The Awful Truth

At New York Magazine Eric Levitz reports on an “autopsy”, i.e. after-action report, on the 2020 elections, characterizing the findings as “not good news for Democrats”:

America’s rising generations are less white, religious, or conservative than any of their predecessors. The biases of America’s legislative institutions may be on the GOP’s side, but time is on the Democrats.’

Or, so we like to tell ourselves. In truth, a close look at last year’s election results suggests that Democrats shouldn’t rest their hopes on demographic change.

The three findings are:

1. Democrats are losing white working-class supporters to the GOP and death.
2. Elevated turnout among nonwhite voters made Nevada’s electorate more diverse — but no more Democratic.
3. Democrats lost more support among young Hispanic voters than among old ones.

which is precisely what I have been saying for the last two decades. The belief that Hispanics will be an unshakeably Democratic voting bloc as blacks have been for the last three generations is a miscalculation. Hispanics are an ethnic group (multiple ethnic groups in fact) who are behaving much the same as previous ethnic groups have. Just as Italians and Greeks were once considered non-white but are now generally considered white except by “one drop” racists left and right, so most Hispanics think of themselves as white and will increasingly be seen that way by other Americans.

I don’t find that bad news for Democrats but it’s pretty bad news for those who think they can ignore working class interests because they have reliable voting blocs who will support them come what may just by relying on identity politics. I won’t be posting on it but I strongly suspect that the outcome in Virginia says the same thing.

Something he fails to mention: the days of “one a Democrat always a Democrat” are long gone. People vote across party lines all of the time now and, increasingly, consider themselves independents because they don’t see themselves in either political party. Additionally, youth is not a permanent condition and major life events have been demonstrated to move people to change parties. Young Democratic voters will ultimately not be young any more. Whether they will be Democratic voters remains to be seen.