Posted on 04/04/2011 11:22:10 AM PDT by Sarabaracuda
Are whites on the verge of becoming a minority of the American population? That's what some analysts of the 2010 Census results claim. Many go on, sometimes with relish, to say that this spells electoral doom for the Republican Party.
I think the picture is more complicated than that. And that the demise of the Republican Party is no more foreordained than it was a century ago when Italian, Jewish and Polish immigrants were pouring into the United States in proportions much greater than the Hispanic and Asian immigration of the past two decades.
The numbers do appear stark. The Census tells us that 16 percent of U.S. residents are Hispanic, up from 13 percent in 2000 and 9 percent in 1990, and that 5 percent are Asian, up from 4 percent in 2000. The percentage of blacks held steady at 13. Among children, the voters of tomorrow, those percentages are higher.
But it's a mistake to see blacks, Hispanics and Asians as a single "people of color" voting bloc. The 2010 exit poll shows that the Republican percentages in the vote for the U.S. House were 60 percent among whites, 9 percent among blacks, 38 percent among Hispanics and 40 percent among Asians.
Simple arithmetic tells you that Hispanics and Asians vote more like whites than like blacks. The picture is similar in the 2008 exit poll.
Moreover, while blacks vote similarly in just about every state, there is wide variation among Hispanics. In 2010 governor elections, Hispanics voted 31 percent Republican in California, 38 percent Republican in Texas and 50 percent Republican in Florida (where Cubans are no longer a majority of Hispanics).
As RealClearPolitics senior political analyst Sean Trende has written, Hispanics tend to vote 10 percent to 15 percent less Republican than whites of similar income and education levels. An increasingly Hispanic electorate puts Republicans at a disadvantage, but not an overwhelming one.
The same is true of Asians. In 2010, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid got 79 percent from Asians in Nevada, where many are Filipinos. But the Asians in Middlesex County, N.J., most of whom are from India, seem to have voted for Republican Gov. Chris Christie in 2009.
The 2010 Census tells something else that may prove important: There's been a slowdown of immigration since the recession began in 2007 and even some reverse migration. If you look at the Census results for Hispanic immigrant entry points -- East Los Angeles and Santa Ana, Calif., the east side of Houston, the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago -- you find that the Hispanic population has dropped sharply since 2000.
One reason is the business cycle. The 2000 Census was taken on April 1, 2000, less than a month after the peak of the tech boom. Unemployment was low, immigration was high, and entry-point houses and apartments were crammed with large families.
The 2010 Census was taken after two years of recession, when immigration had slackened off. We simply don't know whether this was just a temporary response to the business cycle or the beginning of a permanent decline in migration.
Past mass migrations, which most experts expected to continue indefinitely, in fact ended abruptly. Net Puerto Rican migration to New York City stopped in 1961, and the huge movement of Southern blacks to Northern cities ended in 1965. Those who extrapolate current trends far into the future end up being wrong sooner or later.
Finally there is an assumption -- which is particularly strong among those who expect a majority "people of color" electorate to put Democrats in power permanently -- that racial consciousness never changes. But sometimes it does.
American blacks do have common roots in slavery and segregation. But African immigrants don't share that heritage, and Hispanics come from many different countries and cultures (there are big regional differences just within Mexico). The Asian category includes anyone from Japan to Lebanon and in between.
Under the definitions in use in the America of a century ago, when Southern and Eastern European immigrants were not regarded as white, the United States became a majority non-white nation sometime in the 1950s. By today's definitions, we'll become majority non-white a few decades hence.
But that may not make for the vast cultural and political change some predict. Not if we assimilate newcomers, and if our two political parties adapt, as we and they have done in the past.
Just the whites should panic.
Hummmm, wonder what the tax rates will be when the majority of the population is on welfare?
No need to panic. Just ram through amnesty before the Rats. That will keep them in votes.
Yes, but 100 years ago, we didn’t have a redistributionist, race-mongering Government to cement entitlements and racial views into place.
“is no more foreordained than it was a century ago when Italian, Jewish and Polish immigrants were pouring into the United States...”
And the vast majority of the descendents of those Italian, Jewish, and Polish immigrants are STILL reliably voting Democrat, forming really the base of that party...
Don’t panic just reproduce. Also we’d have a bigger chunk of the black/minority vote if the GOP were clearly conservative on social issues and sold it to those groups. Look at California. If the GOP in California were getting what Prop 8 got they’d soon run the state. Instead many GOP friendly voters just don’t show up or they are minorities who generally vote Democrat “just because”. It is the white liberals who are the problem in both parties. The rest of us should reproduce and keep our kids out of the liberal indoctrination camps otherwise known as public schools.
*raises hand*
Not this proud American of (partly) Italian decent. Nor most of my family.
“Don’t panic just reproduce. “
Inbetween working like a slave to make a living and pay the taxes to suppor the underclass voting base.
Not if we can reverse a few things to the way they were intended and and remove anchor babies, including the one in the White House. (British father means not a Natural Born Citizen. Who cares where he was born?)
Liberty will always have a constituency. The individual is the smallest minority on earth, and the liberals are not on his side.
It really depends on the Italians, I think. Those who still live in the five boroughs or Chicago’s south side might be expected to vote for Democrats. Those middle and upper-class Italians who live in the ‘burbs mostly won’t.
So, when whites become a minority, does that mean that the Voter Rights Act will automatically sunset?
Well I grew up in Akron, OH.
Conservatism knows no skin color.
The republican party will go away because of liberals taking over. In fact, it’s already happened. There is only one party in this country. We need a second party. See my tagline.
It can be frustrating but eventually you have to decide what your priorities are. Life is about family because our families are one part of us that can invariably go on. I’m not saying to go crazy and disregard good sense but I think many are being played the fools by adhering to liberal modern ‘standards’ of what success is. Are the young people who have the brand new cars, party every weekend, and constantly looking to find a bed mate truly happy? One of the key reasons that single women vote for big govt by larger margins than married women is because they are afraid and are looking for security.
Don’t let the govt trap you. If you live in a state that taxes too much move to one that doesn’t and tell people that is why you are getting out. If you live in an area with not enough jobs again move. Freedom is best when you use it because if you don’t we most certainly will lose it. Family is not as nearly as costly as our modern world would have us believe. Our kids don’t need to go to expensive liberal institutions to learn and be happy and get good paying jobs.
We don’t have to live in urban areas where everything is within walking distance we need if anything to shun those areas. We can vote with our dollars and our residency and with our children. If we don’t then we lose and you can ether be paying for your own children or paying higher taxes to raise another liberal slave.
Not to worry. Whites can get minority benefits and the others won’t. Sounds good to me.
The Democratic party has made a major blunder. They just don’t realize it yet.
The Democrats have become so beholden to the gay and lesbian votes that they probably will be unable to oppose further demands from the group. Once they force gay marriage through, the next step will be mandatory gay education in the schools. They are already demanding this and getting it in the schools in liberal areas. They will also probably demand a lowering of the age of consent.
At some point, Republicans can just say “are you with God or with the Democratic party?” Democrats wll call such a question hateful, Mcarthyite, whatever, but it will be a very good question nonetheless. Many Hispanic votes and black votes will probably leave the Democratic party once the gay agenda pushes too far.
Don’t forget, 2050 is at least two to three generations away. During that time, expect much cross-racial breeding to occur that will effectively dull the sharp extrapolated spike in so-called “Hispanic” and so-called “Asian” numbers. (I’m half-Korean and half-white, my son, who will be born this July, will one-quarter Korean, three-quarters white. What will his sons and grandsons look like? How will they be defined?)
Additionally, what is “Hispanic” and what is “Asian” anyway?
How these two groups are defined is how their numbers are tallied. Do demographers really think that Koreans and Indians have anything in common other than having roots on the same-ish continent? Ask a Korean or an Indian and they’ll tell you. What about a Welsh Argentine and a Quechua native Peruvian who both immigrate to the US as “Hispanics”? Are they the same in any way, even in the language that they speak? Not really.
Point being, beware of these straight-line projections; things change, populations are always in flux, particularly when it comes to procreation and nebulous definitions.
Hmm...perhaps by then we will ALL finally be called Americans!
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