Dumbest of the smart kids, pundits have flocked to the obvious mistaken lesson of the last election. That is, that the GOP is a victim of demographics. Again and again, I have heard Latinos trotted out as the example,roughly 3 of 4 voting for the Democrats, the narrative goes. Asians too, some have said, went big for Obama. (Sorry, black people, but you are ignored even in your imbalanced support of the half-yours president.)
Republicans, they say, mistakenly counted on winning by appealing to whites alone, they hoped to win on the backs of the Saxons, winning the hearts of the Anglos in such numbers that they would be swept to victory one last time before the melanin-rich take over from the money-rich.
Bullshit. Just as any "red" or "blue" state has a goodly number of folks of the other color, so do "white" people hold opinions other than the birther-believin', gun totin', Jesus-lovin' dogma. A large (if not majority) percentage of us voted for Obama. Not me, of course, I voted for Jill Stein. Others voted for Gary Johnson, a white guy who for some reason thinks that marijuana should be legal and oil companies should not rule the country, which is blasphemy in the church of the holy Caucasus. Others voted for Others, or sat the election out. We are no more a uniform group than Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, or Sikhs.
Pundits imagine an era upcoming in which the GOP will not get elected because burgeoning blocs will vote the other way. Maybe, but not all of them, not forever. The commentators wish to imagine that the GOP will scramble now to win over groups who we all know have very little in common with a philosophy whose radical left consists of the Chamber of Commerce/Country Club set. Sure, a few will follow the Cuban Right, the Allen-West African-Americans, the Brahmans.
But the election we just had seemed to show other patterns. That people do occasionally vote in their own interest, instead of their most crass aspirations. That money cannot buy elections with a measly 4:1 spending advantage. That we really cannot succeed by redistributing all our wealth upward.
The day we all vote according to race (whatever that is) is the day democracy is over. White guys had a nice run, but there is no more permanent demographic majority.
Republicans, they say, mistakenly counted on winning by appealing to whites alone, they hoped to win on the backs of the Saxons, winning the hearts of the Anglos in such numbers that they would be swept to victory one last time before the melanin-rich take over from the money-rich.
Bullshit. Just as any "red" or "blue" state has a goodly number of folks of the other color, so do "white" people hold opinions other than the birther-believin', gun totin', Jesus-lovin' dogma. A large (if not majority) percentage of us voted for Obama. Not me, of course, I voted for Jill Stein. Others voted for Gary Johnson, a white guy who for some reason thinks that marijuana should be legal and oil companies should not rule the country, which is blasphemy in the church of the holy Caucasus. Others voted for Others, or sat the election out. We are no more a uniform group than Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, or Sikhs.
Pundits imagine an era upcoming in which the GOP will not get elected because burgeoning blocs will vote the other way. Maybe, but not all of them, not forever. The commentators wish to imagine that the GOP will scramble now to win over groups who we all know have very little in common with a philosophy whose radical left consists of the Chamber of Commerce/Country Club set. Sure, a few will follow the Cuban Right, the Allen-West African-Americans, the Brahmans.
But the election we just had seemed to show other patterns. That people do occasionally vote in their own interest, instead of their most crass aspirations. That money cannot buy elections with a measly 4:1 spending advantage. That we really cannot succeed by redistributing all our wealth upward.
The day we all vote according to race (whatever that is) is the day democracy is over. White guys had a nice run, but there is no more permanent demographic majority.
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