On "This Week" this morning, George Will mentioned the book "The Emerging Democratic Majority". Apparently, this is the hottest political book out there right now. The authors write for the New Republic. This link will take you to an article outlining their ideas. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020805&s=judis080502 3 points really make up their argument. 1) Women and minorities are key Democrat voting blocks, and they're voting in greater and greater numbers. 2) America is becoming more urban, and urban areas tend to vote Democratic. 3) "Professionals" are switching allegiance from the GOP to Democrats. I suppose there are numerous articles out there that point to an opposite trend. Only time will tell.
It wasn't long ago, after Bush won in '88, that Will was writing that the Reeps would dominate presidential elections for the foreseeable future. He used a different demographic argument, the growth of the Sunbelt, and the Reeps' strength there. A couple of problems for Will. First, he's not smart enough to figure out the obvious, that as people move into an area, they change it. For example, Cali. Cali was a big part of Will's thesis. See, Reeps had been dominating in Cali, and that was a big block of votes. But Will wasn't smart enough to figure out that the people moving into Cali might not be Reeps. Second, he was making a wholly demographic argument, as if politicians and issues are completely meaningless. Again, let's look at Cali. Wilson thought that immigrant bashing would be a neat idea. Cali is a mortal lock for the Dems now. Clinton was able to connect with the middle class, through both personality and stands on issues, and won the White House twice. Since Will declared the Reeps the party of the future, the Dems have gotten more votes for President 3 out of 3 times. If it weren't for the way in which the Bush I administration interpreted the VRA, the Dems would dominate in the House of Representatives, and control the Senate. Will is a guy who thinks he's smart, but he's merely well-read. Knowledge to his brain is like celery to humans...no nutritional value, because it can't be processed. It merely becomes waste to be flushed down the toilet. Here's what's going to happen. As those Dem. groups grow in size, they're going to become more diverse, and less solid for Dems. But the Reeps are also going to have to make adjustments in their approach and policies. And they will, too, because they won't want to follow the Whigs into history books. So they'll find better ways to frame issues like affirmative action, so that they can maintain their base and siphon off some minority votes. And they'll replace guys like Jesse Helms with Elizabeth Dole. Bottom line is, a two party system is, inherently, self propagating. The only reason the Whigs died out was because the slavery issue was so destabilizing. Hell, the country couldn't deal with it; it's asking a bit much for the parties to do so. Final thought...the mere fact that George Will is taken seriously, and even considered some kind of intellectual, is another piece of evidence that our politics aren't serious. Which is a good thing...a nation is in pretty good shape when people consider politics a form of entertainment. Nobody in Israel or Russia treats politics as a diversion like this.
This really doesn't have much to do with George Will at all. I only mentioned him because it was his referrence that clued me in to the existence of this book. I agree with you that the two party system is self propogating. I've felt for a couple of years that the country has really moved about as far to the right as it can right now. A move toward the left is inevitable.
Women and minorities are voting in greater numbers, but they're also voting less solidly Democratic. Alex
Yeah, that's true. The other part of their arguement that can change over time is the part about professionals. If that group switched from right to left, surely they could swing back. I'm a "professional" and a Democrat. It has never felt to me like I'm in the majority among my peers. As a soccer fan and a liberal, I really feel like an odd creature sometimes.
Just a general observation, but I'd say that the country is becoming more polarized than Democratic. The GOP has gone from libertarian to activist religious conservative, and the number of people who consider themselves "born again Christian" (the most solidly Republican bloc besides Mormons, likely) continues to grow. Meanwhile, the number of people who find the recent trend of the GOP leadership to be annoying and scary continues to grow as well. The fact that these two groups tend to be segmented by geography only makes it more obvious. Basically we're all taking sides before the Civil War restarts.
If the GOP is scoring with Latinos, will the resultant mulattos be considered US citizens? Or do they have to promise to vote Republican first?
Both parties switch their platforms constantly in order to maintain a 50-50 percent split of active voters. They have been dancing so much, they are now the opposites of what they were a century ago.
Polls can be taken to support any point of view (case in point, while I have no evidence to support this I highly doubt that a majority of American women voted against JFK). The numbers suggest otherwise. Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans are making up a growing portion of the US population, and both minorities and women are voting in increasing numbers. At the same time, there has been no significant, permanent shift in relative support for the 2 major parties in decades. More people voted for Bush in 2000 than Dole in '96 or Bush I in '92, despite these increases in minority population and minority/female turnout. Thus, only two conclusions are possible: either astronomical percentages of white males are voting Republican, or women and minorities are starting to turn to the GOP. Since nothing I have seen suggests the former, we are left with the latter. Now, most women and minorities still vote Democrat, but enough are turning to the GOP that, along with white males, they give the Republicans 50% of voters. Alex
You mean like this one? Bet on the former: http://www.tnr.com/express/scheiber072701.html http://reason.com/0102/co.cy.venus.shtml "An all-male electorate would have handed George W. Bush a decisive victory, 53 percent to 42 percent." Or... "In this year's presidential election, as usual, about 90 percent of black voters supported the Democratic candidate. A slim majority of white women, on the other hand, voted for Bush. (In the 1994 elections supposedly dominated by the "angry white males," 53 percent of white women also voted for Republicans in congressional races.) Single women are especially likely to vote Democratic -- as many as two-thirds of them went for Gore this year -- while married women are just about evenly divided. Women who are not employed outside the home continue to be a Republican constituency, with 52 percent of them backing Bush. So as marriage-age women have become more likely to be single, they have been more likely to vote Democratic.
Let's don't overlook "George Bush steering the economy straight into the iceberg" as a possibility of why the Democrats seem to be making inroads.
Boy, is this going to end up nowhere productive. But, there's always the off chance that the meteor will hit, and the only remnant of humanity that survives will be this idiotic conversation. And when the space aliens recover and translate this little exchange, I want them to realize that someone, somewhere, took the time to point out: And in what Bizarro political spectrum is David Horowitz balanced out by Geraldo Rivera? What's your idea of a moderate, anyway, Kenneth Starr? FoxNews - we got both kinds of music here, country and western (And don't make me bring up how heavily subsidized NewsMax is)
Ok, that diatribe was cute but I don't think it's going to win you any "Post of the Week" awards. Then again, GringoTex is judge and jury so maybe you have a shot with that. You would be hard pressed to name more conservatives at Salon, the magazine (I think it's a magazine...if it's still in business...or are they still trying to figure out that bricks and mortar web thing?), then at Fox network. Horowitz is their token conservative.
Camille Paglia. You weren't really challenging me to say that Salon has more conservatives than Fox, were you? The PTL Club doesn't have as many conservatives as Fox.
Camille Paglia is not a conservative. She readily admits she voted for Bill Clinton twice. What real conservative would vote for that clown once, let alone twice. Paglia has her moments of brilliance but is a far cry from a true conservative.