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Demographics May Be Destiny -- But Not One Political Direction
Townhall.com ^ | May 13, 2014 | Michael Barone

Posted on 05/13/2014 10:24:13 AM PDT by Kaslin

Demography is destiny, we are often told, and rightly -- up to a point. The American electorate is made up of multiple identifiable segments, defined in various ways, by race and ethnicity, by age cohort, by region and religiosity (or lack thereof), by economic status and interest.

Over time, some segments become larger and some smaller. Some prove to be politically crucial, given the political alignments of the time. Others become irrelevant as they lose cohesion and identity.

From the results of the 2008 presidential election, many pundits prophesied a bleak future for the Republican Party, and not implausibly.

The exit poll showed that President Obama carried by overwhelming margins two demographic segments that were bound to become a larger share of the electorate over time.

He carried Hispanics 67 to 31 percent, despite Republican opponent John McCain's support of comprehensive immigration legislation. Obama carried voters under 30 -- the so-called Millennial Generation -- by 66 to 32 percent.

But over time, Democrats' hold on these groups has weakened. In Gallup polls, Obama's job approval among Hispanics declined from 75 percent in 2012 to 52 in 2013 and among Millennials from 61 percent in 2012 to 46 percent in 2013.

The recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll of Millennials showed Democrats with a big party identification edge among those over 25, but ahead of Republicans by only 41 to 38 percent among those 18 to 20.

The older Millennials came of political age during the late George W. Bush years and were transfixed by the glamor of candidate Obama in 2008.

The younger Millennials are coming of political age in the middle Obama years and are plainly less enchanted and open to the other party.

There are other rifts in what some saw as the emerging eternal Democratic majority. National Journal's astute analyst, Ronald Brownstein, often contrasts whites and nonwhites, but nonwhites are not a single homogeneous group.

Hispanics usually tend to vote more like whites than blacks, with high-income Hispanics trending Republican.

When California Democrats tried to use their legislative supermajorities to put on a ballot proposition repealing the state's ban on racial discrimination in state college and university admissions, Asian-American legislators withdrew their support.

They had been getting hundreds of calls from parents concerned about their kids' chances to get into Berkeley and UCLA.

Campus-based Asian activists maintained solidarity with their fellow "people of color." Asian parents with their families' futures at stake saw things differently.

Union members were long a key Democratic constituency. But there are increasing splits between unions representing public sector and private sector employees.

In New Jersey, Democrats with private sector union backgrounds have backed Republican Gov. Chris Christie's fiscal reforms.

In Nevada, the state AFL-CIO is opposing the teacher unions' drive for more than doubling the business tax to pay for education spending.

On the national level, Laborers International Union president Terry O'Sullivan has spoken out bitterly against the Obama administration's repeated refusals to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

But in administration councils, that counts for less than billionaire Tom Steyer's pledge to spend $100 million against the pipeline.

Meanwhile, other constituencies have been growing with concerns opposite to those of Democratic interest groups without much notice.

Americans for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist, a board member of the National Rifle Association, points out that 9 million Americans today hold state permits to carry concealed weapons. Back in 1987, when Florida passed its concealed weapons law, there were none.

That is now a powerful constituency with an interest in opposing restrictive gun control legislation, which Hillary Clinton called for in a speech last week.

In 1990, there were no charter schools, home schooling was widely illegal and only the first student voucher programs were just beginning in Milwaukee.

Today, there are 1 million children in charter schools, 2 million children being home-schooled and hundreds of thousands of students in voucher programs from Arizona to Indiana to Tennessee.

These form the basis of emerging constituencies, consisting of millions of parents, with interests in opposition to or in tension with those of teacher unions.

Increasingly, the unions' claims that they are the only champions of "the kids" are coming into question.

All these eddies and currents have the potential to shift the nation's political focus and partisan balance, in various directions.

Any single, straight-line extrapolation, like those from the 2008 exit poll, risks missing the next turn in the political road.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: demographics; gop; millenials; polls

1 posted on 05/13/2014 10:24:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Interesting article. Political awareness becomes more significant among all groups when the reach of run-of-the-mill liberalism exceeds it grasp. Probably could say the same thing about the “hard right” as well.


2 posted on 05/13/2014 10:33:43 AM PDT by yetidog
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To: Kaslin

The free sh•t army votes for those who promise more free sh•t...


3 posted on 05/13/2014 10:35:17 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: Kaslin

Well, there is one organisation that is intensiying its efforts in the US, the Muslim Brotherhood as evidenced by the informative article on www.jihadwatch.org. The USMCO is establishing itself now.

The MB, just an international, major Isalmic orgainsation well within the normal scope of operating Islam, and not a radical group at all as considered by normal Muslims,and not considered radical by the administration for all the attention the administration gives its organs in the US, Egypt and elsewhere,including MB related advisors in the administration, is forming a political party in the US....the US Muslim Council of Organisations to immediately begin efforts to bring Muslims into a voting block and influence the US 2016 elections.

Expect international support and internal support for such an effort by the administration.

Here is the link:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/04/muslim-brotherhood-launches-its-own-u-s-political-party

“CAIR, MAS and their allied groups are so practiced in deception, and so many American voters are so ignorant and indifferent, that this group could gain real traction. Meanwhile, given that Muslims of various sects vote as blocs in Iraq and elsewhere, it is not hard to envision such a bloc emerging in the U.S., and ultimately transforming American politics. “Muslim Brotherhood Launches Own U.S. Political Party,” from Investor’s Business Daily, April 1 (thanks to Antony):

Islamofascism: With an eye toward the 2016 election, the radical Muslim Brotherhood has built the framework for a political party in America that seeks to turn Muslims into an Islamist voting bloc.

‘Muslim voters have the potential to be swing voters in 2016,” said Nihad Awad in launching the benign-sounding U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, whose membership reads like a Who’s Who of Brotherhood front groups.

“We are aiming to bring more participation from the Muslim community.”

USCMO also aims to elect Islamists in Washington, with the ultimate objective of “institutionalizing policies” favorable to Islamists — that is, Shariah law.

This development bears careful monitoring in light of the U.S. Brotherhood’s recently exposed goal to wage a “civilization jihad” against America that explicitly calls for infiltrating the U.S. political system and “destroying (it) from within.”

The subversive plan was spelled out in hundreds of pages of founding archives that the FBI confiscated from a Brotherhood leader’s home in the Washington suburbs after 9/11.

Translated from Arabic, the secret documents listed a number of Brotherhood front organizations — some of which just happen to make up the newly formed USCMO.

Front and center is the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, the catalyst behind this Trojan horse jihadist political party.

CAIR is linked in federal criminal court documents to the terrorist group Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch. CAIR’s chief Awad, who announced the USCMO at the National Press Club, is so radioactive, the FBI refuses to do outreach with him and his so-called Muslim-rights group until it can “resolve whether there continues to be a connection between its executives and Hamas.”

Equally troubling is the Muslim American Society, another founding member of the USCMO. MAS was formed as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” a 2007 Justice Department court filing states. A 2011 MAS press release praised Osama bin Laden as “a visionary who believed in an Islamic state in Afghanistan.”

The list of bad actors doesn’t end there. The chairman of America’s new Islamist party is none other than Oussama Jammal, who once headed the notorious Bridgeview Mosque in Chicago.

One of that mosque’s leaders was arrested and jailed for funneling millions to Hamas. And one of its most honored guests was bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, the late Palestinian cleric Abdullah Azzam. Some of Azzam’s relatives are Bridgeview members.

“The walls were covered with Hamas posters and recruiting literature showing masked gunmen brandishing automatic weapons. . . . You could see daggers plunged into Jewish hearts wrapped up in American flags,” said Steve Emerson, describing the mosque in his book “American Jihad.” “They even had a library filled with terrorist videos.”


4 posted on 05/13/2014 10:41:10 AM PDT by givemELL (Does Taiwan eet the Criteria to Qualify as an "Overseas Territory of the United States"? by Richar)
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To: Kaslin
There are other rifts in what some saw as the emerging eternal Democratic majority. National Journal's astute analyst, Ronald Brownstein, often contrasts whites and nonwhites, but nonwhites are not a single homogeneous group.

I suspect whites are going to coalesce into a voting block within the next few years. Democrats have carefully pushed minorities into voting blocks based on resentment and hatred of white people... They might have overplayed that hand...

5 posted on 05/13/2014 10:50:42 AM PDT by GOPJ (Want to keep your doctor? Remove your Democrat Senator. - - Freeper Balding_Eagle)
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To: Kaslin
In 1990, there were no charter schools, home schooling was widely illegal and only the first student voucher programs were just beginning in Milwaukee.

Today, there are 1 million children in charter schools, 2 million children being home-schooled and hundreds of thousands of students in voucher programs from Arizona to Indiana to Tennessee.

These form the basis of emerging constituencies, consisting of millions of parents, with interests in opposition to or in tension with those of teacher unions.

Increasingly, the unions' claims that they are the only champions of "the kids" are coming into question.

People are wising up to Democrats - they're starting to see dems back their 'most faithful' voters and they don't give a damn about 'the kids'...for anyone else for that matter.

6 posted on 05/13/2014 11:02:20 AM PDT by GOPJ (Want to keep your doctor? Remove your Democrat Senator. - - Freeper Balding_Eagle)
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To: GOPJ

“I suspect whites are going to coalesce into a voting block within the next few years. Democrats have carefully pushed minorities into voting blocks based on resentment and hatred of white people... They might have overplayed that hand...”

I thought that this might happen as pressure builds to remove white women from affirmative action programs (which hasn’t happened yet), but keep in mind that many of the whites that even bother to reproduce are gibsmedats breeding welfare bastards like the urban underclass (they’ve learned the game).


7 posted on 05/13/2014 11:12:12 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: Kaslin

Looking at an election results map it’s fairly accurate to simply use population density to predict general voting behavior. The average population density in the USA is 84 people per square mile. In most areas where the population density is below 1,000 people per square mile, Republicans are the majority. In areas greater than 1,000 people, Democrats are the majority. The reason is more government is necessary to make higher density living work. Limit water to the cities and enforce building height restrictions and people will be inclined to spread out and vote for less government.


8 posted on 05/13/2014 11:23:30 AM PDT by Reeses
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To: Kaslin

There are innumerable attributes which may be used to group persons, the attributes chosen serve a particular purpose. The question is, “what purpose is served by choosing particular attributes?”

Here the attribute chosen is “hispanic”, what purpose is served?

63% of illegal aliens are Mexican. The controlling political parties refuse to enforce existing immigration law, entice foreigners to enter illegally, and give illegal aliens preferential treatment as compared to legal aliens and citizens - all of which favors Mexicans more than any other ethnic demographic. Thus the “hispanic demographics is the future” meme is self-fulfilling, it is not an uncontrollable force of nature but willful acts. Acts which serve a purpose.

The well organized and well funded Democrat and Republican parties are pursuing an agenda of uniting the United States and Mexico. The de-facto obliteration of enforcement of immigration law during their tenure and the increasingly wild and lawless enticements made by their member politicians, serve the purpose of a United States-Mexico union. While there may be those politicians who are obsequious opportunists following their “leadership” these craven cowards and no less guilty than their traitorous masters driving this agenda.

The Democrat and Republican parties are domestic enemies, make no mistake about it.


9 posted on 05/13/2014 11:31:10 AM PDT by Ray76 (A vote for a Republican is a vote for a Democrat. True change requires true change - A Second Party!)
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To: Reeses
Do not overlook the factor that those who settled in the 17th, 18th and even in much of the 19th century, represented personality types that like more space, less congestion, than they had found in the lands they left. This personality type, is far, far less likely to want to live in an area where the density exceeds 1,000 people per square mile.

You also can see the factor, I describe, in those who stayed in eastern cities, in contrast to those who came from the same lands, who fanned out into the open spaces.

William Flax

10 posted on 05/13/2014 11:41:10 AM PDT by Ohioan
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To: Ohioan

Most modern political conflict comes from the starkly differing needs of high density commune life in the cities verses those living the American Dream: married with children, a free market job, owning a freestanding house, a car and truck, and a dog to warn of approaching government workers and other Democrats. Everyone would be happier if we had two independent governments: one for city slicker commies and one for Americans.


11 posted on 05/13/2014 11:57:02 AM PDT by Reeses
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"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
of what is before them, glory and danger alike,
and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it."

~Thucydides




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12 posted on 05/13/2014 11:57:36 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: 2banana

Our problem is the 30/80 rule.

Those under 30 swallow 80% of the sh** that the Left keeps putting out there.


13 posted on 05/13/2014 11:57:47 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Reeses

communists are never happy without having victims to control and rob


14 posted on 05/13/2014 11:58:31 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: GeronL

Yes, communists need others to generate their electricity, grow their food, provide water and gas, build their steel and concrete shelters. A lot of Republican provided things go into the cities but the main tangible thing to ever come out is trash.


15 posted on 05/13/2014 12:11:36 PM PDT by Reeses
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To: Reeses

bump


16 posted on 05/13/2014 12:14:25 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans!)
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To: kearnyirish2

Affirmative action served an important purpose when it was first started. There was great injustice done against blacks and women in this culture - and it was a small measure to undo some of that...

But it’s served it’s purpose and might actually be harming the people it was designed to help. It’s time for the program to end... for everyone equally.


17 posted on 05/13/2014 4:16:01 PM PDT by GOPJ (Want to keep your doctor? Remove your Democrat Senator. - - Freeper Balding_Eagle)
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To: GOPJ

“Affirmative action served an important purpose when it was first started. There was great injustice done against blacks and women in this culture - and it was a small measure to undo some of that...”

I have no problem with enforcing anti-discrimination laws, but any policy that accepts lower standards for certain groups is a de facto admission by the government that those groups are inferior (whether genetically, culturally, whatever). As long as those policies are allowed, nobody should be expected to treat those “preferred” groups as equal - the government is telling us they aren’t. Robbing my children of higher education and jobs is tantamount to executing all blacks today for Nat Turner’s actions - and just as indefensible.


18 posted on 05/14/2014 4:00:08 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: kearnyirish2
Affirmative action has served it's purpose - along with all anti-discrimination laws. Those laws need to sunset. It's counter intuitive, but our best intentions are working against the goal of fairness and equality.

If you have the chance read Malcolm Gladwells, "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

It's an eyeopener...

19 posted on 05/14/2014 7:26:31 AM PDT by GOPJ (Want to keep your doctor? Remove your Democrat Senator. - - Freeper Balding_Eagle)
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To: Kaslin
Hispanics usually tend to vote more like whites than blacks

Whites now vote majority republican. Hispanics vote 70% democrat.

Next "fact".

20 posted on 05/14/2014 8:57:00 AM PDT by skeeter
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