> It’s an easy story to believe, but this year two political scientists called it into question. In their book “The End of Southern Exceptionalism,” Richard Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin argue that the shift in the South from Democratic to Republican was overwhelmingly a question not of race but of economic growth.
More important, that alliance is already mathematically impossible. Trump only won by courting blue collar whites and a critical mass of conservative people of color. By 2050, Hispanic people will comprise 30% of the population. To ratchet up the racism while still managing to win elections (you can’t “annihilate” anyone without having political power), the right would have to pull in almost all white Democrats. But those are the most liberal group in the entire electorate, and a big chunk of the electorate’s socialists.
The mathematics of the situation is that there are billionaires, and 10-20% of the population that are riding the wave behind them. (These folks are disproportionately urban and suburban white people, and also disproportionately liberal.) There is no way to build a coalition with those people that involves scapegoating fully half the population that comprises people of color and immigrants.
Personally, I would be really unsurprised to see the hispanic vote start to match the traditional "bible belt" vote in the next few decades. That might be republican, it might be something else - but the idea of a conservative catholic demographic voting similarly to another conservative christian demographic makes a lot of sense to me.
>There is no way to build a coalition with those people that involves scapegoating fully half the population that comprises people of color and immigrants.
You can limit people of color's access to the ballot box and turn away immigrants. Like rich people have regularly done for most of this countries existence.
> It’s an easy story to believe, but this year two political scientists called it into question. In their book “The End of Southern Exceptionalism,” Richard Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin argue that the shift in the South from Democratic to Republican was overwhelmingly a question not of race but of economic growth.
More important, that alliance is already mathematically impossible. Trump only won by courting blue collar whites and a critical mass of conservative people of color. By 2050, Hispanic people will comprise 30% of the population. To ratchet up the racism while still managing to win elections (you can’t “annihilate” anyone without having political power), the right would have to pull in almost all white Democrats. But those are the most liberal group in the entire electorate, and a big chunk of the electorate’s socialists.
The mathematics of the situation is that there are billionaires, and 10-20% of the population that are riding the wave behind them. (These folks are disproportionately urban and suburban white people, and also disproportionately liberal.) There is no way to build a coalition with those people that involves scapegoating fully half the population that comprises people of color and immigrants.