In the light of Mr. Judis’s and Mr. Texeira’s op-eds, I strongly recommend that you read Sean Trende’s assessment of the track record of the “emerging Democratic majority” hypothesis at RealClearPolitics:
If you take a long view of American politics, they are exceedingly stable; a party may jump out to a lead if the other party presides over three years of economic decline (as Herbert Hoover did from 1930 to 1932) or runs for re-election amid 9 percent growth (as FDR did in 1936), but we tend toward a 50-50 nation. Even the supposed New Deal coalition was bedeviled by contingency; in 1938, Republicans nearly won the popular vote for the House; in 1940, FDR trailed in the polls until Hitler invaded Poland; in 1942 Republicans won the popular vote for the House by four points; from 1946 to 1958 they were roughly at parity with the Democrats. Our tendency as humans to attempt to find order in chaos leads us to overlook these contrary data points, and to find continuity in the high points for Democrats. But this leads us to miss the forest for the trees.
Analysts should have been skeptical of the Emerging Democratic Majority thesis because the party dominance that proponents of the theory – especially of the “hard†version of the theory – were suggesting was essentially unprecedented in American history. That doesn’t mean that something like that couldn’t happen, or that it can’t happen in the future. It just means that we shouldn’t be surprised when it doesn’t.
To believe in the “hard” version of the hypothesis you’ve got to believe in governing philosophies that have not materialized, numbers that aren’t there, the irrelevance of contingency in American politics, the primacy of identity, and that Hispanics, Asians, and Muslims will provide the same sort of reliable voting blocs that black voters have over the period of the last three-quarters of a century.
Intolerance, overreach, and outright racism among a white voter interest group could cause other interest groups to make common cause. That’s what I mean by a worst case scenario. But even that is unlikely to be permanent. Whiteness is malleable. Once upon a time the Irish, Italians, Catholics, and Jews were not thought of as white. Some people still don’t think they are but nowadays most Americans would think you were nuts if you said that the Irish weren’t white.
In the long view Trende is right of course, but the last 24 years have been aberrational in that the parties have rotated total control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress four times now (D, R, D, R). I don’t think that trend is normal or sustainable, one of the parties will either have a period of more sustained dominance, or the country moves to divided government. I think the rapidity of the rotation has made the parties overconfident.
I don’t know whether it’s been aberrant or change has accelerated to the point at which perturbation is normal.
I thought Irish were green.
Steve
On your last point, I look at maps of places that voted for Obama twice, but supported Trump, and I see a big chunk in the middle of the country that potentially holds the balance of control in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. I believe a lot of these are rural white ethnics (Scandinavian; Eastern European), and if the parties coalesce along white-identity, then those states are lost to the Ds.
Which is shocking given that Minnesota has the longest streak of voting for the Democratic Presidential candidate. Clinton won the state w/ 46.8% of the vote. Itasco County, MN voted for a Republican President for the first time since Hoover was in office. Minnesota doesn’t have a state Democratic Party, it has a populist fusion party of Democrats, farm and labor (DFL).
From 2010 – 2014, the manufacturing sector created the most jobs in Minnesota as a percentage (second in total numbers to healthcare). Those jobs aren’t necessarily going away, and writing them off would be bad politics unless Democrats are sure that they are going to be able to replace the Midwest somewhere else.
Is it possible that Minnesotans have been mugged by reality? That’s not a rhetorical question. Percentage-wise Minnesota has accepted a lot of refugees, consistent with Lutheran social action values. Hmong. Lots of Somalis. What group is producing the largest number of DAESH jihadis relative to their numbers? Somalis.
I think that’s explained by the substantial social problems Somalis have faced. There just isn’t a lot of demand for workers who can’t speak, read, or write English and whose language is spoken by very nearly no one in the U. S. other than those within their own ethnic groups.
As an aside I think that language is at least as great a factor in prejudice as race and possibly more so. Look at the large number of Jamaicans and British-raised blacks in American popular culture. We like their accents and affect and don’t like those of Mississippi Delta blacks.
That’s one of my gripes with affirmative action programs. They have disproportionately benefited Caribbean, African, and British-educated blacks rather than African-Americans, descendants of slaves.
When I was looking at some data last night, I calculated that half of the blacks in Minneapolis were Somali immigrants. I’m not completely confident of that. There appears to be some recent hollowing-out of the inner city, with entrenched poverty, and some minorities are leaving. Concerns about becoming like St. Louis or Detroit were expressed. Some blacks leaving for inner suburbs, some Mexicans left entirely; twin-city mayors trying to attract upscale residents in order to pay for relatively high social services needs. Half of job openings in state are outside twin cities.
Lutheran “social action” values?
You’re excluding the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods among others of course.
Excuse me, but blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Jews have been voting as uniform blocs for decades, and they have made common cause together against Whites for the same decades. What is happening now is that Whites are beginning to notice their common enemies and are beginning to react.
You seem to live on another planet.
The title of this post should be read in “Mommy Dearest” ‘No wire hangers’ style.