Recently I’ve been asked this exact question multiple times: “who are you?” Or, depending on the style, “who even are you?”
This is the type of question I would ask when receiving spam, hearing a knocking at my door at 4am, or getting a call from a random number. If I were to ask such a question, it would come from a place of surprise, suspicion, and caution.
People have good reason to view random internet users with suspicion and caution. The internet is full of death threats, doxing, toxic tribalism, stalking, a-logging,1 crypto scams, pyramid schemes, clout chasers, and worse… People make fake friends, sucking up the grift. It’s a tough world out there!
Every person who makes a living on the internet (or dedicates a significant proportion of their career to their internet presence) is familiar with the crowd of hostile parasites which, like horse flies in a summer swamp, swarm the successful in a predatory manner. At best, they are small and annoying. Taken collectively, they are enough to induce a mental breakdown. Therefore, it is necessary to establish boundaries and a “semi-permeable membrane” to protect from the emotional exhaustion of letting crazy people into your life.
Since I was young enough to understand what “celebrities” and “paparazzi” were, I have instinctively been disgusted by this phenomenon. For that reason, I find self-promotion to be inherently difficult. Spamming people with requests for collaboration reminds me of the fish who suck scum off the bottom of boats.
I have been surprised and relieved when people subscribe to my Substack. It relieves me of the duty of having to “cold approach” people I think are interesting. It makes me feel less like a “self-promoter” and more like an equal. I no longer have to play the role of a kid in Hollywood running up to a director on his way to work to beg for a job. Instead, I can say, “Hey! Thanks for subscribing! Can we chat?”
A “follow” does not equate to “I trust you enough to talk to you.” Subscribing is low risk; being subjected to who-knows-what in an interview is higher risk. It takes time and effort. Is it worth it?
I can point to interviews2 I’ve already done3 to prove that I am handsome,4 eloquent, and fair minded. I loathe giving a laundry list of my political opinions. I fear that boiling down my special-snowflake contrarianism to boiler-plate talking points ruins my brand! The last thing I want to be is a superficial partisan tribalist. And ultimately, I think the conclusions of my political thought are less important than the processes, methods, and theories I use to derive them. The world is dynamic and ever-changing, and if all you have is a rigid dogma to approach the world, you will be left behind!
I have changed my ideas before, and I am not offended by differences of opinion. Actually, I think disagreeable conversations are the only one’s worth having. Listening to two people disagree with each other or shout past each other is boring and low IQ. Smart people learn most from those they disagree with. I fear that laying out all my positions in an over-simplified manner will scare off those who disagree with me, which is actually the people I am trying to reach the most!
But when people ask, “who are you,” I don’t think they are asking about my Meyers-Briggs Star Sign. I’m guessing they don’t want to know my favorite sport and favorite color. They just want to know these damned political opinions. So here you go!
TL;DR
I’m an edgy neo-liberal. “Deep left” is code-word for “Democrat who circles the point without saying anything.”
>love me Biden
>love me coastal elites
>love me Jews
>simple as.
Abortion
If I knocked up a girl and she had an abortion, I wouldn’t feel good. I think I have been blessed with some amazing sperm and I would mourn the death of a potential Napoleon or Einstein. I would also feel like a failure for not being able to convince the mother to keep the child with money. I think women are less likely to have abortions when the potential father is competent, smart, charming and seductive. Most women have abortions because they realize that, on some level, the guy they slept with is not fit to be a father. This is a form of soft eugenics.
Outside of this theoretical personal thought experiment, I don’t oppose abortion at the national level. I think that every woman who wants an abortion should be allowed to do so.
Environment
I am in favor of CO2 maximalism. I believe that we should pay companies to introduce as much carbon dioxide as possible to the atmosphere in order to uncover the secrets of Antarctica and open up a new trade route between Canada and Eurasia (post-Putin). I am pro-fossil fuels.
My priorities when it comes to the environment are as follows: genetics and aesthetics.
Genetics
Does a chemical affect our genetic code? If so, companies should be charged the total expected damage. If companies produce 206 million non-stick pans per year, and 0.01% of users experience health effects such as cancer, that’s 20,600 defendants in a class action lawsuit. If each defendant wins a million dollars, that’s a $20B tax on non-stick pans, per year.
I’m not in favor of banning plastic outright, but fining or taxing companies for the proven health detriments caused by these chemicals, statistically speaking, to our genetic commons. These effects don’t just affect our generation, but by causing mutations in DNA, they hurt our children. I think that environmental DNA-changing pollution is a much bigger problem than CO2, and I think Greta Thunberg is a child-actor scam artist for big-plastic.
Aesthetics
I am opposed to “green energy” in the form of lithium ion batteries. I believe this technology is environmentally destructive.
Lithium mines look like portals to hell and should be banned. Wind farms should be banned. I’m more open to solar panels since I think they can be done tastefully.
Guns
I don’t own guns. I don’t plan to own guns. I have shot guns.
I understand that for the parents of a school shooting victim, gun control is their number one issue. I also understand that for libertarians and combat veterans, gun rights can be their number one issue. I think that both sides are overly emotional and that gun rights have very little impact on our society. On the one hand, I hate the safetyism and church-lady nagging behind gun control; on the other hand, I hate the “tough guy veneer” of guys like Alex Jones who promise to overthrow the government but then cries like a bitch when he gets sued. You’re not going to overthrow the government, dude.
If you truly want to reduce the violent and premature deaths of children, you have to start with traffic fatalities. I propose an overhaul of our driver’s license system and our vehicular tax code to discourage “risky drivers” from operating vehicles. I believe we should have less people on the road in general, especially in urban areas.
This would be an effective form of “safetyism” that I could support. Starting with gun control comes from the hysterical emotions that surround school shootings. I have a great deal of empathy for the trauma invoked by the images we are pumped full of by the media, but I’m not going to let “the squeaky wheel” hijack my empathy in the face of rational, empirical data.
There were less than 500 victims of school shootings in 20 years. Over the same period, over 600,000 people died in car crashes. Even if only 1% of these were children, that’s 10x as bad as school shootings.
I do think there is a case to be made that a car crash is not a threat to the legitimacy of the state, whereas school shootings are. I am sensitive to threats to state legitimacy, and think that increased security measures at schools (including locking the front doors during school hours) are warranted. It’s a sad policy to adopt, but more cost effective and less politically disruptive than banning guns.
It would also be easier to be sympathetic to the cause of gun control if there wasn’t currently a crime wave being sponsored by mass police resignation. At the same time, I don’t expect this crime wave to exceed the worst of the 1990s, and I don’t think that America in the 1990s was “on the brink of collapse.”
January 6th
Unlike conservatives, I believe that January 6th was a much bigger threat to the state than BLM. Whereas BLM was a chaotic, disorganized act of mass looting and arson, which targeted small business owners, January 6th symbolized the disintegration of the civil religion.
Conservatives cynically lie out of both sides of their mouths: on the one hand, they claim that January 6th was just a peaceful protest. On the other hand, they rub their hands with glee when they hear things like “disintegration of the civil religion.”
I am sympathetic to the idea that America is corrupt, incompetent, and that we should make it better. I am not sympathetic to the idea that destroying trust in institutions, without any replacement for those institutions, is a good idea. Even though Rome was decadent, its collapse was not a good thing. This is not to say that America should be "saved" at "all costs," as some kind of axiomatic principle overriding all others.
For example, if “saving America” meant polluting its rivers, blowing up its mountains, poisoning its population, and going back to the dark ages, then “America” wouldn't be worth saving. Thankfully, America does much better on education and pollution than most other countries around the world. If America fell below the level of India or China, the case that “no government” is better than “bad government” would be much stronger.5
As it stands, I defend the American Empire, warts and all. I believe that we have 300 years left in us. No state lasts forever. Every empire crumbles and dies. But so too does each human life! The certainty of mortality should never cause us to despair or give up.
The fact that America is in decline does not mean that we should commit suicide. In the late Roman Empire, the works of Plotinus (d. 270) prove that even an empire “past its prime” can produce genius. I am excited, hopeful, and optimistic that America can still invent new technologies which will forever alter humanity for the good. But we can’t do this if we’re fighting a civil war.
Neo-Trads and Evangelicals
There is a growing faction within Israeli and American society which wants to reverse the Enlightenment. In Israel, this is represented by the Haredi, who generally speaking do not work, believe that secular Jews are “goyim” and “shiksa,” and who have rioted in the streets when asked to help defend their country. In America, this tendency is represented by a diverse coalition of religious fundamentalists, ranging from the Sedevacantism of Candace Owens to the Christian Zionism of Pastor Hagee.
As stated previously, I am not in favor of banning abortion, condoms, contraception, or making adultery illegal, or banning homosexuality, or any related moral crusade. I believe that preventing people from making personal decisions (even bad ones) often has unintended consequences.6 I am not in favor of pro-natal policies, which are often expensive and have very little positive effect.
Economics
Economics are downstream of politics. Good politics is good economics. The Zeihan thesis is correct: the global economy is held up by America, and America is held up by a combination of our military and our ideology. Worrying about the “debt ceiling” or “government spending” is secondary to these concerns.
When America is strong, our money printing is not just a tax on Americans. Instead, it is also a tax on the rest of the world, who is forced to continue to trade in dollars. The benefits of money printing are concentrated in America, but the costs are distributed around the world to everyone who uses the dollar. The more isolated America becomes, the less this is true.
That said, America is uniquely positioned, unlike every other country on earth (maybe with the exception of Russia) to become autarkic. Only we can produce food, energy, and technology. If globalization does come to a halt, and protectionism wins the day, America will still be one of the world’s leading powers.
There is a case to be made that China represents enough of a political threat to America to consider a policy of limited de-globalization. This is the most important economic issue of our time, and one that has received bipartisan support by the Chip Act. We can thank Trump for being the catalyst on this shift.
Generally speaking, I don’t care about welfare. Medieval Europe taxed its population 10% to support its priests and monks. Maybe that level of taxation produced inventions like the clock; maybe it was a waste on superstitious dogma-spewers. Maybe welfare today helps prevent civil war, crime, and instability. There is even evidence that it reduces the fertility of our least capable citizens.7 Or maybe it’s just a waste. Either way, I don’t think that the vast majority of economic “issues” (housing, inflation, employment, welfare) are important when compared to the effect of geopolitics and ideology on the economy. Or, they are important, it’s just that many of them are downstream of geopolitics and ideology.
By ideology, I should clarify: I don’t mean that being gay or Christian helps or hurts the economy. Instead, I mean that if people are confident in the American government, at home and around the world, this is a rock solid foundation for everything else. If Americans think that orange man is going to stage a coup, or Biden is asleep at the wheel, everything else will suffer in the long term. Relative to grand strategy, everything else, by comparison, is bureaucratic micro-management. “Deck chairs on the Titanic.”
AI
AI is going to cause a lot of programmers and cashiers to lose their jobs. It’s also going to create a lot of jobs. Neo-Luddite and populist fear-mongering is not going to be successful. It is better to try to anticipate the changes that are coming and compensate for them.
For example, if we understand that cashiers are going to be fired in 5 years, we should start now to scale down the operation. Taxing “dead jobs” could help prevent a sudden and traumatic shock to the job market. If we taxed companies for using cashiers in 2024, and progressively increased that tax every year until the “AI apocalypse,” then the number of cashiers would decrease gradually, rather than suddenly. This is the type of government intervention I could support.
Regulating AI is not only impossible, it is foolish. China has no morals and will crush us. I do not want to be ruled by China. Full steam ahead!
One of the areas where AI has a very bad ideological impact is in terms of social media disinformation. For example, Trump was recently shot at a rally, and his ear started bleeding. It was a dramatic scene. My first thought was: is this AI? What if AI created a video of Trump dying? I’m not the first to wonder about rapid “social media contagion” resulting in political violence.
Limiting “fraudulent media” has unintended consequences. When the Hunter Biden Laptop story was limited, conservatives took this to mean that the government censors the truth, and they further lost trust in our institutions. This is the opposite of what I want.
The Chinese model of state control necessitates full totalitarian censorship. Our current model promotes a sense of hallucinogenic paranoia. Which is ultimately better?
I lean towards tolerating “hallucinogenic paranoia” because I believe that any regulation of AI will result in a potential loss of military advantage against China. Both models have their costs and benefits; no matter what, there will be winners and losers. Every new technology has a disruptive effect on the state, but states which prohibit innovation (like medieval China) rather than encouraging it (like Renaissance Europe) will certainly fall. I would rather take the high risk, high reward of deregulated AI over sclerotic American communism.
Race
I believe that the differences between rural and urban whites is racial, and is the most fundamental racial divide in America. Other divides, like white-Asian, white-black, or white-Hispanic are also meaningful, but not nearly as important. Generally “racists” get these priorities entirely inverted.
For example, a typical racist will mouth the following screed: “We have to stop this invasion of MEXICANS at all costs! Even if it means allying with BASED BLACKS like Candace Owens! But Asians are cool — they are high IQ like us!”
Don’t get me started on Jews.
Jews
Ok, I’ll get started on my people. If you are antisemitic, you can dismiss everything I have said, because I am metaphysically and ontologically pre-determined to subvert. My apologies for killing Jesus and wasting your time.
Jews are a successful middleman minority. Like overseas Chinese, they tend to disproportionately dominate countries in which they are a minority.
Jews like John von Neumann have single handedly contributed more to civilization than millions of men combined. Even if many Jews are historically aggrieved and have a degree of racial resentment, I will take one million “I’m not white, I’m Jewish!” Twitter posts for every one John von Neumann.
I agree with Schopenhauer when he proclaimed that the best way to relieve racial tensions was through intermarriage. Secular Jews have made Schopenhauer proud, reaching rates of 55% or even 80% intermarriage. My own family has done their part to heal the gentile-Jewish divide. I will continue this great commission.
A small group, known as the ultra-Orthodox, have gone in the opposite direction. It is troubling that this group forms an important part of Netanyahu’s coalition government. The growth of the ultra-Orthodox is a threat to the stability of Israel, of America, and of Jewish-gentile relations around the world. Which brings me to Israel…
Israel
Iran is the natural leader of the Middle East. If America withdraws, and Israel disappears, then Iran will have a free hand in the Persian gulf, become a nuclear power, and become stronger than Russia. No one takes this possibility more seriously than Israel.
I am optimistic that Israel can win the war against Iran. What I am less optimistic about is whether or not Israel can win the peace. Without a secular, universalistic, and liberal-democratic ideology, Israel does not have the cultural capital to forge alliances with its neighbors, outside of just bribing them via the Abraham Accords. The loss of these values will prevent Israel from establishing a lasting peace with its neighbors. “Danegeld” only goes so far. You need some kind of ideological cohesion to work together. America discovered this in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it easily won the ground war, but was unable to effectively govern or create allies in the region.
Unlike many critics of Israel, I do not blame Netanyahu for these problems. Individual corruption is the price of a larger culture of corruption. Netanyahu might skim a few million off the top, but he is doing his best to keep the country together. Without Netanyahu, there is no figure in Israel who can unite the secular and religious.
When Chuck Schumer scapegoats Netanyahu for all of Israel’s problems and demands that he resign, who does he expect to replace him? What policies will be different? How will the underlying trends change? The problem in Israel is not Netanyahu, but religious and social polarization. Netanyahu is a messy Band-Aid on a gaping wound. Pull off the Band-Aid, and you might regret it. But ignore it, “the Band-Aid is good enough,” and the patient will bleed out.
I would like to have a dialogue with Zionists and Israelis on how to heal the divide within Israeli civil society. Without a solution, Iran will win. If there is no solution, then the cost of Israel will outweigh the benefits, and the American-Israeli alliance will come to an end.
Everyone talks about dead Palestinians and dead Israelis. Who is more moral: Hamas or the IDF? This is not an “argument” at all, but a downstream “conclusion” of prior convictions. Judging morality by body count is an invalidation of all of western civilization. If morality was determined by body count, then America should have lost King Philip’s War, and Europeans should have been eradicated. This is a victimary form of morality.
The primary question is whether or not Israel can integrate itself into the west without sliding further into religious extremism. The answer to that will retroactively determine whether a bombing campaign was “just” or “unjust.”
China
China is economically dependent on America, but militarily and politically threatened by us at the same time. The goal of China is to keep America’s economy afloat, while decimating its military. China wants us to be their soft, weak, soyboy paypig, while they suck our boomers dry for every last penny of our inheritance. As a result, China supports the following:
Destroying American patriotism;
Demoralizing Americans;
Decreasing trust in institutions;
Promoting anti-war sentiment, both on the “dissident right” and “far left”;
Promoting racial tension;
Promoting free trade.
China is willing to boost any ideology that participates in one or more of these trends, meaning that it often boosts multiple contradictory ideologies at the same time. China’s influence on social media has been clearly demonstrated with TikTok.
China, of course, is not the only faction promoting these ideas. Many of them are “organic” and come from “true patriots.” The average consumer of media genuinely believes at least one of these talking points.
Ethnic minorities and religious minorities in America have also laid the groundwork for Chinese subversion due to their own parochial resentments for over 100 years. Teddy Roosevelt spoke out against these petty sentiments, but the problem remains.
China and India represent the greatest threats to America because of their sheer size. America has an “open elite” policy where anyone is allowed to come in and start running the country. At times in the past, this has been to America’s advantage, largely because these “new elites” were not loyal to a foreign government.
If America’s German-American population engaged in mass sabotage during WWI or WWII, the country would have devolved into Civil War. Thankfully, German Americans integrated and intermarried to the extent that this never came to pass. There is a serious question as to whether or not Chinese and Indian Americans will make the same choice. Unlike German-Americans, Chinese and Indians have stark phenotypic distinctions, and have very extreme beliefs blaming white people for all the problems in the country. This seems like a recipe for disaster.
A strong anti-China policy will be the best measure to avoid this outcome. Weakness on China is treasonous and is the greatest threat to the integrity of a functional elite. Elite incompetence is one thing, but elite treason in favor of a foreign superpower is catastrophic.
Critics of Israel argue that this is already occurring due to allegiance of Jewish Americans to Israel. Even if that were true, having two, three, or twenty groups of foreign elites in the country serving foreign interests is not better than one… The 4D chess of playing off Chinese elites against Israeli elites to “restore WASP America” (read: Catholic Monarchist Italian-Irish-Mexican America???) is not likely to work out for anyone except China (which is why China promotes this narrative).
Russia
Russia is the gas station and grocery store of China. Without Russia, (in the case of a war) China has no energy, no food, and no access to a land war with NATO. That means China starves, can’t fuel tanks, planes, or ships, and doesn’t even have a way to use any of its army. There’s no way for China to transport tanks to American shores. Every Chinese tank becomes a worthless hunk of scrap metal without access to the European front via Russia.
Before America begins a full scale war with China, it would be wise to pick off Russia, piecemeal. This can only be done if Europe and America become deadly serious about imposing secondary and even tertiary economic sanctions on Russia. Instead, Europe and America have kept trade open with Russia, sometimes directly, and sometimes indirectly through third-party states like India.
Sanctions have been very limited and more annoying than effective. These “half-measures” aggravate Russia and drive it closer to China, but have no hope of destroying Russia entirely. “Half-measures” are the worst of both worlds.
The Soviet Union was destroyed, in part, by strong American support of the Taliban and other Mujahadeen. Operation Cyclone cost $12B ($3B in 1980) directly, but indirectly it cost well over $130B. This is because Operation Cyclone was mostly funded through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who took foreign aid from America and funneled it to the Taliban. This is not too different from the $175B spent in Ukraine, except that a loss in Ukraine would be much more devastating for Russia than a loss in Afghanistan.
America spent over $8 trillion on the GWOT and got almost nothing out of it. We have only spent 2% of that so far on Ukraine and could potentially win all of Russia. The whining and complaining from Marjorie Taylor Greene sounds like idiocy or deception.
NATO hopes to repeat the Operation Cyclone playbook in Ukraine to bring down Putin, de-federalize Russia into a series of smaller Republics, and integrate them piece-meal into the EU and NATO. But it remains to be seen whether NATO is willing to do what it takes this time around. Elements within Germany and France (in both the far right and far left) are funded by and friendly to Russia. The only way to defang the noxious elements on the right is to outflank them on immigration.
Immigration
Immigration can be split into two categories: elite immigration and dependent immigration. Elite immigration threatens the integrity of the state top-down. Dependent immigration, theoretically, threatens the state from the bottom-up.
Historically, an invasion of elites into a territory is much more effective at undermining the state than an invasion of dependents. The Germanic barbarians who invaded Rome were “uncultured,” but when one honestly assesses their strength, skill, and intelligence in tactics, it is clear that they were “elites” with respect to the average decadent Roman. On the other hand, the helots who were ruled by the Spartans never represented a threat to the integrity of the Spartan state.
As a result, I believe that only stupid immigrants should be allowed in as a supply of cheap labor, and smart immigrants should be rejected. Some exceptions can be made, such as in the case of Vietnamese Christians fleeing communism, Taiwanese opponents of the CCP, and white South Africans like Elon Musk.
In Europe, immigration has been used by Russia to promote the far right. Immigration is the only right-wing issue which wins in Europe. While immigration does have some benefits (economically), opening the borders to “defend multi-culturalism” is alienating the European voting public from standing up to Russia. Russia has successfully associated Ukraine with open borders, and associated Russia with closed borders.
This is not an accurate association, since Russia’s immigration rate from the third world is 50% of America’s. Still, the best way to destroy the far right in Europe would be to end immigration tomorrow and begin mass deportations. A 20 year pause would allow for the war in Ukraine to run its course, and after that, perhaps the restrictions can be relaxed to make up for Europe’s shortage of cheap labor. But Europe cannot afford Russia dominance in exchange for the “moral victory” of open borders.
Military
A strong military is the foundation of America’s economic policy. This is not a unique feature of America. States like Iceland or Japan, which cannot defend themselves, but have pleasant economies, are ultimately dependent on America. Economies cannot exist without militaries. Foreign intervention is the law of empire. A multi-polar world, pushed by Dugin and China, is not in the interest of Americans or Europeans. It will not create a more peaceful world. Without a dominant hegemon, historically, states fight perpetual border wars, until a hegemon is established. The military history of China and Russia do not provide any example of “peace through multi-polar development.” Instead, they are mired with colonial expansion and civil war.
My Personality
If the question “who are you?” refers not to my political positions, but to my 23andMe, family life, regional accent, score on the autism spectrum, sexual fetishes, dating life, religion, favorite beer, or other inane funk-pop “identities,” then perhaps I’m not the right person for you…
I believe that sharing personal information should be a two-way street. If you’re genuinely curious about my deepest flaws and insecurities, my tragedies and triumphs, support my work. Vulnerability demands reciprocity.
Otherwise, my articles speak for themselves. Read them, skip them, peruse them at your leisure. If there is something I haven’t covered (and I’ve covered a lot), ask me a specific question, and I’ll do my best to expand on that topic.
Is this a job interview?
The question “who are you?” is one of those questions like, “what would you say are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?” That’s a very useful question to ask in a professional setting, because it shows you how well a person can present themselves.
I’m not terrible at job interviews, but if I wanted to crush my soul to maximize financial benefit, I would work for a corporation instead of writing for Substack. I’m willing to sacrifice a lot of money in opportunity cost to do my own thing.
I’m writing these articles because it’s fun. It’s fun to think about interesting things and write about them and talk to people and do interviews.
I understand that not everyone thinks this way. They are a part of a political “movement.” They have a “career.” They have donors and backers to whom they have a “fiduciary responsibility.” Hey, I respect the grift. No hate. Everyone makes compromises. 99% of people work for a boss they hate, or become the bug-man who actually enjoys work (I shudder to think). Online careers aren’t any worse than “real life” careers, especially when so many “real life” careers are remote.
Implicitly, when people ask me, “who are you,” I assume they are intimidated by me, because I am unknown and mysterious. Unfortunately, I don’t have many people who can vouch for my stellar personality and rock-solid reliability. I’ve mostly been writing in total obscurity for the past seven months, making less than $10 a day.
But I also know I’m not alone. There are many cool people on here that have decided to dedicate a small or large chunk of their lives to working on hard problems and exploring the dark corners of our society and culture. I hope to support these people and work alongside them. If you agree, let’s talk.
And humble! Don’t forget humble!
The dissident right parrots Chinese talking points on China’s “amazing education.” But no one is sending Americas to Beijing University; rather, Chinese flood Harvard. China’s patents are fraudulent.
“Poor women on Medicaid had twice the abortion rate of other women in their state. If the state’s Medicaid program paid for elective abortions, their abortion rate was more than four times that of other women. By offering “free” abortions, the government effectively places its thumb on the scale to favor death for the unborn child.”
Source: https://www.usccb.org/committees/pro-life-activities/poverty-and-abortion-vicious-cycle
My priorities when it comes to environmentalism are purely selfish: I like cold weather.
The destruction of rome was a good thing for most of Europe, minus the southern Mediterranean. The trajectory of the Byzantine empire suggests nothing compelling if the decadence was allowed to endlessly go on.
I imagine the right has a preference for a Chinese elite because Chinese immigrants are less anti white than Jews or Brahmins when unassimilated. Unassimilated Han are a weird contradiction of very pro MAGA and pro CCP.