Is Demographics Destiny?

Chris Bowers made an interesting point the other day, observing that whites broke 60-40 in favor of George H.W. Bush in 1988 while they went a basically identical 58-41 in favor of George H.W. Bush in 2004 but despite these similar results among America's largest racial group the 2004 race was much closer than the 1988 one. Basically, with very little change in candidate performance within major demographic groups, you've nevertheless seen a transition from big blowouts to narrow races. And with the white Christian share of the electorate expected to keep falling, you can expect to see Republicans start to play at a disadvantage.

The broad story is, of course, well known but the very, very similar white vote shares are interesting given how much is generally thought to have changed politically from '88 to '04.

Comments

1988 wasn't that big of a blowout in the popular vote.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 3:49 PM

Not that much change in the total popular vote, Matt. Bush Sr. won by 8 points in 1988; Bush Jr. won by a margin of 5 points less in 2004. And that poll shows that Bush Jr.'s vote margin among whites dropped by 3 points compared to Daddy. (Still, that additional 2-point margin that IS due to larger numbers of nonwhites can of course swing any close election.)

Posted by BruceMoomaw | November 6, 2007 3:55 PM

The Hispanicization of the electorate is a glacially slow process, and Democrats would be stupid to risk losing near-term future elections in order to import more immigrants whose children will vote Democratic in the long-term future. You're making the same mistake Karl Rove made:

Rove's theory was that only opening the borders even wider would assuage the onrushing hordes of Hispanic voters, announcing, in the manner of Kent Brockman said in the Simpsons: "And I for one welcome our new immigrant overlords."

Rove's thinking was just, well, stupid. Sure, the Hispanic (Democratic) elite wanted more immigration—because adding more Hispanic warm bodies makes them more powerful. But there was little evidence that more immigration was a burning demand among typical Hispanic voters. They instead tend to be traditional "tax and spend" Democrats. (Which is bad enough, from the GOP’s point of view.)

Even more embarrassingly, the actual number of Hispanic voters was quite small. And a sizable fraction of that 6.0 percent of the electorate in 2004 who were Hispanic are Cubans and Puerto Ricans who don't much care about immigration. (Puerto Ricans are citizens by birth and Cubans have their own special refugee law, so they aren't immigrants.)

And now the Pew Hispanic Center has crunched the Census Bureau's numbers for 2006 and discovered that the total Latino share of the vote last year fell to 5.8 percent. According to Pew:

"while Latinos represented nearly half the total population growth in the U.S. between 2002 and 2006, the Latino share among all new eligible voters was just 20%. By comparison, whites accounted for 24% of the population growth and 47% of all eligible new voters."

Overall, whites cast almost 12 ballots for every one ballot cast by a Hispanic.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 3:56 PM

The George Bush on the ballot in 2004 lacked a Herbert before his Walker. Please make a correction, Matt.

Posted by Adam Villani | November 6, 2007 4:01 PM

You're making the same mistake Karl Rove made:

Actually, no. Rove's mistake was thinking Republicans could increase their share of the Hispanic vote without pissing off the nativist yahoos who really, really hate Hispanic people.

Nativist yahoos like...oh, for example...Steve Sailer.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 6, 2007 4:01 PM

If the GOP could ride the immigration issue back to winning 60% of the non-Hispanic white vote, they'd win the next several election cycles.

Democrats are stupid to hand the immigration issue to the GOP with a big bow on it. It's the easiest thing in the world to get to the centrist side of George W. Bush on immigration.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 4:02 PM

Most of what you hear about the on-rushing tidal wave of Hispanic voting power enraged by the failure of the Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill is based on sheer innumeracy.

I've been writing about this since 2000, but here's a recent article by Steven Malanga pointing out the same thing:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_sndgs02.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 4:17 PM

Obviously the Democrats' top priority must therefore be rich white men.

Posted by Al From | November 6, 2007 4:19 PM

Steve Sailer forever the raving rabid racist. Our insane hero.

Posted by Jennifer | November 6, 2007 4:21 PM

Actually, no. Rove's mistake was thinking Republicans could increase their share of the Hispanic vote without pissing off the nativist yahoos who really, really hate Hispanic people.

Nativist yahoos like...oh, for example...Steve Sailer.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 6, 2007 4:01 PM

Steve Sailer forever the raving rabid racist. Our insane hero.

Posted by Jennifer | November 6, 2007 4:21 PM

=================================================

We don't want no stinkin' facts around here! We're having too much fun calling people names!

Posted by Campesino | November 6, 2007 4:28 PM

The problem with counting on the fact that hispanics don't vote is that that is something that can quickly change. In the '90s when Pete Wilson was able to ride anti-immigrant sentiment to the governorship, California was a bubble state, and Illinois, which was prosperous enough not to hate its immigrants, was Republican dominated in state government.

But California quickly went blue, and more surprisingly, so did Illinois. The next election I was living in a Mexican neighborhood in what was the lowest turnout congressional district in the country (the mexican voting level was so low that in a district that was at least 75% Mexican, a puerto rican candidate beat the mexican candidate and still represents it through incumbancy).

As I waited in line, each person in front of me was asked "Is this your first time voting?" and each said yes, and so the election judge explained the voting procedure (using the straight democratic ticket as an example of course). When I got to the front, the judge looked at me and said "You've voted before." I agreed and took my ballot.

Illinois is now safely on the blue side as well. I suspect that kind of phenomenon would be repeated if the Republicans demogogue too much.

Posted by Lon | November 6, 2007 4:40 PM

Hmmm... so basically what you are saying is that there was no difference between Bush v. Kerry and Bush v. Dukakis. What a surprise.

Posted by Emma | November 6, 2007 4:46 PM

I think the Ciro Rodriguez special election proves that immigration issues DO matter to a significant number of Hispanics, contrary to what Steve claims. It would be interesting to see what would happen in a demographically similar district that wasn't also on the border.

Posted by Anonymous | November 6, 2007 4:47 PM

"It's the easiest thing in the world to get to the centrist side of George W. Bush on immigration."

No, it's the easiest thing in the world to get to the centrist side of the Republicans currently running for president. On immigation and everything else.

Posted by Jose Padilla | November 6, 2007 4:52 PM

Oh, man, the Pete Wilson Myth rides again. As I pointed out in 2005:

The truth is close to the opposite. California voted for Republican presidential candidates in nine of the ten elections from 1952 through 1988. The collapse of the California GOP first became evident in 1992, two years before Pete Wilson supported Prop. 187, when Republicans got skunked in California in the presidential election and two U.S. Senate races.

After moderate Republican Pete Wilson won the 1990 gubernatorial election, a severe recession made him “the most unpopular governor in the history of modern polling,” according to a 1994 California Journal article. Wilson entered his 1994 re-election bid trailing by 20 percentage points. By making Prop. 187 the centerpiece of his campaign, Wilson came from behind and won by 15 points. Prop. 187 itself passed by 18 points.

Wilson is now commonly derided as the man who destroyed the California GOP by backing Prop. 187 and two subsequent anti-multiculturalist initiatives. Yet Prop. 209, which outlawed racial quotas, passed by nine points in 1996, and Prop. 227, which banned bilingual education, won by 22 points in 1998. When Wilson left office in 1998 due to term limits, his approval rating was at its highest ever.

In contrast, 1998 Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren came out against the anti-bilingual-education Prop. 227. He lost to Gray Davis by 20 points. Similarly, in the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush—who supported amnesty, bilingual education, and “affirmative access” (quotas)—outspent Al Gore $20 million to nothing in California and still lost by 11 points. In 2004, Bush lost to John Kerry by 10 points.

It’s often said that angry Latinos made subsequent Republican candidates pay for Wilson’s sins, but where are the numbers? According to the Census Bureau, California Hispanics cast 11.4 percent of the vote in 1994 and 13.9 percent in 1998. In both elections, the Republican gubernatorial candidate won 23 percent of the Hispanic vote, so the celebrated Latino “tidal wave of anger” accounted for less than a tenth of the Republicans’ plummet from Wilson’s 55 percent in 1994 to Lungren’s 38 percent in 1998.

In truth, Lungren lost because whites didn’t show up and vote for him. While the number of Hispanic voters increased by 160,000 from 1994 to 1998 (out of 8.4 million votes cast), the non-Hispanic vote total dropped by 975,000. Without Prop. 187 to bring them to the polls, the percentage of non-Latinos voting fell from 41.4 percent to 35.9 percent.

Yet what truly doomed him in 1998 was that while Wilson had won 61 percent of the white vote in 1994, Lungren took just 45 percent. When a Republican doesn’t win the white vote, he doesn’t win the election. Period.

http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_05_08/cover.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 4:53 PM

When a Republican doesn’t win the white vote, he doesn’t win the election. Period.

Except it's not just win, is it? It needs to be by a pretty decent margin, no?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 6, 2007 4:59 PM

If you want to understand why California switched from voting Republican in 9 of 10 Presidential elections from 1952-1988 to Democratic in the last 4, you need to understand the impact of affordable family formation on voting. Republican family values appeals don't resound in California as well anymore because voters are less likely to be able to afford to have families, due to the high cost of living and low wages. Obviously, immigration played a big role in that trend, but (A) It's a generation-long process and (B) Republican voters didn't get deported, many just moved, making other states more Republican.

http://www.isteve.com/2005_Dirt_Gap.htm

It requires profound innumeracy for Democrats to think it's prudent to risk the next decade or two of elections in order to, in the words of Bertolt Brecht, "elect a new people" so they can win in the middle of the century.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 5:13 PM

"Except it's not just win, is it? It needs to be by a pretty decent margin, no?"

By a decent margin, but not by a huge margin -- the difference between Bush losing the popular vote in 2000 and winning the popular vote in 2004 was, overwhelmingly, his improvement from 54% to th 58% of the non-Hispanic white vote, which is still close to 4/5ths of the national electorate. If the GOP could get back to the 60% the first Bush won in 1988, they'd win through the 2010s.

The arithmetic really isn't that hard, but journalists don't do math.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 5:18 PM

Let's think about it from a non-partisan good government standpoint. Is it really in the best interests of America to use immigration to hurry along the historical process by which Democrats become the Nonwhite Party and Republicans the White Party? I call this the Mississippification of national politics. In 2000, for example, Gore won 96% of black voters in Mississippi, the state with the largest black proportion of the population, while Bush won 81% of white voters (Bush won the state, easily). In contrast, in mostly white states near the Canadian border, the white vote was more evenly split between the candidates because race is a less a politically dominant factor in a heavily white state.

Is Mississipifaction good for the country in the long run? I don't think so, so why not slow down the process to give us more time to deal with it?

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 5:29 PM

I think Sailer and Campesino, based on their previous comments in this space, illustrate a basic tension within the anti-immigration bloc. To put it succinctly, whenever illegal immigration is debated, there will always be opponents of immigration who say loudly that there are no racial politics in play in the immigration debate and that accusations of nativism or racism are ad hominems intended to deflect attention away from the real issue. But this is troubled by the fact that there are, in fact, many people in the bloc who are nativists and what to preserve the white identity of America.

Look I'm not really interested in debating whether or not the desire to keep a white demographic majority in the US, or a white power structure, is racist or not. I think that would probably gum up the debate with semantics. The point is though that questions of immigration are wrapped up in questions of race. I'm tired of anti-immigration folks talking as though questions of race are a red herring. That's not to suggest that everyone who is in favor of crackdowns on illegal immigration does so from the standpoint of nativism, or that there aren't strong arguments that have nothing to do with racial politics. But it is certainly true that for many, it is a racial question.

Since I brought it up, I'll just say that, as a proponent of liberal democracy, I don't believe that government should have anything to say whatsoever about the racial makeup of the country. Egalitarianism is a core virtue, and I am unmoved by arguments about "traditional American identity." I'm not interested in artificially reducing the percentage of Americans who are white, and I'm not interested in artificially preserving their majority.

Posted by Freddie | November 6, 2007 5:31 PM

Freddie eloquently articulates my point that most of what passes for pro-immigration "analysis" simply consists of moral grandstanding to preen themselves on how ethically and culturally superior the speaker is to all those horrible racists who actually think about immigration and even, if you can imagine such a thing, are aware of the numbers.

Here's a simple numerical question that nobody should consider themselves qualified to comment upon immigration unless they can answer correctly.

First, let's review some facts. Currently, over 20% of all Mexicans in the world live in the United States, and over 40% of the remaining 109 million residents of Mexico say they would move to the U.S. if it was legal.

Now, here's the question that's relevant to immigration policy:

How many people in the world live in countries with lower average per capita GDPs (measured in purchasing power parity terms) than Mexico?

You find the numbers to crunch here:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 6:01 PM

Freddie,

The racial make up of the electorate qua race isn't an issue for me when it comes to immigration. It may be for the 'white nationalists' but I am convinced these are a minority among anti-illegal immigration advocates. I would have no problem seeing increasing numbers of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian (along with European) immigrants, for example. My issue isn't the color of the immigrants' skin but their ability to assimilate in and contribute you to our society and economy.

Mestizo immigrants from Mexico and Central America are low-achieving groups that consume more in government services than they pay in taxes. Since they lag white Americans in education and economic attainment (even after several generations here) they are likely to be dependent on government largess for generations and thus reliable voters for the Democratic Party, which specializes in taxing high achieving groups and redistributing to lower achieving groups.

If, on the other hand, half or more of our immigrants were from high-achieving groups, then I think Sailer's prediction of a "white" party and "non-white" party wouldn't be accurate; instead you'd have the high-achieving groups like the South and East Asians in the GOP and you'd continue to have most of the blacks and mestizos in the Democratic Party.

Posted by Fred | November 6, 2007 6:06 PM

Well Freddie, as a self-proclaimed proponent of liberal democracy, are you interested in the right of a people to choose to prevent unlimited numbers of foreign citizens from taking up residence in the United States?

Posted by Homer | November 6, 2007 6:07 PM

By the way, you can find the population data you need to answer my simple little question how many people live in countries poorer than Mexico here:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 6:16 PM

The arithmetic really isn't that hard, but journalists don't do math.

I wonder if the numbers change a bit when you go state by state.

Is it really in the best interests of America to use immigration to hurry along the historical process by which Democrats become the Nonwhite Party and Republicans the White Party?

I used to think this is what was happening, but, IIRC, the white vote outside of the South is--while still Republican--much less so. I'm not sure it's quite as straightforward as you're suggesting.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 6, 2007 6:16 PM

Steve, if you want me to engage with your arguments, you've got to be fair and actually listen to mine. There are many separate and distinct argument for and against large scale Mexican immigration into the United States. I have simply grown tired of hearing about how a certain line of argumentation doesn't exist when, in fact, it does. Now I'm sorry if I've misrepresented your views, but given your much repeated beliefs about genetic predisposition to undesirable personal traits among Mexicans, I thought that your rabid anti-immigrant stances were motivated by those beliefs. I don't think that was unwarranted. (And I am distinctly tired of doing the Sailer dance again, where I have to convince you over many comments to come right out and say what you think about genetic racial inferiority.

I think if you'll look, Steve, you'll admit that there isn't much argumentative content in your first paragraph there.

Well Freddie, as a self-proclaimed proponent of liberal democracy, are you interested in the right of a people to choose to prevent unlimited numbers of foreign citizens from taking up residence in the United States?

Sure. I don't understand where I said different. But it is essential to point out that there are, contrary to what you hear over and over again, many anti-immigration zealots who do, in fact, argue from a nativist position-- they want to preserve a white ethnic character for America. There's nothing disqualifying about holding that opinion, and I never suggested there was. I for one am uninterested in the United States having any particular racial makeup, and I said so. That is my opinion, and I'm as welcome to it as a nativist is to his.

Posted by Freddie | November 6, 2007 6:35 PM

If we aren't going to prevent easy crossing of the Mexican border, we are going to continue to get tens of millions of people coming in from the less educated ranks of Mexico and the rest of Latin America. We have generations of experience with their relatives, and we can make a reasonably accurate prediction for the performance of future generations in America, which is that on average they will _not_ turn out as well as the Ellis Island immigrants to whom they are constantly compared by sentimentalists.

In contrast, Canada and Australia have a system of carefully selecting immigrants based on hard evidence that their immigration is likely to prove beneficial for current citizens of the country.

However, in the very long run, Mexico's actually a minor issue compared to the bigger question of the rest of the world, which, without stringent border control, will swamp Mexicans as immigrants in the long run.

I see that nobody has answered my simple numerical question about how many people live in poorer countries than Mexico. This shows once again that most mainstream immigration bloviating is just status competition among whites to prove how morally superior they are, but who can't be bothered to think about simple numbers.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 6:47 PM

This shows once again that most mainstream immigration bloviating is just status competition among whites to prove how morally superior they are, but who can't be bothered to think about simple numbers.

Or that we're lazy and need an influx of vigorous foreign blood to save the nation from sloth.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 6, 2007 7:01 PM

I see that nobody has answered my simple numerical question about how many people live in poorer countries than Mexico. This shows once again that most mainstream immigration bloviating is just status competition among whites to prove how morally superior they are, but who can't be bothered to think about simple numbers.

Steve it's possible to understand those numbers but not agree with you about the conclusions you draw from them, or particularly care.

Posted by Freddie | November 6, 2007 7:19 PM

Well, from that cia factbook lists, it appears that Mexico is actually above avg in world GDP. Taking the 40% figure from the survey and applying it to the world you end up with 1-2 billion people who would wish to move to the US.

Will the benefit of increased restaurant variety offset the costs?

Posted by Nima | November 6, 2007 7:34 PM

Doesn't Steve Sailer have anything else to do? Jeez.

Posted by edwyn | November 6, 2007 7:45 PM

The thing is, 60-40 to 58-41 is a 3% difference in favor of the Democrat in 2004 compared to 1988. That's not as big as the 5% difference for the election as a whole, but both 3% and 5% are fairly small numbers, and there's both on the same scale. I don't think it's really accurate to say, "comparing 1988 and 2004, whites didn't budge, but the electorate as a whole did." Rather, it looks to me like both whites and the electorate as a whole moved in favor of the Democrat, but not on quite as large a scale as the electorate as a whole moved in favor of the Democrat. (But not a massively significantly smaller scale either)

Posted by Julian Elson | November 6, 2007 8:26 PM

Freddie,

What's wrong with this country moving toward the sort of immigration points system used in Canada and Australia? Why not import smart professionals, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs from all ethnic groups instead of elementary school dropouts from just one?

Posted by Fred | November 6, 2007 9:18 PM

The underlying point is that any rational immigration policy, which by its nature has enormous impact on the future of America, would have to be based on predictions about the future behavior of different kinds of people based on data. In other words, based on social science.

But, as we saw with the recent ritual humiliation of America's most prominent man of science, James Watson, for making a prediction about the economic prospects of Africa, social science -- the making of predictions about groups based on data -- has come to be equated with racism.

Thus, the extremely low quality (ignorant, innumerate, etc.) of intellectual discourse on immigration (and on much else in public life).

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 6, 2007 9:57 PM

would have to be based on predictions about the future behavior of different kinds of people based on data. In other words, based on social science.

While that has the word "science" in it, it's still bullsh*t.

Posted by Col Bat Guano | November 7, 2007 12:20 AM

Steve Sailer,

Freddie & Co. may be willfully ignorant, but I wonder whether you might be able to find more traction for your policy goals if you didn't explicitly frame them racially. For example, if we went to a Canadian- or Australian-style point system for immigration, the net effect would be drastically reduced immigration from Mexico. Those points systems give preference to applicants with higher education, so the current crop of Mexican immigrants with 4th grade educations would be boxed out.

If your goal is to see an immigration policy that selects for immigrants with high levels of human capital, then it can use race-neutral criteria such as educational levels, etc. and there's no need to rub egalitarians' noses in data about average group differences. That would seem to be the path of least resistance.

Unless of course your goal is to actually have a policy that selects for immigrants using explicitly racial criteria, e.g., you want more Northern Europeans and less of every other group.

Which is your goal? If it's to increase the human capital of our immigrants, it seems you are banging your head against the wall by focusing explicitly on race; if your goal is to move back toward the racial composition of America circa 1900, then I guess your current tack make sense.

Posted by Fred | November 7, 2007 1:33 AM

My basic goal is to help people understand human realities better. They can make up their own minds what they want to do with this knowledge.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 7, 2007 2:12 AM

The real question is how will politics function in the U.S. once the demographics of the U.S. become more like the demographics in California or NY.

If blacks and Hispanics turned out to vote at the same rates as whites, the Republican party would be irrelevant today. As the Hispanics and black populations grow faster than whites, those demographics groups willl eventually make the U.S. a one party state because black and hispanic voters will be able to overwhelm white Republicans even with poor turnout.

Thus, how will politics work in a one party state? Look at the Mayoral election in Baltimore. There was a general election on Nov. 7 but the real election occurred months earlier in the Democratic Primary. Eventually, tThere will be a presidential election when the Democratic nominee will be the certain victor. Thus, the presidential election will be decided in Iowa, New Hampshire, and maybe a couple of other states.

Posted by superdestroyer | November 7, 2007 5:46 AM

I don't know why you're assuming that the Republican and Democratic parties would stay exactly the way they are once the demographics have changed that much. More likely, we'd end up with completely different versions of both parties.

Posted by AlanC9 | November 7, 2007 7:30 AM

alanc9

Blacks have been voting overwhelmingly for Democrats for over 40 years. Most blacks have probably never voted for a Republican. Do you really think their is an issue, a strategy, or a campaign platform that will ever get blacks, Hispanics, or Asian voters (who all vote for 60% for Democrats) to ever vote for Republicans?

Posted by superdestroyer | November 7, 2007 9:44 AM

Superdestroyer,

Blacks voted overwhelmingly Republican for about 70 years, from the Civil War to the beginning of the Great Depression. Blacks switched to voting for Democrats when FDR became President, and have stayed overwhelmingly Democratic since then.

History indicates then that Black voters will vote for Republicans, if they feel that Republicans can be trusted over Democrats. When African-Americans viewed the GOP as the Party of Lincoln, they voted for it over the Democrats. When the Democrats became the party of FDR, they voted for it over the Republicans.

So if you want to get Blacks to vote for the GOP, then you must get the GOP to take steps to regain the trust of African-Americans. Simple things like dropping opposition to affirmative action of any sort would go a long way toward rebuilding that trust. As Tony Brown says, when it comes to caring for African-Americans, the Democrats at least pretend to care. The Republicans, on the other hand, don't even bother to pretend. (This was well-illustrated by the failure of Giuliani, Rommney, and Thompson to attend the GOP debate moderated by Tavis Smiley.)

Posted by eltoro | November 7, 2007 12:40 PM

"History indicates then that Black voters will vote for Republicans, if they feel that Republicans can be trusted over Democrats. When African-Americans viewed the GOP as the Party of Lincoln, they voted for it over the Democrats. When the Democrats became the party of FDR, they voted for it over the Republicans."

The salient point here is that blacks started voting for Democrats with the rise of the welfare state, because blacks tend to be poorer and Democrats tend to be more generous in distributing the income of other groups to them than Republicans.

"So if you want to get Blacks to vote for the GOP, then you must get the GOP to take steps to regain the trust of African-Americans."

Like trying to improve their education with the NCLB? Like appointing more black cabinet members than any previous administration? Bush has bent over backwards to "regain the trust of African Americans", but their voting patterns have barely budged, and the reason is simple: Democrats are more generous to blacks with other people's money.

Posted by Fred | November 7, 2007 12:48 PM

"My basic goal is to help people understand human realities better. They can make up their own minds what they want to do with this knowledge."

No offense Steve, but this sounds like a dodge. I'm sure you feel you understand human realities pretty well. What do you want to do with this knowledge?

Posted by Fred | November 7, 2007 12:50 PM

Eltoro,

The percentage of the vote that was made up of blacks before 1940 was very small. Blacks voted for Republicans in the north because Democrats ran the Jim Crow South and did not let blacks vote.

However, when modern media, an established black media, and large urban areas that are overwhelmingly black, there is not chance that the Republicans will ever get more than a few percent of the black vote.

If Republicans try to pander to blacks with quotas, set asides, and difference admission and hiring standards, all that will happen is that the Republicans will lose more middle class white votes without gaining any black votes (See the immigration bill disaster that was based upon the fantasies of Karl Rove).

In the end, as the demographics of the entire U.S. become more like California, the voting trends of the U.S. will be more like California. The real question is what will middle class whites do when they realize that they have been eliminated from the politics process? In the past, middle class whites have been able to vote with their feet when they lost control of the ballot box but what happens when the whole country become like Los Angeles or the District of Columbia?

Posted by superdestroyer | November 7, 2007 1:23 PM

The problem with the immigration debate is that it really isn't a debate about immigration. There are effective ways we could limit immigration from Mexico by pushing additional enforcement on business. We could also think about helping Mexico get their shit together. But the party that is most concerned about the influx of Mexican immigrants is also allied with people who find those two possibilites toxic. Therefore the 'immigration' policy we get is just to make life for immigrants as miserable as possible. That won't actually do any good with respect to the real problems immigration brings, but it will make both the businessman and the nativists happier.

The whole 'rest of the world' line seems like a red herring to me. The problem here is not our immigration policy. Its our enforcement policy. Its pretty hard to enforce a strict immigration policy when you have millions of people residing along your border that want to move in. Its not so hard when those people have to travel thousands of miles to get here, especially since those people are by near definition, dirt poor.

Given the political environment, I think its apparent that the only reasonable thing to do is to take our medicine with regards to mexican immigration. Anything else will probably end up being worse. And it probably won't be the disaster most nativists make it out to be.

Posted by mpowell | November 7, 2007 2:11 PM

"The salient point here is that blacks started voting for Democrats with the rise of the welfare state, because blacks tend to be poorer and Democrats tend to be more generous in distributing the income of other groups to them than Republicans."

Fred,

While you are correct the FDR's New Deal policies (which created the modern welfare state) led to the abandonment of the GOP by African-Americans, it doesn't explain why African-Americans have STAYED with the Democratic Party since the enactment of the New Deal

After all, voters in other demographic group also switched to the Democratic Party because of the New Deal, but many either switched back to the GOP or became split-ticket voters (e.g. Reagan Democrats, which consisted of a large portion of white ethnic, Roman Catholic, pro-union Northern households that usually vote Democratic at the municipal, county, or even state level, but voted for Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II for President). One of the factors that correlated with this switch was the rise in affluence experienced by many New Deal beneficiaries in the post WW2 era. The more affluent these beneficiaries tended to become, the more they tended to sympathize with the GOP.

The exception to this trend were African-Americans. African-Americans, who are poorer on average than whites, are nevertheless far wealthier than they were during the Depression. The majority of African-Americans in this country are at least middle-class, and the average income of African-Americans has risen dramatically even in the South, since the success of the civil rights movement in destroying the Jim Crow regimes of the South. In fact, you will tend to find the greatest concentrations of African-American affluence in the South, in places like Atlanta or Charlotte or Nashville. Moreover, like other ethnic & racial groups, voter participation is heavily correlated to levels of education and income. In short, middle-class, college-educated blacks are more likely to be voters than poor blacks who dropped out of high school. Therefore, you would expect to see a similiar degree of defection in favor of the GOP among African-Americans that you see among whites.

Why hasn't this happened? After all, the majority of Black voters do not make use of the welfare state (especially since Black people who do make use of the welfare state tend not to be voters in the 1st place). Therefore, Democratic generosity toward the welfare state can't be the sole or even dominant reason for continued Black support of the Democratic Party, since contrary to popular belief, most black voters ARE NOT welfare recipients.

So, Fred, why do African-American voters favor a strong welfare state so much, even though most of them do not require its services or resources?

Posted by eltoro | November 7, 2007 2:49 PM

"The percentage of the vote that was made up of blacks before 1940 was very small. Blacks voted for Republicans in the north because Democrats ran the Jim Crow South and did not let blacks vote."

Superdestroyer,

Blacks made up a smaller percentage of the total electorate in the past, but their share was hardly insignificant. When you make up around 10% of the population, the votes you cast are hardly insignificant. The GOP lock on Black voters certainly contributed to the electoral dominance the GOP experienced from 1896 to 1932, since it allowed the GOP to be competitive in the urban North with the Democratic Party, whose Dixiecrat wing made the GOP almost irrelevant in the South.

In addition, while Dixiecrats instituted Jim Crow regimes in the South, northern Democrats resisted the use of dejure racial segregation. Therefore, since there was little difference between Northern white Democrats and Northern white Republicans when it came to defacto racial segregation, Jim Crow by itself does not explain the preference for the GOP by black voters THROUGHOUT the US until the New Deal. Rather, it is the trust that the GOP built in African-American voters as the Party of Lincoln. The Republican Party was associated with the destruction of slavery; the Democratic Party was not. Moreover, the people most committed to the Jim Crow regimes of the South made the Democratic Party their home, until the civil rights movement succeeded in destroying those regimes. Those Strom Thurmond types then bolted the Democratic Party, and became the base of the GOP in the South.

In other words, Blacks were committed to the GOP for decades after the Civil War, because their mortal enemies made their home in the Democratic Party. Blacks now are opposed to the GOP, because their mortal enemies made their home in the former Party of Lincoln.

Posted by eltoro | November 7, 2007 3:18 PM

eltoro,

And since the "mortal enemies" of blacks are in the Republican Party, it is pointless for the Republicans to try to appeal to blacks (or to Hispanics). The Republican party could come out for racial reparations and blacks would still not vote for Republicans but most of the whites who vote Republican would immediately flee the Republican party.

that is why the Republican party was fated to become irrelevant in politics. The Republicans are a minority party but anything they do now loses more votes than it gains.

However, as seen with the recent issue with Senator Obama and the homophobic gospel singers, blacks will probably have much less political power once the Republican Party collapses. White Democratic elites will no longer have to tolerate the extremes of blacks politicians (think Cynthia McKinney) when black votes are no longer needed to defeat Republicans.

Posted by superdestroyer | November 7, 2007 3:47 PM

"The Republican party could come out for racial reparations and blacks would still not vote for Republicans but most of the whites who vote Republican would immediately flee the Republican party."

This is only true if the Democratic Party follows suit and tries to outdo the GOP on this issue. However, there is no guarantee that the Democratic Party will actually do this, particularly if it is dominated by triangulators like Hilary Clinton and Rahm Emmanuel. Remember that reparations wouldn't go down well with key Democratic constituencies, such as northern white ethnics.

It's possible then if the GOP actually tries to live up to being the Party of Lincoln again by supporting reparations, then Blacks and Southern whites may switch parties (Blacks back to the GOP, Southern whites back to the Dems), causing each party to revert back to its post-Reconstruction demographic makeups.

So I wouldn't be too pessimistic about the continued survival of the GOP amidst demographic change. Even if Blacks attain electorla predominance over American society, and whites assume the relative position that non-whites now enjoy, I don't the GOP will cease to exist. If Blacks become the new Whites tomorrow, they will become the new Republicans.

They may not call themselves Republicans, but they will be the equivalent of today's Republicans. American politics will always require one faction to play Jefferson, and another faction to play Hamilton. The Federalist Party was reincarnated as the Whig Party, and the Whigs were reincarnated as the Republicans. The Jeffersonian Republicans became Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party, then evolved into the party of Grover Cleveland, then William Jennings Bryan, then Woodrow Wilson, then FDR, then JFK & LBJ, until it became today's party of the Clintons, John Kerry, Al Gore, Barack Obama, etc.

Posted by eltoro | November 7, 2007 4:41 PM

eltoro,

Interested groups could support two parties when the government was 3% of the economy, there was no real code of federal regulations, and no national media.

In todays world of 33% of GDP being consumed by the government, 100's of thousands of pages of federal regulations, and a national media that forces a consensus for a political party, no group can afford to be out of power for very long. In the future, groups and voters will only support winners because no group can afford to be viewed as targets.

In addition, no group can afford to leave the current Democratic Party because blacks, Hispanics, jews, and homosexuals are not leaving period.

Also, many places in the U.S., (DC, NYC, Mass, MD, function as one party states. There is no magic to make the U.S. a two party government.

Posted by superestroyer | November 7, 2007 6:53 PM