The only certain takeaway from this complexity is that the new liberal model-minority image, like the old conservative one, is likely to break down with increasing Asian numbers, influence, diversity and power.

Where strong Asian support for affirmative action endures in this new landscape, it will probably be as part of a more consciously ideological progressivism — one adopted by some second-generation Asian-Americans, as Reihan Salam suggested recently in The Atlantic, as a distinctive means of assimilation to the American cultural elite.

Where Asian support for racial progressivism breaks down, meanwhile, there are two possibilities. There could be a real swing back rightward among some Asian voters — a possibility that the Trump White House obviously entertains, but which can only happen if the Republican Party finds a way to lose its Trumpian aura of white identity politics and bigotry.