As with many good intentions, my pledge to address the “demography is destiny” political nonsense has fallen by the wayside, consumed by intervening events. Consider this just a touch on the issue.
It’s not that broadening the appeal doesn’t matter, it’s just that demographic arguments are way overblown.
Here are the seven takes of Meghan McArdle, you’ll have to read the link for the details:
Some reasons for my skepticism
1. That majority sure isn’t emerging very fast.
2. Ethnic coalitions are inherently unstable.
3. We are heading for a showdown between public sector unions and taxpayers.
4. We’re heading for a showdown between the recipients of old-age benefits, and recipients of all the other kinds of benefits.
5. On social issues, Democrats are badly positioned for the future.
6. Mitt Romney was a uniquely bad candidate for 2012.
7. GOP tax cuts have enabled Democratic spending promises.
Here’s some more good news, rates of intermarriage are up as a percentage of the population, and high rates of intermarriage for Hispanics and Asians have not decreased in the past 30 years:
Try as the Democrats do to segregate people ideologically based on skin color, the concept of “race” is becoming more and more blurry, so much so that the Census bean counters are pulling their hair out and federal agencies are having similar problems. The implications for electoral politics and the diversity industry will be profound.
We should not chase skin color and ethnicity the way Democrats do.
We don’t need to, we just need to make our case better to everyone.
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Comments
While I’ll agree with #2, it seems to me, regarding #3 and #4, that we’ve already had the showdown and lost. The rest I just disagree with, and I don’t think #2 is enough to hope for the future. In fact, I think it’s better to stop hoping and start taking action. No one’s going to come save us. It’s everyone for themselves.
I was about to point out in the previous thread (the article)that its more about “people types” than skin tones.
It would do more to consider the reasons single women have come to think about government roles than attempt to quantify racial make up and appeal to specific subgroups.
I agree with Prof J.
If increasing intermarriage and the resulting loss in the salience of race in almost every topic of public discussion does nothing more than to shup up Chris Matthews and the other race-card obsessed nuts … it’ll be that much better for the greater good and my blood pressure.
Now that the old South Africa is gone, what nation is most obsessed about keeping tabs on their citizens’ race? Hmmm….let me think about that…
The table is disappointing.Just where are the Neandethals & most recent additions -The Denisovans ?
That lot in there is old news,
What does this matter? As we’ve seen lately, in order to be a ________, you just need to have been told you are by your old Aint Bee or Unkie Fudge.
Forget all this DNA and blood ancestry stuff. Now, it’s all about how you feeeeeeeeeeeeeel about your ethnicity.
First, noting that I am Chinese and German by ethnicity, and adopted into the Highland Clan MacPherson by marriage. I think I cover the intermarriage angle pretty thoroughly. And in my extended family besides Chinese and the normal mix of Northern Europe [including Celts of various flavors], we have Blacks, Hispanics, and various Native Americans [both North and Central].
Demographics is destiny, but over generational time spans. We do not have that much time. It is akin to the saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword, just not at any given moment.”. Things are at the sharp and pointy stage now, and changes in demographics will not bear on the coming of the Long Night.
Subotai Bahadur
Sell freedom. Sell it up and down and in all its forms, sell it emotionally, intellectually and practically (society prospers when individuals have the most freedom). Sell the interconnectedness of all freedoms among all different types of people. The Left can only snarl and shrink in the presence of the argument for freedom.
Have any of you seen the lovely (snarc) new proposal by Senator Harkin to federalize all retirement plans, including 401K plans and IRA?
It basically confiscates your retirement, puts it into a pool that would be shared by all, and divides it up among all of us, all in the name of “equality” and protecting our retirement investments.
It is nothing more than a proposal for a federal grab of your retirement pensions based on the Democrat spin of “protection”.
Have any of you seen the lovely (snarc) new proposal by Senator Harkin to federalize all retirement plans, including 401K plans and IRA?
I’ve heard rumors about that for the past two years; makes me feel better about the fact that I’ve already squandered a considerable portion of my IRA holdings on a glorious eight-week tour of French Polynesia. 🙂
When we bought our house two years ago, we had to borrow from my husband’s 401 for the downpayment. I had seriously considered just paying the penalties and withdrawing the funds, but let myself be talked out of it.
I’m beginning to think I should have stuck to my guns on that issue.
Who didn’t see this one coming? It was a bad bet, investment-wise from the get-go. Created when Boomers were in their peak earning years, Boomers and Gen-Xers have trillons parked in tax deferred instruments.
I may be overly cynical, but I always thought that the govt would plunder these accounts when the Boomer demographic pig got stuck in the entitlement python.
What part of “Hello, I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” didn’t my fellow Boomers understand?
“We don’t need to, we just need to make our case better to everyone.”
No matter on how well a “case” is presented, the effort will be in vain when the dumbed down segment of the population exceeds fifty percent…
You got it. How can you have an intelligent debate with people who think “if you won’t give me what I want it’s only because you hate me” is a cogent argument?
Agreed. Dividing the electorate into many opposing groups doesn’t really work very well. Cheating and theft does. I am convinced that most of the congressional elections that we lost in close calls were stolen.
We must stay on top of this. Voter ID laws are under attack exclusively by the organized left. Additional measures must be taken to ensure proper voting and vote counting. e.g. Same day registration and voting is simply a setup for fraud. There are plenty of other problems that need to be fixed. Each of our states must fight this out in the courts, because the left wants to keep the advantage very badly. It must be done with sufficient time margin prior to the next election in 2014.
Cheers
McCain was a bad candidate.
Here in Washington State, Rob McKenna was a bad candidate who tossed conservative social values into the ocean. He lost.
Romney was a great candidate. He ran a brilliant campaign and I have no regrets so far as him being able to save the country.
Romney made the campaign about stark contrasts- which was needed. He gave the country a choice and the country choose free stuff.
I think the stock market’s response since the election pretty much sums up what have to look forward to. Glad I hold signficant amounts of short positions 🙂 As optimistic as I was about a Romney win, I kept covered calls on everything.
The problem with our case is that it is often unpalatable. People dream of instant gratification, which cannot be reasonably fulfilled. People want redistributive change, which requires involuntary exploitation. People want retributive change, which denigrates individual dignity. People want hedonistic freedom, which is used to rationalize evolutionary dysfunction, including the elective abortion of a million human lives annually. People want to advance their political, economic, and social standing, and are willing to betray their principles, and other people, to achieve it. People want to exist in a lower energy state while enjoying the conditions afforded by a higher energy state.
For the American standard of conservatism to work, people have to be capable of self-moderating behavior. They have to respect individual dignity. They have to acknowledge an intrinsic value of human life. They have to reject dreams of instant gratification. They must choose liberty over submission with benefits.
There is a principal reason why history is cyclical. Why progress is a terminal condition. Let’s hope people have learned to control their impulses and base nature.
Our reality is not zero-sum per se, but it does generally follow an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary model.
From McArdle’s article “Forced to run too far to the right in the primary, particularly on immigration”.
Perhaps the problem is, politicians refuse to tell us who they really are, and prefer to be etch-a-sketch candidates. They become so nuanced on every issue that they don’t inspire confidence (or turnout).
I’m not clear on how to treat a Hispanic differently than a white person, so as to win their vote. I prefer more legal immigration, of people that have something to offer our country. None are entitled to our entitlement state. Legal immigrants should learn they are not entitled to anything based on their race. But who says immigrants have to be mostly non-white, and that “diversity” based on race is going to make us better?
Diversity is the code word for more racial preference, and less adherence to the constitution. We need to appeal to self reliance and “preach” the ideals of the founding fathers. Expose the leftist agenda in schools, and insist students be taught about their own free country, not the glories of
Marxismprogressivism.FRAUD-PROOF all swing states run by republican governors or all this hand-wringing and everything else is for naught.
2012 election was stolen through fraud; there are numerous instances in the papers in Florida and elsewhere, i.e.: a precinct in Allen West’s district had 7 registered voters but 900 people voted there in 2012. This is just one example.(27,000 ballots in Palm Beach County were “not read properly” and were “rewritten” onto blank ballots by election workers!)
Intellectualizing is important but is not the only answer.
Just a quick follow up to something the Prof said at the end there^^ about chasing skin colors etc.
Yes and stop rewriting the Dream Act.
Recall when the Administration changed the rules without Congressional approval we called it pandering.
Now some are doing the same thing and calling it “catching up”.
Over time for a variety of reasons, the goal of “becoming American” has lost its flavor/favor.
Was a time newly arriving immigrants couldnt become American fast enough. They learned the language and worked to become part of their new whole. We can all remember the days when Grandpa Sebby talked of the old days…his struggles with a new language and how he bacame self employed down on Main St. He had Italian blood running thru his veins but his heart was all American. He both believed and lived the American Dream. He chose to be more proud to be an American than Italian.
Compare with today where immigrants are almost rewarded, or at the least singled out for being a transplanted Italian not an “all in” American.
We need less focus on where people came from and more on what we know as “Americanism”. Agreed values.
Re: Liberal Racism. Has anybody noticed that there are no interracial couples in TV ads? I’m talking big time products on network TV. This includes Asians (whose kids are always shown as implied geniuses in a bonus racist point).
I think this is to avoid complaints from the various race hustlers like Al Sharpton but for all the supposed media support for tolerance it is striking.
Sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything conservatives can do until the money runs out, not with the Left’s total control over the bureaucracy, education and media. We’re outnumbered, pure and simple. Nothing we say will convince voters that free stuff is enslavement. Work? Responsibility? Respectability? That’s for chumps, Pal, I want my free ____ and I want it now!
I’ve witnessed the change in California where whites are now a racial minority and the GOP registration is 29%. These nitwits have returned the Central Valley back to a poverty riddled, semi-arid wasteland our ancestors turned into the nation’s food basket. VDH is right, we have to wait it out and hope there’s something to rebuild.
The Left is convinced that its brand of smarty-pants socialism will succeed and although we know it cannot, they will have to fail to purge it. We must take victories where we may, to slow the Great March, but the momentum is against us. The coming systemic failure is not going to be pretty, a dark age is upon us and we are the keepers of the knowledge. We must endure or our Republic is indeed gone.
I know Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Guatemalans, Argentinians, Panamanians, Columbians, etc. I’ve never met a person who self identifies as Hispanic except for left wing political operatives.
I also know Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Thais, but no “Asians”.
The grievance mongers like to force people into little boxes. It really doesn’t work for long unless people want it to work by self segregating and holding on to the past.
I don’t agree with Meghan McArdle,or Ross Douthat. Everybody has some kind of group with whom they identify — friends and neighbors, it may be ethnic, but probably isn’t. The essential article is Dan Henninger’s “Barack Obama’s Persuasion Army” in the Wall Street Journal. The real problem is that Democrats’ goal is to win, and they will say and do most anything to achieve that goal. Oh sure, they have some nice giveaways to help them out, but it is only about winning and power.
Republicans end goal is pretty much being left alone. To achieve that end, we pursue what we believe to be good government, which in most cases is less government, because we have lots of evidence, over time, that the folks in government are just as dumb and make as many mistakes as the rest of us. They are not to be trusted. We elect those we believe to be most qualified to do battle with the winning and power bunch.
We’ve got a lot of low-information voters out there, by which I mean only those who don’t pay much attention to politics, not the uneducated or ignorant. The message we want to convey is complicated. Soak “the rich” is a simple, clear message. (Let those other guys pay) Republicans have to try to explain that a big percentage of “the rich” are really businesses which their founder reports on his 1090, and if they are too heavily taxed, they will get their stuff made in China instead of here; or if too heavily unionized they will shut down, and the hell with your 18,000 jobs. Then we’d have to explain why unions aren’t really working any more, and when it comes to unions — public sector unions aren’t working at all. You name the issue,and the explanations are complex; but the opposition will have a simple slogan because they don’t care if it’s true or honest, only that it will help them win.
So we can lie and appeal to “interest groups.” stop worrying about good government and being left alone, or try harder to find the best words and images to explain our complicated messages. And we could STOP eating our own. How many Democrats did you hear criticizing Debbie Wasserman Schultz? How many Republicans did you hear criticizing Romney, or McCain, or Palin? Multitudes.