I still spend plenty of time on fivethirtyeight.com, even though polling is at a virtual standstill since THE election.
So when I found this nugget there, I had to spout off.
As you can see, whites were somewhat of a drag on the Obama ticket.
That's not trenchant analysis from yours truly, to say the least. You have eyes too. But what's telling is that once you remove the 2008 variables from the picture, the near future starts to look quite bleak for the Republicans. Between 2016 and 2024, the Democrats are likely to nominate a white candidate; after all, they tend to do so most years. A white candidate, presumably, might not suffer from the exact same sort of prejudice BHO faced last year. And let's say Obama doesn't self-destruct and historians continue to condemn Bush for the abominable job he did in the Oval Office. And if the candidate's Hillary, think "historic election" all over again. So to recap: Less racism + Obama coattails = Democrat coasting to victory.
(Oh wow! Look at all my unhatched chickens!! One, two, three...)
And then, in a not-too-distant election year, nonwhite voters will begin to outnumber white voters. 2040, 2042 and 2044 are good candidates.
So in my fantasy world, the GOP has a mini-window of 2024-2040 to regain the White House. Yes, I understand that the presidency is not the end-all of American politics. But not having it for, oh, decades -- that might reduce a party to a great deal less relevance than it currently enjoys. (I use the term "enjoy" loosely. Liberally, if you will.)
It's entirely possible, then, that come 2024, every voter under age 50 will only have W. as a frame of reference for Republican presidents. Ouch. If you thought 23 percent of the population self-identifying as Republicans was bad...
So I happen to think that a marginalization of the GOP is a good thing for the future of politics in America. That's because I'd really like to see the Democrats break up... whaaa?
"John, that's not really what you mean. You call yourself a Democrat. Your beliefs line up pretty well with those leftist SOB's. You're just saying that for effect."
Ah, but I DO mean it. We are a centrist country. We don't need the balance of power to swing from guys like Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi. I just don't believe that's healthy. What we need is a centrist party.
My evil dream scenario goes like this: R's become the party of the white angry male evangelical and assorted random humans. R's stop winning elections. D's consolidate power in all three branches. D's infight until the party splits. New party in the center, the Liberty Party, is king of a three-party system and builds coalitions with reasonable members of the two leftover radical parties. When health care needs reform, Liberty Party members can negotiate with the left and push something through Congress... when states' rights or gun ownership rights are threatened, they can work with the right.
Oh yeah, this Liberty Party is an amalgam of the dozen or so good facets of the current Democratic Party and the three or so good qualities of the GOP. More on it later. When I'm not suffering from the blogarrhea you just crawled through to get here, I'm working on an America 2050 post. I need to write it before I'm a 75-year-old cranky old fart living in 2050.
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You have it backwards.
ReplyDeleteYour model assumes democrats in power, but no party in power will want to consider splitting; the risk are too high. There are hefty financial and political reasons to work things out.
You need to root for a split in the GOP - between Cheney and Powell - between pro-waterboarding and anti-waterboarding repubs. Much more likely.
But let's be honest, three is too many, too complex, and too unstable for us simplistic Americans. We are the furthest of ANY country on the planet from transitioning to a multiparty setup. We like things polarized. It's Coke or Pepsi for us, the rest are jokes. And I don't see that changing by 2050.
Sincerely,
RC Cola
Well, clearly, I don't honestly expect to D's to split in the foreseeable future. They have too much to gain. But if the R's completely fall off the face of the earth, as in, 29 Senators, 140 House reps and no White House in '16, then the D's will be too powerful. And then they'll overreach like nobody's business, because they won't be able to help themselves.
ReplyDeleteThen the R's will stage a comeback. That's the part I don't want. I like my fringe lunatics neatly cordoned off to the side of our national debate, and if we can de-legitimize the crazies on both sides of the aisle, then all the better. But to get there we need a third party, a center-left coalition of reasonable people.
Hey, crap, why does that hurt so much, jeez, that stings, gotta get up from this chair, what the frak... oh right, the army of flying monkeys came out that way.