you appeal? Right, all the moneyball factors. Hey, like, why don't you learn some Spanish phrases, you know, make them feel more comfortable. What if you say happy Lunar New Year, you know what I mean? So I guess everybody's trying to figure out how to attract people. It's kind of like essentially marketing tactics, right? Like, you're trying to market yourself as a candidate to this group of people. But because Asia and because of a bunch of reasons that we're going to list, so stay tuned why it's been hard to figure out the Asian group now. Yes, it's been hard to figure out the group despite the numbers in population changing from 2000 to 2022 Asians in America. Andrew plus 94%. David Asians are got our minds locked up, man. You can't figure us out. We're like a Rubik's cubes. The smaller the survey sample, the higher margin of error error. So they're saying scientifically, Andrew, the polling experts, they feel like, man, our stats on Asians got a high margin of error. I can't figure out what these black haired people are be thinking. So basically, there's a lot of techniques in science data analysis called oversampling. That's what you do when you don't have a lot of sample size. You need to oversample. You need to sample more. You need to oversample. But they're saying there's a lot of money and sort of resource concerns when it comes to oversampling the Asian population. Because so much of it is from Asia and would need to be done in language. How do you identify who's going to pick up the phone? What language they're going to speak? It's different. Like Latinos, they're almost all going to speak Spanish, right? And I will for Brazilians, they're going to speak Portuguese. I will say this, guys. I think that even though a lot of Asians in America can speak English enough to run simple business off of like serve you food or sell you something. A lot of them don't want to pick up the phone and answer a survey in English because they just don't trust the survey. Oh, dude, our parents, they stay hanging up the phone, right? Yeah. And they speak English. Our parents speak English and they still don't want to do the survey. Right. And a lot of Asians are actually very uncomfortable sharing their political opinions with a random stranger over the phone. It's not like a hell, yeah. Let me tell you what's on my mind attitude. Right. So what we got a whole list of reasons, David, why it's been hard to figure out Asians, right? As we've kind of been talking about. And then also I want to talk about what I think Asians generally want. And this is me just polling my friends and from what I understand about the Asian population having lived as an Asian. And I think it's fairly simple, but David, continue with the reasons on why it's been hard to get a read on the Asians. Well, Asians until recently, and you could still argue that recently, it's barely become statistically advantageous to study Asians because a scientific sample size is one out of 14. That means you have to hit 7% to be like scientifically notable of a population that's worse sampling. Asians are finally reaching that 7% mark Andrew just in 2024. But here's the thing. They're saying a lot of Asians possibly may not care about politics. Right. So they might not even have opinions on key issues that other Americans have strong opinions. By the way, when we're saying Asians in America, you have to understand there's a lot of Asians that move to America. A lot of these Asians in this block are immigrant Asians. They're not all American born. A lot of them actually, most of them are immigrants. And a lot of people were saying that once the Asian Americans reach second generation, they're simply going to vote based on like adapting to another group. For example, they're either going to become like a liberal tech bros, political opinions or a rich small business owners. Typically, you know, they lean right, the rich tech bros, they lean left. So basically, they're going to adapt to like whatever archetype they became closest to in the second gen. Okay, okay. So basically, there are a lot of people are listing out Andrew all these granular reasons why they can't over sample the Asian population. They can't get a read on what they want because they can't do the in language surveys because it's too way too complicated. You call somebody who has a certain last name. How do you know if they speak Urdu, Hindi or Bengali? Right. You know, I'm talking about for the people who are doing the polling. They don't even know what Robo caller to give you. So basically, those are the reasons why it's hyper difficult to figure out what the group wants Andrew. But you think you know what people want. And by the way, I got a response to you after you think you know. All right. So I've said this in multiple videos before, guys. I generally think in no particular order, but Asian voters generally care about safety and crime, economic opportunities, possibly meaning, hey, feeling like I can open up businesses where Asians are very entrepreneurial, maybe taxes are not too high on small businesses, educational opportunities, feeling like that not only do the top universities or just any university want to accept more Asians, but that they're going to not discriminate against us for being Asian, right? And then also motherland geopolitics, racism and celebrating Asian culture. To me, this is all in another block where it's kind of like the general vibe. Does this group now, unfortunately, there's only two groups in America, Republican and Democrat, maybe the third party, shout it to the forward party. But you know, that's not on the same level yet. Let's be honest. So between the two groups, which one of these two groups feels more welcoming and celebrates Asian culture more? Usually that leans left. Right. But some of the other Democrats run that plan better. Whether you say it's genuine in their hearts or it's just a gimmick tactic, they run it better. But this is why it's confusing because the first things I named safety, economics and educational fair admissions, generally some people could argue that that's more what the right wing or the Republicans are doing a better job of. Yes. But, but with that said, that's why it's kind of confusing. And that's why a lot of people, even though they're like, well, Asians generally have conservative values. How come they don't all vote conservative? I'm like, guys, there's also the whole gun thing that, which also kind of makes things unsafe for Asians. And then also there's like the racism thing that Asians notice. So there's, there's other factors working against the Republicans. It seems like Asians seem really conflicted. If you go issue by issue, it's like, oh, this issue, that party supports it. This issue, that party supports it. So they feel super torn. Here's where I'll fight, fight you on this. Okay. You said this is what Asian voters care about. I think what you just listed off is what Asians care about, but not necessarily Asian voters. Because there is such a huge gap because Asians vote the least out of any group in America. There's actually a disconnect between Asians that are politically activated and Asians that are not politically activated, even though what I believe what you said is true to an extent for the majority of just Asian people in America. So what do you think? All right. So what do you think the agents that vote are way more generally, I don't know how to say this woke than though non-voting Asians. You're right. Well, because I guess Asian voter turnout still, even though it's starting to even out, is still leaning Democrat. It's true. Right. But it's that like, I believe the less than half of Asians vote. Right. So you're saying, obviously, we understand not a lot of Asians in America vote, not a huge amount. No, they're not. Like, I would say a lot of Asians, Andrew, when you talk to them, they don't even know who the politicians are sometimes. Right. So you're saying a lot of Asians who may, if David, hypothetically, so this is based off your theory and what we're debating right here is that if all Asians of a voting age had to vote, had to vote, were forced to vote. Mandatory. What do you think you think it would be? It would be closer to a 50-50 split. You think it'd be very 50-50 between left and right. I think it would be very, very close instead of 75-25 than it is right now. Let's get into the comments section. Somebody said, sometimes I wonder if the Asian American experience is what it's like when you're thinking about everyone else, but nobody else is thinking about you. That is a quote from Steven Yewn, the actor. And somebody was saying that that's really what it is, because Asian Americans are forced to analyze white issues, black issues, Latino issues, but nobody's ever thinking about Asian issues because we're the smallest group. We're a small group and we haven't identified which block we're on. We're kind of on our own world. We don't fit on the binary scale sometimes. And even if all Asians did vote, Andrew, and they split 50-50, why would people still cater to them? Because you always know that that group that's only 7% is going to go 3.5%. Right. So in a weird way, the Asian voting block being so kind of on the fence about things, it kind of makes people be like, listen, man, we kind of want the Asians, but we have no idea which way they will lean. So we're not even going to cater to them. Right. And like I said, I think it really goes down to socioeconomics, but even how you made the socioeconomics. Like let's say you make 500K a year on your small business, you're probably going to be Republican. You make 500K a year as a tech lead, you're probably going to go liberal. So let's talk about, we'll talk about at the end, after we go through the comments about how Asians can be a more powerful voting block would continue. Somebody said that I don't even know, man. People lie on polls. Most Asians that are registered to vote are like under the age of 30, like, or under the age of 40 for sure. So just because the older generation, like we said, they kind of just got here. They're just, they're happy to be here, but just don't ask them a bunch of nuanced questions on this issue. Lean's right left. This is these issues right there. They're just like, oh, I don't want to think about this, or maybe they might only want to think about motherland politics. What if when Asians voted and only Asians, there was no political party tied to the issues and then you just had Asians check off which issues they, how they feel about each issue. And then the voting had to figure out which one that leads more into, obviously they would never do this, but this is a funny scenario in my brain. Right. Somebody said that interestingly enough, when Kamala was picked, Kamala was picked because she was half Indian, because all the swing states such as, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania in the Midwest, have a gigantic Indian population. So they're saying the DNC picked Kamala, even though Joe Biden did not like Kamala personally, because she went so hard on him in the primaries. So there was her Indian identity, he did come into play in her pick as a VP. In the swing state. So really, if Asians live in the swing states, then it's definitely significant. Yes. You will get catered to given that you're in a swing state. If you live in a swing state, you will get catered to even way more. So let's say, for example, Georgia was a swing state, the Asians in Georgia would mean more. Right. And there was a decent amount of Asians in Georgia now. Remember one time we met a guy who tried to start a nonprofit organization to convince Asians to move to swing states, so they could like make up a larger portion of the electorate in swing states. And I just remember being like, I just don't think anybody's moving for that, man. Whoa, what kind of life, I mean, you're gonna pay me like a million dollars to move or whatever what's going on. Right. Somebody was saying, you know, it's interesting because Asians are increasingly getting their way into the upper middle class. They have enormous buying power in America. Look at Costco catering to it. But at the end of the day, it's more on an economic level and not an electorate level. Like the catering to Asians, it's like we said, the numbers have been jumping 94% in the past 20 years. But all the catering is gonna be in terms of products, not political products. But maybe products and then political. I mean, I think they are somewhat tied together, not loosely tied together because the more products you want to sell a group, I mean, hopefully that group of people become more involved in voting. And once they become a voting, once they register to vote, then they become somebody that you have to cater to. You know, we started stocking the Lexus hybrids at Costco. You could buy a Lexus hybrid car at Costco, but I don't know. They're still waiting to see them show up at the polls. I'm voting day. Ultimately in 2024, here's my takeaway, Andrew. I think that Asians, due to science and other people studying Asians, right? There's a more nuanced understanding of our issues in terms of why it's too difficult to be cohesive as a voting bloc, but it's not necessarily gonna change the reality that it is difficult to be a cohesive voting bloc. But there's more granularity in the data so we can understand why. Because now I even know, I didn't even know about oversampling and why oversampling is not economically feasible to run on Asians, due to the different Motherland origin tongues and stuff like that. So I'm just like, I'm saying there's a deeper understanding, but it's not necessarily gonna change the bird's eye. Right, right. I guess more people acknowledge that Asians are a confusing group to cater to sometimes in a political sense, but that doesn't change that they're a confusing group to cater to. Right. But it does matter, obviously, on a local level. If you are in swing states, I don't know if that Kamala theory is fully sound, but there's some logic to it. Like, there may be certain groups that are maybe more activatable than others. Let's just say that Kamala thing was true. Guess what? If Trump picks Vivek Ramaswamy, how does that play in the Daisy community that is very large in the swing states? Do you see what I'm saying? But that doesn't matter. Are there political analysts gonna need to start looking at Vivek being Hindu versus Nikki Haley being Punjabi who converted to Christianity? You know what I mean? Like all these like hyper granular identarian things that if you're not in those communities, in those states, you would have no read of what's going on within their fishbowl or how they're perceiving things. I mean, when we're talking about Asians becoming more impactful on a voting block, it's just that Asians have to vote more. Isn't that the truth, though? But I feel like people want Asians to vote blindly, which is on either side. That's what they want, because they don't want to start changing their agendas to cater to this like weird, like really centrist group, I guess. But then wouldn't that be interesting if Asians were always swing voters? What if Asians were often swing voters? Like they just swung depending on, but then that also requires them to be educated about policies. But I'm saying if all Asians had to vote, like we said, it'd be more 50-50. So you're saying it still wouldn't change the fact that Asians are just confused, like kind of unclear that. No, because I'm saying the political, like moneyball people, they like groups that vote like 90% one way or the other. That's what they like. And you're saying Asians will now, it doesn't seem like Asians are going to be voting heavily in one way anytime soon. In any sort of large number. So that's why I think that Asians voting will always matter on a hyper-local level, but on a very large-scale thing outside of like very unique circumstances, potentially that we're under right now, I just don't know if it's ever going to turn into a large national voting block. What if all Asians voted for their own party? The bubble tea party. Yeah, the bubble tea party. All right, I guess that's interesting. Everybody let us know what you think in the comments down below because obviously it is election season. And just thinking about where Asians fall, hopefully all these conversations just mean that if you comment and you feel super strongly about your political views, maybe you should make sure you vote. Because I feel like there's a lot of comments that we get, people are like, they feel very strongly about where they stand, whether left or right. That's cool, but what are you going to do with it? I don't know. I'm against voting. Anyway, man, that's our point of disagreement that we have. Let us know what you think in the comments section below. Until next time, we're the Hop Hop Boys. We out. Peace.