“Most Democrats like to believe that, since a relatively conservative white population is in sharp decline while [it is being deliberately replaced by] a presumably liberal nonwhite population, the course of social and demographic change should deliver an ever-growing Democratic coalition. It is simply a matter of getting this burgeoning nonwhite population to the polls.”
I think the race thing is way overblown. Are Hispanic people white? Does it matter? I'd say in the south west United States just about no one cares. Fifty years ago yes, it was a big deal, discrimination was a fact of life. That was generations ago, there is little memory of it. No one can tell who is what even by surname.
There is a lot more commonality via income and education, class if you will, than there is via race or ethnicity. The Democratic Party would do better to concentrate on ending illegal immigration, and boosting the incomes of the bottom two quintiles into the middle class.
What I don't understand is why this shift hasn't been reflected in the overall polling numbers. Two possibilities are:
Harris is rallying enough college graduates to counter the shift in Hispanic working class voters.
The election polls aren't capturing the shift in working class voters due to likely voter screens and normalizing demographics based on past election results. (Hispanics historically vote at lower rates.)
The Democrats real problem may be that many Hispanics don't identify as Hispanic, but as their nationality. When I was last in southern California, I saw people in T-shirts saying "Don't call me Hispanic, I'm Mexican."
Also, race was never as salient a factor in Latin America as it is in the United States. Even though Brazil didn't abolish slavery until 1888, I never hear anyone writing about the black vote in Brazil.
I am representative of big city political choices, but the Hispanics and Mexicans I know are NOT down with social justice narratives. They do not want to be labeled as oppressed, are culturally conservative, and don't really enjoy being lumped in with all other minorities. I've always known this would backfire on the Dems.
I have been saying to Democratic friends for years that Hispanic voters are NOT a natural fit for today's Democratic Party, given the traditional values and religiosity of many Hispanics. The response often has been that Republican antipathy towards minorities will repel Hispanics into the Democratic fold regardless of social issues.
(By the way, I consider myself a moderately liberal Democrat and I have frequently voted for moderate Republicans. I will not vote for a Republican right now and at least until Trump is gone.)
A big problem with this thinking is that it overlooks that Republican support among non-rural whites isn't what it used to be either. Mitt Romney won whites by almost twenty points. Trump struggles to keep his gap in double digits. So, no matter how many have said otherwise, this racial realignment really doesn't seem to be a one-way street. The left may not like this since it sees itself as the ideology of the unfortunate, but it's by no means not sustainable.
Another issue is that this isn't just happening in the U.S. but the whole West. Only real exception I can think of is the UK's nonwhite vote, and that country went from a remarkable Conservative victory to a remarkable Labour victory over the last five years. The fact that Labour wasn't able to increase its nonwhite support compared to 2019 suggests that Britain is also subject to this trend.
And as this is a worldwide trend, don't assume, despite the past, that it's because of anything the Democrats have done. Or, despite the central message of this Substack, that they can do much about it.
Woke Democrats show no interest in the real lives, let alone the real thoughts and feelings of individuals they view as "black and brown." The woke mob is also fickle as hell, consistent with the fact that so many of them are less than 25 years old. It appears in fact that they have moved on from idealizing Latin Americans (if they ever did) and even African Americans, and are now canonizing Middle Eastern terrorists. So, it is unrealistic to expect that the Democrats will be interested in who the people really are who have immigrated to the U.S. from countries south of our border.
Latinos:
Are largely working-class;
Are disproportionately churchgoers, with a growing preference for conservative Evangelicalism over social-gospel Catholicism;
Are a characteristically hard-working and often entrepreneurial culture, averse to and presumably resentful of “welfare culture”;
Don’t pay that much attention to feminist or sexual-minority issues, and are often hostile to them.
Have their own forms of “right-wing talk radio”/YouTube channels (and church pulpits) where hot-button “culture” issues are regularly aired.
It’s no surprise that this political shift is happening.
The Pennsylvania polling is pretty worrisome.
“Most Democrats like to believe that, since a relatively conservative white population is in sharp decline while [it is being deliberately replaced by] a presumably liberal nonwhite population, the course of social and demographic change should deliver an ever-growing Democratic coalition. It is simply a matter of getting this burgeoning nonwhite population to the polls.”
I think the race thing is way overblown. Are Hispanic people white? Does it matter? I'd say in the south west United States just about no one cares. Fifty years ago yes, it was a big deal, discrimination was a fact of life. That was generations ago, there is little memory of it. No one can tell who is what even by surname.
There is a lot more commonality via income and education, class if you will, than there is via race or ethnicity. The Democratic Party would do better to concentrate on ending illegal immigration, and boosting the incomes of the bottom two quintiles into the middle class.
That depends a lot on location.
What I don't understand is why this shift hasn't been reflected in the overall polling numbers. Two possibilities are:
Harris is rallying enough college graduates to counter the shift in Hispanic working class voters.
The election polls aren't capturing the shift in working class voters due to likely voter screens and normalizing demographics based on past election results. (Hispanics historically vote at lower rates.)
The Democrats real problem may be that many Hispanics don't identify as Hispanic, but as their nationality. When I was last in southern California, I saw people in T-shirts saying "Don't call me Hispanic, I'm Mexican."
Also, race was never as salient a factor in Latin America as it is in the United States. Even though Brazil didn't abolish slavery until 1888, I never hear anyone writing about the black vote in Brazil.
I am representative of big city political choices, but the Hispanics and Mexicans I know are NOT down with social justice narratives. They do not want to be labeled as oppressed, are culturally conservative, and don't really enjoy being lumped in with all other minorities. I've always known this would backfire on the Dems.
I am NOT representative. Whoops. I am a suburban female. My bad.
I have been saying to Democratic friends for years that Hispanic voters are NOT a natural fit for today's Democratic Party, given the traditional values and religiosity of many Hispanics. The response often has been that Republican antipathy towards minorities will repel Hispanics into the Democratic fold regardless of social issues.
(By the way, I consider myself a moderately liberal Democrat and I have frequently voted for moderate Republicans. I will not vote for a Republican right now and at least until Trump is gone.)
A big problem with this thinking is that it overlooks that Republican support among non-rural whites isn't what it used to be either. Mitt Romney won whites by almost twenty points. Trump struggles to keep his gap in double digits. So, no matter how many have said otherwise, this racial realignment really doesn't seem to be a one-way street. The left may not like this since it sees itself as the ideology of the unfortunate, but it's by no means not sustainable.
Another issue is that this isn't just happening in the U.S. but the whole West. Only real exception I can think of is the UK's nonwhite vote, and that country went from a remarkable Conservative victory to a remarkable Labour victory over the last five years. The fact that Labour wasn't able to increase its nonwhite support compared to 2019 suggests that Britain is also subject to this trend.
And as this is a worldwide trend, don't assume, despite the past, that it's because of anything the Democrats have done. Or, despite the central message of this Substack, that they can do much about it.
Woke Democrats show no interest in the real lives, let alone the real thoughts and feelings of individuals they view as "black and brown." The woke mob is also fickle as hell, consistent with the fact that so many of them are less than 25 years old. It appears in fact that they have moved on from idealizing Latin Americans (if they ever did) and even African Americans, and are now canonizing Middle Eastern terrorists. So, it is unrealistic to expect that the Democrats will be interested in who the people really are who have immigrated to the U.S. from countries south of our border.