re: #401 Ian G.

Maybe Robertson has relatives who fought at Iwo Jima or something.

You’re right, though. The Japanese tend to be a lot lower on the “foreign boogeyman” totem pole of the right these days than ever, certainly compared with Communists, Nazis, or Muslims.

It’s likely just a product of age. My mother was born in 1936. She was a kid during WW2 and as far as I know she wasn’t close to anyone who actually fought in the war. To this day she carries some of those same prejudices. She’s not open about it, especially since one of her cousins married a Japanese girl when he was stationed in Okinawa in the Army, but she still lets it out in subtle ways. Japanese and German cars bad, American cars good. Japanese food weird, American food good. Etc.