Die hard supporters of Donald Trump in the Chinese community are actively promoting the president’s baseless election challenge on We Chat.
Despite the president not supplying any evidence of voter fraud and losing at least 16 court challenges, they are soliciting donations to WinRed and Save America, two GOP fundraising websites, according to Nikkei Asia which has seen donations as high as $4,000.
The still small, but growing support from the Chinese community of Trump despite his promotion of the “kung flu” and the “China virus” has been both puzzling and fascinating to political analysts and media pundits.
“When Donald Trump got elected four years ago, I thought the US had gone crazy,” Erica Yuen tells the BBC. “I’d always been a supporter of the Democrats. Now though, I support Trump – along with a lot of the Hong Kong protesters.”
Yuen says the demonstrators are looking for any US president willing to take a hard line on China.
Some speculate the president’s seemingly useless and endless challenges to the election is really a ploy to raise funds which Trump will use on other causes.
There are no restrictions on how the president can use the money he receives. He can use it to support other candidates in the coming years to keep him active on the political stage and front and center before voters.
“The President always planned to do this, win or lose, so he can support candidates and issues he cares about, such as combating voter fraud,” campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in an emailed statement to CNN when asked about the PAC.
“He’s saying that he needs donors’ money for election-challenge litigation, but he’s putting the money into an account to be used for his political future,” Paul Ryan of Common Cause said to CNN.
Sunny Shao, a researcher at AAPI Data, told Nikkei Asia We Chat is filled with reposted pro-Trump articles.
“The direct audience of those articles are the ones who are dependent on translated content; they don’t have the linguistic ability to fact-check,” Shao said. “The framing of those articles make you think that your money is going to the recount efforts.”
The rise of the Chinese American right, according to the National Review, has been fueled by the community’s emphasis on education and opposition of affirmative action, which they see as contrary to their personal interests of getting their children into the best colleges.
Many on the right felt they had no time to engage in politics, but have since changed their tune to mobilize around education issues.
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as a fourth generation Asian American, my family has been providing for and fighting for Asian American rights since they came to America in 1847. Many of us have served in local, state, and federal government positions as baseline employees and as managers, many of us have even held elected office. I, therefore take offense at AsAmnews for taking such openly politically biased positions as if they represent the majority if not all Asian Americans. We are, in fact, the MOST diverse and most disparate group in America. Unlike the hispanics, who are comprised of many different people, they still all predominantly speak Spanish, are predominantly Catholic, and share many many cultural backgrounds. Asian Americans, on the other hand, share no common language, belief systems, nor culture among our over one hundred pan asian grouping. AsAm News would serve our community better if they stuck to reporting without editorializing, and refrain from adding personal opinions and views of your staff.
There is nothing in the report that’s biased. It is based on fact. If you can’t accept the facts, that’s a reflection of your own bias.
I agree with Roger Chan.