Ethnic groups and interest in politics

In an earlier post, I suggested that the political power of American ethnic groups might be determined, in part, by differences in extraversion (in addition to mean IQ and size). Steve Sailer makes the sensible point that some groups are simply not interested in politics.

The General Social Survey asked Americans their level of interest in politics. Answers ranged from "very interested" to "not interested." The table lists mean scores for each ethnic group.

Americans with Jewish or English backgrounds have the greatest interest, while Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans are bored by politics. This helps explains why Mex-Ams have less political power than one might expect. A person active in the Texas Democratic party told me once that Mex-Ams are not sleeping, they're dead.

Next, I'll use GSS data to create a profile of a politically interested person.

Widespread ethnic consciousness: The Houston Area Survey asked Hispanics (and Asians) if they think of themselves primarily as Hispanics (or Asians) or Americans. Here are their answers:


Hispanics--percentages (N = 823)

Primarily ethnic 50.5
Equally ethnic and American 31.2
Primarily American 18.2


Asians--percentages (N = 68)

Primarily ethnic 39.7
Equally ethnic and American 44.1
Primarily American 16.2

Fewer than 20% in each group see themselves as I see myself--an American. One-half of Hispanics don't even give their American identity equal weight. I'll cut them some slack because some of these folks are immigrants. On the other hand, this is Houston, a place not known as a multicultural vanguard.

Along with blacks, these two groups are getting large enough and powerful enough that they are on the verge of forcing me, a person who doesn't want to, to feel like he must mirror them and become a white man. It's simply defensive racial consciousness. An individualist patriot surrounded by herds of racialists gets stomped.

If this happens to guys like me, the elites who are behind this multiculturalism and the non-whites who happily embrace it will have no one to blame but themselves. They will have killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

And no, folks like me won't become barbarians; we'll simply organize and dominate in an explicit way, in contrast to the unintentional, spontaneous leadership we see today. And we won't feel the slightest twinge of guilt as we do it.

Ethnic power II: Reader Jim Bowery didn't have to twist my arm very hard to get me to look at the ethnic power question again, this time assuming that the three factors--size, IQ, and ethnocentricity--operate multiplicatively instead of additively. I converted the size and ethnocentricity scores so that their means are set at 100 and the standard deviations at 15, the same as IQ. Next, I multiplied the three scores, and listed them below:


Ethnic power index

Asians 1,246,039
Non-Jewish whites 1,142,643
Jews 996,456
Blacks 974,059
Hispanics 945,257
American Indians 761,674


Same story. Keep in mind that my approach assumes that the three factors are of equal importance.

Asian overlords? When I analyze ethnic data, I'm usually concerned with whether or not immigrant groups will make a contribution to the country. Uneducated groups like Hispanics are expanding the lower ranks of society and adding to the country's social problems.

But I haven't analyzed power. If immigrant groups are ethnocentric enough, large enough, and smart enough, they can dominate and potentially exploit the rest of us.

Following this line of thinking, I used General Social Survey data to calculate standardized scores for important racial/ethnic groups for the following three factors: 1) degree that people think of ethnicity first when considering social and political issues; 2) mean group IQs; and 3) the size of the ethnic group. I summed the three standardized scores, which gives equal weight to each factor. Here are the summed scores from most powerful to least:


Ethnic power index

Asians 2.07
Non-Jewish whites 1.79
Jews 1.21
Blacks 0.23
Hispanics -0.76
American Indians -1.94


Asians at the top is a big surprise--they don't seem to be a big player currently--but the reasons for the high number are clear: their high IQ and high ethnocentric scores (not as "Asians" but as Chinese, Japanese, Asian Indians, etc). On the one hand, the number exaggerates the situation since this group is made up of many diverse groups. Chinese Americans may identify strongly with their group, but as far as I know, there is no Chinese-Asian Indian organizing. On the other hand, the high number points at least to high potential power, and sticking with the Chinese/Indian example, there are unlimited numbers of potential immigrants from those countries.

Non-Jewish whites have a high number obviously because they are the giant in the bunch. They do not rise to the top because there is very little ethnocentricity among this group. (You can find some among Italian, Irish, and Polish Americans). If whites were as ethnocentric as Asians, their total score would be 4.70.

Jews have a high score because of a very high mean IQ along with moderate ethnocentricity.

The low mean IQs of blacks and Hispanics give them low power scores, and the Latino number is lower because they are less ethnocentric. Their population would have to grow dramatically to make them a real power player.

I included American Indians for contrast. They are way below everyone else because they have low scores on all three dimensions--even ethnocentricity. (Now that I think about it, I should have excluded the whites who say their ethnicity is Native American.) Moral of the story: do not allow yourselves to become like American Indians.

(Question: do you think I should have assumed these factors operate in a multiplicative way?)