Yeah, yeah, that’s what Dems said about southern Europeans and Irish people, and catholics in general. The Republicans just can’t reach them, they’ll be Democrats forever.
Sure, right now it’s not that way, but in a couple of decades… A white guy who doesn’t speak Spanish is a white guy. And in a couple of decades, there will be several million Sanchezes and Rodriguezes who neither speak a word of Spanish nor have relatives who speak Spanish.
Oh. So you’re willing to get locked out of Presidential elections for “decades” until those silly little (light) brown men quit speaking Spanish and become “white” - which will magically make them Republicans without any other changes? That’s the plan?
Whew, glad we got that worked out. Last one out of the thread turn off the lights, please.
I think adaher’s missing something big- many white people, especially young white people, see the Republican party as an archaic institution filled with old, white, rich men. Many don’t want to be part of a nigh-whites-only club, even if it says it welcomes everyone. It’s not just to get minority voters that the Republican party should be alarmed about this- it’s because it turns off so many white voters too. When Republicans don’t repudiate to the point of expelling the dog-whistlers as soon as that dog whistle is sounded (and phrases like “welfare queens” and “food stamp president” sound like dog whistles to many, even if they’re not intended as such), it makes many white voters think the party tolerates racism, even if they don’t promote it.
You can wish this away, or blame the media, but it still exists. When young college folks are embarrassed to admit they’re conservative or Republican (as many are), the party has a serious problem. It used to be like this for Democrats and liberals- but increasing diversity and media tolerance turned this around (not really due to any conscious effort by the Democratic party)- socially progressive views became “hip” and socially conservative views became the opposite, and this made it ok again to be Democrats. I don’t think the same thing can happen with the Republicans… the media certainly isn’t going to promote social conservatism.
“welfare queens” and “food stamp president” aren’t dog whistles, they’re train whistles. Newt Gingrich based his entire 2012 campaign on trying to out-dog whistle the rest of the field.
Will Democrats ever get a 49 state win? Not as long as Montana, Utah, and the Dakotas exist. These states will always be lily white and Republican red. That doesn’t matter. Until the Republicans get the idea that you can be a good citizen and not be Caucasian, Christian, and heterosexual they aren’t going to win any presidential elections. If their strategy is to scare the bejeezus out of whites that “those people” are after “their” money and guns, they’ll succeed in having a very loyal minority of voters.
The Democrats won a majority of votes for House seats in 2012 but won a minority of seats. If you can argue with a straight face that 1) it wasn’t due to gerrymandering and 2) it would be impossible to draw district lines that would allow for a Democratic House, then I think your relationship with reality is pretty shaky.
But then, if you think that you’re probably already a Republican, so that last sentence is redundant.
First, I don’t know that this will occur, and neither do you. Second, how does the loss of the ability to speak spanish magically cause folks to become Republicans?
I think it’s more likely they will think “those sons of bitches wanted to boot grandma out of the country”
Because Jesus didn’t speak Spanish.
Wait…
I’m going to need a cite for this. I swear you guys just make stuff up that sound good, even when it’s not. In 2008 Obama won Whites under 30 54% to 44%. In 2012 he lost that same group 51% - 44%.
Seriously. That’s a seventeen point swing.
You DO realize that doesn’t mean that 17% of that demo who voted for Obama in 2008 voted for Romney in 2012, right? It much more likely means that a sizable portion of that demo instead either didn’t vote or voted for a lefty third-party like the Greens. If anything, young progressive whites think Obama isn’t liberal ENOUGH…that group isn’t going anywhere near the GOP.
Not such a good idea in hindsight, that.
We would never have gotten a Constitution without it. The smaller colonies would never have agreed to any offer that didn’t at least put them on par with the larger ones. Given what we had to do to off the 3/5 Compromise, I don’t see the Senate being made obsolescent anytime soon.
ETA: De facto senescent, on the other hand…
Oh, come off it. I get a mini-diatribe about how the GOP is turning off voters, especially young Whites, but when I give a cite showing that, from 2008 to 2012, Obama/Democrats actually went from winning that demographic by 10 points to losing that demographic by 7 points, you turn around and try to rationalize it with some crap about “young, White progressives” or whatever. Please. If Republicans had lost the under 30 White vote in 2012 by 7 points, I’d bet everything I own that you all would be in this thread chest pounding about how this is a sign of impending doom for the GOP.
The simple fact of the matter is that the post I responded to was in error.
(And fwiw, in both 2008 and 2012, Whites under 30 were 11% of the total electorate.)
And “white” might actually be the least important word in that sentence.
But it wasn’t the Irish and Catholics that changed it was the attitude of the conservatives changed when they started accepting Catholics and Irish as Americans rather than as undesirables. The whole question of this thread is whether Republicans will realize that rabble rousing against Hispanics is a losing proposition, or whether they will accept them like they eventually did the Catholics and Irish. It appears that, in the short term at least, the answer is no.
My post was an opinion, based on statistics as well as experience. You can feel free to disagree, but the fact that Romney won a much smaller, in raw numbers, turnout of young white people in 2012 (which I already knew) doesn’t affect my opinion. In my experience, 10 to 15 years ago, young people were embarrassed to admit they were liberal. Now, in my experience, young people are embarrassed to admit they’re conservative or Republican.
I’m sure in your world the overall perception of the Republican party, and the party’s long-term strategy, are just fine. In fact, I hope most Republicans agree with you. I look forward to the next several elections to see which one of us is right.
I hope you won’t revoke my rational-thinker credentials, but I agree with Oh-My-God and Adaher about one thing: The 2016 Presidential Election will be close.
I’m ready to predict that election result right now:
[ul][li] Democratic candidate - 29.3% or 29.7%[/li][li] Republican candidate - 29.7% or 29.3%[/li][li] Other candidates - 1%[/li][li] Did not vote - 40%[/li][/ul]
While I can confidently predict the 1st-place choice (Did not vote), I expect the race for 2nd place to be quite close. Optimism is good, but many of you seem overly cocksure.
Of course, it plays out differently if any RW makes a third-party run, like they sometimes talk about.
Do you even realize that its the GOP who is all about ONE election, the 2010 midterms, and that they’ve essentially been bleeding voters for the last 4 elections? No, on second thought, don’t answer that. I’m sure the answer will be that you didn’t know about it, and that even if its true, you will come up with some way to spin it so that the GOP had big wins in 2006, 2008, and 2012. Somehow. :rolleyes:
As long as the GOP can keep Congress, which they can do quite easily, I don’t care. I consider control of Congress to be much more important than the White House. Until Democrats change their platform to appeal to the 30-odd red states in this country, Republican control of the Senate should be assured.