Klein begins with the latest version of the demographics-as-destiny
argument. That theory was popularized in John Judis and Ruy Teixeira’s
2002 book, “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” and used to run something
like this: as immigration from places other than Europe shifts
America’s demographics, the percentage of non-white voters will rise.
These voters will vote Democratic with the same uniformity as black
Americans currently do, and their votes will eventually be so numerous
that they will reduce the Republican Party to a permanent second place.
The next election after Judis and Teixeira’s book debuted was George W. Bush’s electoral and popular vote majority, but theories in the political world are not derailed by mere events. Demographics-as-destiny adherents focused on the “emerging” part of the title and held out hope for the day their favored politicians would win simply by existing and America would become a California writ large. Obama’s 2008 election and somewhat reduced majority in 2012 maintained the fiction, and things looked bright for the Left.
Trump’s election in 2016 changed that, as it changed nearly every working theory of American politics. Writers like Klein did not waver in their belief that Republicans would soon be swamped by numbers of unflinching Democratic voters, but added a corollary: before the apotheosis of progressivism, there would be rear-guard action by the forces of reaction. The ever-racist whites would hold off the forces of goodness and decency until even greater numbers finally swamped them. That, in brief, is the subject of Klein’s latest article.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/02/not-white-threat-harming-politics-tying-race-destiny/
The next election after Judis and Teixeira’s book debuted was George W. Bush’s electoral and popular vote majority, but theories in the political world are not derailed by mere events. Demographics-as-destiny adherents focused on the “emerging” part of the title and held out hope for the day their favored politicians would win simply by existing and America would become a California writ large. Obama’s 2008 election and somewhat reduced majority in 2012 maintained the fiction, and things looked bright for the Left.
Trump’s election in 2016 changed that, as it changed nearly every working theory of American politics. Writers like Klein did not waver in their belief that Republicans would soon be swamped by numbers of unflinching Democratic voters, but added a corollary: before the apotheosis of progressivism, there would be rear-guard action by the forces of reaction. The ever-racist whites would hold off the forces of goodness and decency until even greater numbers finally swamped them. That, in brief, is the subject of Klein’s latest article.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/02/not-white-threat-harming-politics-tying-race-destiny/
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