Judis’s co-author, Ruy Texeira, still believes:
Here’s one way to think about the 2016 election. We are witnessing a great race in this country between demographic and economic change that’s driving a new America, and reaction to those changes. On November 8, with a tremendous burst of speed, reaction to change caught up with change and surpassed it.
But is that advantage sustainable over the long haul, as change continues and reaction has to run ever faster simply to keep pace? Probably not. Those old legs will give out eventually, though we do not know exactly when. In the end, the race will be won by change — as it always is.
Looking back from 2032, we are far more likely to view the 2016 election as the last stand of America’s white working class, dreaming of a past that no longer exists, than as a fundamental transformation of the political system.
Soon after Mssrs. Judis and Texeira wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority, Democrats took control of the House and the Senate in a surge that reached its apogee with the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Since then they’ve lost the House, Senate, and presidency and now hold majorities in only a third of state legislatures.
Mr. Texeira should hope that the sort of interest group power politics he advocated doesn’t come to pass. If it does the numbers don’t support his dreamed-of permanent Democratic majority.
