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.
No they won’t. Democrats pay the bills.
The Republicans don’t need them all. If the Republicans get 25 percent of the black vote and 45 percent of the hispanic vote, the Democrats are screwed. This goal is achievable.
Right, don’t panic that the entire nation is being swamped by illegal immigration.
And we’re too stupid to just stop it.
Whites will NEVER get “minority” benefits.
No way “Our time has come”....oops, Obama said that to his people didn’t he.
“Not this proud American of (partly) Italian decent. Nor most of my family.”
There are many noteable exceptions of course. Still, ethnic Italians and Poles—and especially Jews—will by a huge measure be found in blue states, voting reliably Democrat.
With comments like this, is it any wonder why Republicans have such a problem reaching minorities?
And why is that?
Don’t agree that the way to get more minority vote is to push the social issues. Security and freebees will trump social issues anyday with most minority groups. Affirmative Action, minority set asides and other race based preferences are much more important to them.
Bingo. The message should not change depending on whom you are addressing.
Very true esp w/Jews. My sister in law (wife’s brother’s wife) is Jewish and a registered Dem, but she’s slooooooowly coming around, mostly thanks to my brother-in-law.
She liked Hillary but is not a fan of Obama at all. We’ll bring her into the fold.
Now her parents and siblings, well that’s another matter entirely. I don’t know them that well but they seem firmly entrenched in liberalism from what I can see, as well as most of her friends Jewish and otherwise.
I never understood why Jews are so liberal overall.
The GOP could certainly do more to reach out to minorites but there are two problems:
1. They’re doing it wrong - instead of offering “goodies” - why not explain WHY they too are conservative.
2. Part of it is just cultural - this is a much harder nut to crack.
I don’t see how pointing this out is so wrong. It’s not a tenth as racist/culturalist as what liberals say every day under the guise of being “multicultural.”
Quite thankfully, but at some point, the system will have to collapse.
I'm glad somebody else noticed.
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