Most people, unlike the activists, aren’t that politically involved. My parents are immigrants from a Muslim country, and are annoyed that progressive activists like Ilhan Omar have become “the face of Islam in America.” They tuned in long enough to vote for Biden in the primaries when it seemed like a progressive might win the nomination instead, but they’re not going to go out there and stir things up.

The other problem is that the media narrative is controlled by white progressives who amplify the activists. Nobody invites my dad on CNN to express his view that he’s faced remarkably little racism living in America since 1989, most of that time in a red state. Nobody has my mom on TV defending Trump’s law and order stance and complaining why it took Biden so long to condemn rioting. Instead you have talking heads with degrees in cultural studies subjects that my parents wouldn’t even have allowed their kids to major in. FFS, 40% of men voted for Trump. When was the last time you ever saw one on TV?

It’s been nice to see some normies speaking out about this. Zaid Jilani, who grew up as a Pakistani kid in the south, is one example: https://mobile.twitter.com/zaidjilani. Wesley Yang is great, and Matt Yglesias has been willing to broach the subject as well. Every now and then Fareed Zakaria on CNN chimes in with a take, like during last summer when he noted “hey immigrants actually love America and think it’s pretty good.”

But center-left whites people need to defend their turf. The progressive left tries very hard to act like they’re speaking for all “people of color” and draw moral authority from that. They will amplify and retweet a handful of say Asian activists, and because there are so many more white people that really skews the perception of what Asians actually think and want. I think often times center-left white people are too scared of being labeled conservative to push back on that.