I wrote an article in The Critic about respectability cascades and how one might take place on immigration in Britain. The first two paragraphs are below, read the rest there!
In Ed West’s recent article “Europe’s turn to the Right”, he mentions Scott Alexander’s concept of “respectability cascades” as a reason why opposition to immigration is popular but restricted. Many are reluctant to endorse the position in public because of its association with disreputable people, which means that open supporters are skewed towards those who are already disreputable. This causes a feedback loop of disreputableness which keeps it out of the Overton window, however much private support it may have.
As is well known to anyone with a cursory knowledge of public opinion polling in Britain, the population has always wanted less immigration: even with the more accepting attitudes of recent years, 52 per cent still want immigration levels decreased (most of these by a lot), compared to 22 per cent who want it to stay the same and 14 per cent who want it to increase. If democracy actually meant “the people getting their policy preferences enacted”, mass immigration would never have happened. However, as is also well known to anyone with an interest in this issue, public opinion has little effect on policy in practice, especially on the issue of immigration where the numbers have been very high for over 20 years and are only getting higher. Whilst immigration restriction is the prevailing opinion amongst the population at large, the prevailing opinion amongst the elite and governing class, who can actually influence policy, is that immigration as such is inherently a good thing — or at least that any attempts to restrict it are immoral or ill-advised. It is also within this class, rather than the population in general, where the taboo against supporting immigration restriction is the strongest and where this negative respectability cascade has the most restrictive effect.
…