By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Well, much to the chagrin of our Republican brothers and without any obvious help from the train wreckers themselves, their base just shrunk. For the first time in American history, more non-hispanic Caucasians died than were born. This demographic milestone hits the Right at the worst possible time. With the incredible shrinking number of minorities in its ranks (only 13% of Republicans identify themselves as a minority) GOPers could always rest assured of refilling their ranks with scores of Caucasians driven into a frenzy by racial fear mongering or to rage by claims fiscal foolishness or to just about any other emotion … just pick your own right-wing wedge issue. Couple that with the fact that last year over 50% of all babies born were non-Caucasians and that the Republican record with women is well … sad, very sad … and you’ve got a demographic disaster looming for the GOP.
Or do you? Let’s see how are our brothers (and a precious few sisters) across the ideological aisle are dealing with the problem. Why full speed ahead on blocking immigration reform (Sen. Ted Cruz); rushing to impose invasive ultrasounds in heartland places like Wisconsin (Gov. Scott Walker); budget cuts for the poor (Paul Ryan); more votes in the U.S. House on bills to ban all abortion procedures after 20 weeks regardless of rape or incest (Boehner & Cantor). These righties sure know how to woo a woman.
Are there any voices of reason on the deck of this Titanic? Well you’d hope so. The College Republicans, once the recruiting ground of bomb throwers like Newt Gingrich (in 1978 he implored them be “young, nasty people who h[ave] no respect for their elders”), now seems to be the crewman in the crow’s nest transfixed on the looming iceberg even as their older brethren play the same ol’ tune (Nearer My God to Thee was the reputed last song played on the ill-fated luxury liner–strangely appropriate now and then) that got them shut out in the last two presidential battles and lost the youth vote by 5 million votes. According to a new report by the baby Repubs, young people deemed “winnable” for Republicans increasingly are coming to see the GOP a ” closed-minded, racist, rigid, [and]old-fashioned.” (p. 69). Imagine what the “unwinnables” must think! The report also finds the GOP out-of-step with the under 25 crowd in terms of understanding young Americans reliance on social media and non-traditional news sources like Comedy Central’s’ The Daily Show to get news and hence their view of the world. Just as distressing, the Republicans are hopelessly tone-deaf to the attitudes of young voters on issues like abortion, immigration, and negative political advertising. Ignore them at your peril the collegians are screaming, but the Right just keeps chugging father right. Onward Christian soldiers!
You have to wonder how any political party can survive with shrinking numbers, unpopular views, and an institutionalized arrogance (that 47% line still resonates) a Roman emperor would envy. Maybe you don’t have wonder for very long. Ask a Whig. Oops there aren’t any.
And as for the Caucasian race in the U.S., it might be time to take a break from the rat race they so proudly created. “We’re jumping the gun on a long, slow decline of our white population, which is going to characterize this century,” William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, told the paper. “It’s a bookend from the last century, when whites helped us grow. Now it’s minorities who are going to make the contributions to our economic and population growth over the next 50 years.”
Was that a chill I just felt blowing over from the country club?
Source: Washington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Gene H:
I dont think Hamilton was all that keen on your view.
Bron,
Sorry, but we’ve had this discussion way more than once. I’ve got ~240 years of jurisprudence that says the General Welfare Clause means exactly what I think it does. You’ve got? What? Locke. Who was neither Framer nor Founder. Madison was in favor of Locke’s narrower view, Hamilton wasn’t. Hamilton won that argument. The Framers and Founders knew Locke’s work and if they had wanted to they could have adopted his narrower definition of what was and was not permissible governmental action.
They didn’t.
Instead they drafted and ratified the Constitution as it stands with the General Welfare Clause in the Preamble (which isn’t controlling) and the other in the Taxing and Spending Clause (which is controlling) instead of omitting it all together (which is what Locke would have done had he had any say in the matter).
That alone should tell you something.
you do know that the welfare state model was adopted from Germany and brought to the US in the mid 19th century?
“you do know that the welfare state model was adopted from Germany and brought to the US in the mid 19th century?”
Bron,
That was because the Ultra-Conservative Aristocrat Otto Von Bismarck realized that a country that takes care of all of its people, is a country that prospers and progresses.
Gene H:
If the general welfare clause means what you think it does, the Constitution is dead already and never was.
OS:
Michio is wrong. H1B visas keep the prices low, who wants to go into science and engineering when you get out and make less than a finance major?
We have more than enough talented people in this country but they go into finance or law or medicine because the salaries are so much larger.
I have had foreign born PhD’s ask me for a job who are willing to work for $35,000 per year. I am now going to contradict myself. But I cannot hire them because they have to be paid a certain amount based on their visa status. So only larger companies can hire them.
But it is still low enough to provide inexpensive labor to large companies. But high enough to prevent small business from taking advantage of inexpensive labor.
Government needs to let the market create the price, if it is $200,000 per year, so be it and decent engineers could go work for small business for $75,000 per year.
Ms. Rand is dead. One would need to exhume her in order to “throw her to the roadside.” Any volunteers?
Bron,
That’s fine and dandy if that were the only substantive flaw in the Libertarian platform. Their understanding of the function of government as defined by the Constitution is still retrograde as are many of the social and economic positions they advocate. For example, you cannot disregard the plain wording of the Constitution and the jurisprudence surrounding the General Welfare Clause simply because you prefer Locke’s narrower interpretation of proper governmental function nor can you get elected using candidates that ignore both women’s rights (specifically vis a vis reproduction) and are willing to force their religious views into policy in contravention of the 1st Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses.
Could the Libertarians morph into a party that’s large scale feasible? Maybe. They aren’t even close yet. The first thing they need to do is throw that ridiculous crazy woman Ayn Rand to the roadside and given she’s a cornerstone of their ideology? I don’t see that happening soon if at all.
Gene H:
I dont know if you are aware of this or not but there are 2 schools of thought within the libertarian movement, one is the anarchist school but the other is the Constitutional, small government school. Or as they sometimes joke, the liberal libertarians. I am pretty sure the small G camp is ascendant and Rothbard and his followers are losing the intellectual war.
They are finally realizing that you cannot have a million different private court systems or standing armies.
“but the other is the Constitutional, small government school.”
Bron,
I seriously see that as a hopeful sign, if true. The problem with ideological “schools” though, is that people disagree on the specifics. Ron Paul believes he is a Libertarian yet is quite prudish regarding sexuality. President Obama, who some have called the most radical leftist President in history, is as much of a leftist as was Bob Dole. Al Franken considered the most radical leftist in Congress supports the NSA. And don’t get me started on Republicans today because I fondly remember Everett M. Dirksen, who was the Republican Senate Majority leader and quite a reasonable man. He would be primary challenged today.
SWM, You know how to pull on my heartstrings when you bring up Russ. That was a tragic loss. Ron Paul was just an example of the fact that young people detest the status quo, know govt. is corrupt, and that it takes too much of our money. Let’s face it, Paul was a gadfly, much like Nader. But, someone is going to come along who eschews the duopoly status quo and has the smarts and charisma. She/he will make the duopoly shit in their pants. The duopoly will work together to try and destroy this person, and they’ll have the MSM doing their bidding. So, this person better be tough as hell. Here’s my fear, that is a demagogue emerging instead of a righteous independent. I think that would only occur if some large crisis[terrorist chemical attack, fiscal tragedy, etc.] occurs. As you might know by now, I love kids and young people. We didn’t even consider retiring in Florida where old people go to die w/ other old people. Our neighbors in San Diego are surfer dudes and USD[good Jesuit college] students. We live in a large university town. It makes one almost curmudgeon proof. We boomers f@cked a lot of things up. I think our children and grandchildren will “get our minds right.” Of course we’ll be drooling and incontinent when they do!
You’ll get no argument from me on that, Blouise.
The Purchase A Candidate graft system is the first thing that needs to go.
Gene,
The problem for candidates is, as it always has been, money to campaign. Both established parties have the fund raising mechanisms which keep the individual candidates “enslaved”.
Gene
Very true. Sometimes I lament we should just file a RICO action against the Democratic and Republican parties and start over.
Bron,
Your optimism over the the Libertarians is adorable. Too bad about all the real bad craziness that lies just beneath the surface veneer of “loving liberty” in both the individual candidates and the party’s policy platform. As I’ve said before, many Libertarians have their hearts in the right place, but their heads are somewhere far south of Constitutional.
Therein illustrating the subtle machinations of propaganda, Blouise.
The ACA is perceived by some as liberal because of the window dressing of not allowing companies to deny policies based on pre-existing conditions, but the reality of the ACA is simply more corporate welfare in the form of mandated coverage and no caps on profits which is in no way, shape or form a liberal approach to healthcare. The ACA is a pro-corporatist policy wearing a liberal dress. Once you’ve danced with it (i.e. read it and understood it in context), you realize it’s Italian-style fascism. There’s jackboots under that dress. It’s not health care reform. It’s a gimme for the health care insurance industry.
“It’s not health care reform. It’s a gimme for the health care insurance industry.”
Gene,
As illustrated by Hilary mostly working with the Health Care Industry when she failed in her attempt. Lately I’ve been thinking about the fact that Obama was 18 when Reagan got elected. No doubt that young man on his way to Harvard, was an impressionable youth and so was influenced by Reagan’s administration.
mespo:
The one problem is that many repubs, we socially liberal/fiscal conservatives, are unhappy. I am thinking eventually there will be a 3rd party which is libertarian. This will appeal to many people, immigrants, minorities, women, etc. It will also appeal to the more reason oriented [non-religious/semi-religious] GOPers and the fiscally responsible democrats.
You can pat yourself on the back but I think what you should be worried about is the end of the Democratic Party as a viable political entity. 3 more years of Obama will surely end any illusions that democrats are for the working man or minorities.
I guess Obama didnt really understand Saul all that well.
Many liberals see a man living in a big fine house and say he shouldnt be allowed to live there while others suffer. A capitalist says I want all people to live in a big fine house and live well. Which is in line with what I think Alinsky was trying to achieve; getting people access to the system so they could make their lives better.
There are many former democrats/liberals who are libertarians. They are the ones, like their GOP brethren, who have embraced reason or who already embraced it and watched with disgust as their party embraced mysticism.
A requiem for the GOP/DP is nothing but an ode to liberty.
“I guess Obama didnt really understand Saul all that well.”
Bron,
I think he understood him, but chose to disregard him. Same difference. 🙂
SwM,
New methods and survey data now available to political scientists have resulted in some interesting data regarding the 2010 mid-term congressional elections.
Basically it boils down to Obama’s health-care reform initiative and the roll call votes. A vote for health-care reform was “perceived” by individual voters in their district as being “more liberal” and thus away from the center that most voters tend to hold. The suggestion is that health-care reform cost the Democrats control of the House because of voter perception.
What these new methods are showing is that members, Republican or Democrat, with more ideologically extreme records and higher party unity scores attract less support at the polls than do more moderate members … and this is especially so in competitive districts.
I believe these findings support Gene’s assertion that anti-partisan backlash generates more independents.
Darren,
At least you have open primaries there. The inequities and limitation of choice created by closed primaries is an abomination.
Smom,
I don’t think they will either. In the long term, I think the data is going to show that there is a simply a shift away from partisanship in general as people become more issue oriented in their voting. Although self-identifying independents have somewhat plateaued in the last twenty-five years (at ~30%), what needs to be kept in mind is the millennials and younger are really the first generations to grow up entirely immersed in the never-ending data flow that is the Information Age. This makes it harder for parties to hide their more onerous agendas and easier for voters to be more informed about not just individual candidates, but planks in party platforms and the issues surrounding them. Long term and given the bad behavior of inherent in the two parties/no real choice model that has dominated American politics for so long, I’m not sure this can go any other way than either anti-partisan backlash that generates more independents and/or creates a climate for new emergent political parties to challenge the establishment.
We have a system in our state, where after the primary election, the top two candidates go on to the general election. The public HATED this when it first came out.
WA was an open primary state for perhaps seven decades. You could vote for whomever you wanted from each party and the victor from each party went on to the general election. Then the democrats and the republicans colluded together and filed a lawsuit to change how we citizens chose who we voted for. The public was enraged and really went after the politicians for what happened. Then they found out the public generally did not like it and it was changed again to to the system where the top two get to go to the general election. This essentially guarantees that either a democrat or a republican or two democrats or two republicans go to the general election. And this is how these guys maintain power here.
There is also the fear of the thrown away vote by going for a 3rd party candidate so people gravitate toward one of the two co-parties.
Gene H, They won’t take the youth vote with Ted Cruz.