In 2011, nonwhite babies born in America outnumber white. Does this matter?

[BrainGlutton]

This WaPo story speculates on the future political effects.

The trend is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the country’s political alignment, the nature of its workforce and on its economic future. Predominantly white, older enclaves in the Northeast and Midwest will increasingly rely on an expanding population of young Asians and Hispanics in the West and Sun Belt to support Social Security and other retirement programs.

This CNN story more explicitly smells trouble for the GOP: "“Their voters are white, aging, and dying off.”

Washington (CNN) – When presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears before Latino small-business owners in Washington on Wednesday, he’ll address a group whose explosive birth rates foreshadow a seismic political shift in GOP strongholds in the Deep South and Southwest.

“The Republicans’ problem is their voters are white, aging and dying off,” said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who studies minority political engagement.

“There will come a time when they suffer catastrophic losses with the realization of the population changes.”

Over the next several generations, the wave of minority voters – who, according to U.S. Census figures released this week, now represent more than half of the nation’s population born in the past year – will become more of a power base in places like Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. That hold will extend across the Southwest all the way to California, experts say.

The coming political revolution could result in a massive changing of the guard on nearly every level of government, potential cultural clashes, and the type of political alliances that are now considered rare.

Well, aren’t they jumping the gun a bit? It’ll take a generation for all those kids to grow up, and effects that happen on a generational time-scale can be ignored WRT any particular election cycle. And these nonwhite kids will assimilate to American culture (apart from those whose families – American Indians, African Americans, a great many Latinos and not a few Asians – have been in the U.S. centuries anyway, they’re already part of American culture). And some of them will be conservative, or at least vote Republican, for various reasons.

My view is that hard-right conservatism, as distinct from the GOP, is doomed by demographics, all right, but, it’s not a race thing, really. It’s a generational-culture thing. Look at the 2011 version of the Pew Political Typology: The “Staunch Conservatives” have the highest average age of any of the groups – and, when they die off, they will not be replaced. Their children and grandchildren just don’t think the same way they do.

Anyone agree that a change in “racial” composition of the U.S. population necessarily translates to political realignment?

[BrainGlutton]

Mods, please edit title, I meant to say, "born in America," of course. Thanx. (Yes, yes, I know the human world as a whole has always had a nonwhite majority and always will.)

[Untoward_Parable]

Wealthy minorities need more poor people to be born than their own group to sustain their position within the power hierarchy. Whites should rejoice in all probability having more advantages than before in the US going forward.

[BrainGlutton]

@Untoward_Parable

Wealthy minorities need more poor people to be born than their own group to sustain their position within the power hierarchy. Whites should rejoice in all probability having more advantages than before in the US going forward.

From The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind:

The chief danger confronting the twenty-first century United States is not Balkanization but what might be called Brazilianization. By Brazilianization I mean not the separation of cultures by race, but the separation of races by class. As in Brazil, a common American culture could be indefinitely compatible with a blurry, informal caste system in which most of those at the top of the social hierarchy are white, and most brown and black Americans are on the bottom – forever. Behind all the boosterish talk about the wonders of the new American rainbow is the reality of enduring racial division by class, something that multicultural education initiatives and racial preference policies do not begin to address.

In the absence of sustained popular pressure from below or concern about America’s international status, the white overclass has no incentive to combat Brazilianization in the United States. For one thing, any serious effort to reduce racial separation by class would inevitably mean higher taxes on the affluent – not just the rich, but the politically powerful upper-middle class. What is more, the dominance of the white oligarchy in American politics is strengthened by the emergent dynamics of a polarized society. In a more homogeneous society, the increasing concentration of wealth and power at the top might produce a populist reaction by the majority. But in a society like that of present-day America where a small, homogeneous oligarchy confronts a diverse population that shares a common national culture but remains divided along racial lines, the position of the outnumbered elite can be very secure. This is because the resentments caused by economic decline are likely to be expressed as hostility between the groups at the bottom, rather than as a rebellion against the top. In the Los Angeles riot, black, Hispanic, and white rioters turned on Korean middlemen, rather than march on Beverly Hills.

[Marley23]

@BrainGlutton

Mods, please edit title, I meant to say, "born in America," of course. Thanx. (Yes, yes, I know the human world as a whole has always had a nonwhite majority and always will.)

Done.

[even_sven]

@BrainGlutton

From The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind:

I’m having a hard time seeing how this could possibly be seen as a new situation.

[JBGUSA]

@BrainGlutton

This CNN story more explicitly smells trouble for the GOP: "“Their voters are white, aging, and dying off.”

Well, aren’t they jumping the gun a bit? It’ll take a generation for all those kids to grow up, and effects that happen on a generational time-scale can be ignored WRT any particular election cycle. And these nonwhite kids will assimilate to American culture (apart from those whose families – American Indians, African Americans, a great many Latinos and not a few Asians – have been in the U.S. centuries anyway, they’re already part of American culture). And some of them will be conservative, or at least vote Republican, for various reasons.

---

Anyone agree that a change in “racial” composition of the U.S. population necessarily translates to political realignment?

I heartily disagree. As more minorities become entrepreneurs, employers and homeowners their values and behavior will come to resemble today’s whites.

[grude]

This is stupid hand wringing, there will be no shortage of conservative or right wing non-whites, they just won’t be exactly the same as the current hard core republican base. They will just have to alter their campaign issues a little.

Archie Bunker copy cats are going extinct, oh no! Oh wait so what.

[BrainGlutton]

@even_sven

I’m having a hard time seeing how this could possibly be seen as a new situation.

Recognition of it as a problem is a new situation.

[Nava]

My first thought was “bet they’re counting Latinos as not white, regardless of actual color”.

Sometimes being right makes my eyes try to roll off…

[BrainGlutton]

@Nava

My first thought was “bet they’re counting Latinos as not white, regardless of actual color”.

[shrug] “Race” is defined by social norms, not biology. Obama is half-black, half-white, therefore black.

[Nava]

Yeah, but the whole notion of Latinos as a single political block is as stupid as the whole notion of Latinos as being all the same shade.

[BrainGlutton]

@Nava

Yeah, but the whole notion of Latinos as a single political block is as stupid as the whole notion of Latinos as being all the same shade.

Is the notion of their growth in numbers being a political threat to the GOP equally stupid, then?

[Untoward_Parable]

@Nava

Yeah, but the whole notion of Latinos as a single political block is as stupid as the whole notion of Latinos as being all the same shade.

It’s all stupid but we know what were talking about when we distinguish these things. Pretending we don’t see blacks as black even when they’re mostly mixed or latinos as latino even when they have Spanish or other european blood isn’t going to change the way almost everyone understands race in America and for the purposes of discussing demographics we have to group people the way the majority groups them, just because some Mexicans don’t want to be grouped with Guatemalans is not a reason to not be able to talk about race in it’s American context.

[Der_Trihs]

@BrainGlutton

And some of them will be conservative, or at least vote Republican, for various reasons.

Very few, until the Republican party drastically remakes itself. There’s plenty of conservative non-whites now who vote Democrat simply because of the deep, entrenched racism of the Republicans.

As has been said before, the Republicans have put themselves in a trap. They’ve become dependent on a narrow, fanatical racist & religious demographic that is dying out, while at the same time alienating huge numbers of other people who might otherwise vote for them. If they want those alienated voters, they’d have to jettison the bigots & fanatics; but if they give up those fanatics & bigots they will lose the next few elections at least while they try to convince people that yes, they really have changed. And a party is highly unlikely to commit that kind of purge and condemn itself to years “in the wilderness” before it’s forced to. And given how much power those fanatics have in the party it’s entirely possible that the Republicans can’t throw them out anymore. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the fanatics controlling the Republicans ride their collapsing demographics down in flames, and some other party becomes the new major right wing party. Especially if the wealthy patrons of the Republicans decide they are a losing proposition that can’t be saved and decide to back a new party as their front man.

[Little_Nemo]

I don’t see why this should be a problem. So what if the average American in the future has a darker skin tone? It’s like worrying about the fact that the average American has grown taller in the last hundred years. Being an American has nothing to do with physical attributes.

[florez]

@JBGUSA

As more minorities become entrepreneurs, employers and homeowners their values and behavior will come to resemble today’s whites.

“Today’s whites”?..oh, how special that will be!:rolleyes:

[Untoward_Parable]

@florez

“Today’s whites”?..oh, how special that will be!:rolleyes:

If they’re really good at it they’ll learn to sell their own people down the river just as well!

[JKellyMap]

Bad idea to buy stock in Coppertone? Decrease in melanoma rates?

[Gyrate]

@grude

This is stupid hand wringing, there will be no shortage of conservative or right wing non-whites, they just won’t be exactly the same as the current hard core republican base. They will just have to alter their campaign issues a little.

This was my first reaction too. Unfortunately for the Republicans they have hitched their wagon a little too firmly to the anti-immigrant and anti-minority tribes. If they had any sense they’d be looking to woo the growing socially-conservative Latino Catholic population but they can’t do that AND keep the Joe Arpaio crowd happy.

Eventually, when enough of the Archie Bunkers have died out, either the Republicans will lose any race/ethnic factors in their platform and they’ll focus on the other social and economic issues or the Democrats will continue to become more conservative to capture any minorities who, absent the race issue, would more naturally be Republicans. At the moment the latter is happening. I’d like to think that there would then emerge a new left-wing party to take over the space vacated by the Dems, but then I’d also like a billion dollars and a pony.