Asymmetrical Information

The present political environment favors Democrats when we are discussing immigration. The real key will be how well Democrats can bind Hispanics and other growing ethnic groups to dependency on the state, in the future. Just based on my own anecdotal data, I don't think they will have a lot of success doing this, but Republicans could make this even more difficult if they were not so blindly anti-immigrant.

Karl Rove's strategy of attracting Hispanics to the Republicans by using social conservatism as a lure might have worked, but the Republicans in Congress and in the media blew it by displaying their bigotry a little too openly. As a result, Hispanics will vote overwhelmingly Democratic, just as African-Americans did when the Republicans embraced Goldwater's "southern strategy". If you don't believe me, look at what happend in California after Pete Wilson's anti-immigration crusade.

Quit stalling and just tell us what the new gig is.

I find articles like Ezra's about "the emerging democratic majority" to be entertaining.

Particularly given his ignorance of the fact that statements about the "permanent republican majority" were bandied about not that long ago.

A few years operating in the majority tends to wreck the majority parties reputation with the public.

The 3 percent public approval rate of the way congress is handling the war in Iraq should be a warning sign to the democrats.

The republicans ignored their warning signs, I suspect the democrats will ignore theirs.

Klein is just refurgitating a warmed-over version of the Ruy Teixera "The New Democratic Majority" argument from a few years back.

Michael Barone--whose analytical capabilities I have always had enormous respect for, even when he was still pretty much a Democrat--demolished these arguments pretty convincingly in his own book, "The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again".

Another view of this from a historical perspective is Samuel Freedman' excellent "The INHERITANCE: HOW THREE FAMILIES AND THE AMERICAN POLITICAL MAJORITY MOVED FROM LEFT TO RIGHT".

And neither of these authors can be dismissed as a shill or a special pleader...unlike Teixera and Klein.

The problem for Democrats is that immigrants and their children/grandchildren move rapidly up the economic ladder- I have yet to see a single example of the stereotypical lazy immigrant who is just here for the welfare. Such people will always eventually find the party advocating lower taxes to be their natural political location. Unless Democrats change, the immigrants and their children will still drift away from them, just like other immigrant waves and their descendents have done in the past.

What's the GOP's backup plan in case Ezra is right?

(Please look in the same folder where the KatrinaBackup plan, the IraqInvasion backup plan, the FluVaccine backup plan, and all the other Bush administration backup plans are stored).

I think TJIT's point about the democrats ignoring signs is probably correct. The hubris associated with power is apparently something neither party is immune to. I was deeply disappointed, for instance, with the Black Caucus' solidarity with Jefferson earlier in the year. It seemed like a clear example of ignoring long term interests for the short term. And the muddled response to the Iraq War seems entirely predicated on pandering.

I disagree with the comparison between the "permanent republican majority" meme and "the emerging democratic majority." The latter seems like a simple statement of fact. Demographics and political mood seem to be favoring the Dems, currently. This could change, but the phrase certainly doesn't convey the arrogance of the Republican idea.

According to Yancey, aspiring immigrants "will always eventually find the party advocating lower taxes to be their natural political location." Not so. Jews are overwhelmingly prosperous and overwhelmingly Democratic.

The important thing about presidential elections (especially now that we have an imperial presidency) is that small states have more votes than big states per capita, and that states usually aggregate votes.
So the Southern states get to vote blacks for Republicans, and the big states get to vote rural people for Democrats.
Which is why the Republicans haven't elected a president since 1988. The fix in the electoral college was only possible by corruption and fraud, and corruption and fraud is only possible because you control the local government and the people on your side are willing to fight for you.
Next election, the Republicans have to decide whether to fight, or to let the Democrats clean up the mess the way the Tories in Britain in 1940 handed the government over to Churchill.
So, what happens if the stock market, or the dollar, or the oil supply, or the weather, or the infrastructure, or the security system, cause unacceptable problems? Unacceptable to the former Republicans who were doing the corruption and fraud?
Churchill didn't take over because of an election, he took over because the Tory backbenchers revolted.
What will make you revolt against the people you voted for in the last election? What will make the Republicans ignore the fraudulent elections, or make them vote for a Democrat in a margin the overwhelms the fraud, or that makes the people in charge of the fraud change sides and steal votes for Democrats, this time.
How bad does it have to get?
A hundred year flood on the Mississippi, that shuts down every bridge south of Illinois and cause coal supply collapse blackouts this winter?
Another Rita, but through the Carolinas, this time, and a FEMA response as inept as New Orleans.
A dollar collapse that makes cars unaffordable and computers unavailable?
A oil supply collapse that restricts you to carpooling to work and back, and that's all, no other driving possible?
A terrorist attack on a high school football game that kills ten thousand people in Dallas or Birmingham?
The mortgage collapse looks containable, if inflationary. A stock market collapse shouldn't happen if inflation makes the bond market chancy, so that's probably not a serious possibility of triggering a Republican rank and file revolt.

In the last thirty years, over seven elections, not a single Democrat nominated for the Presidency has managed to get even a bare majority of the popular vote. In those same thirty years, a Republican nominated for the Presidency has won a majority of the popular vote four times out of seven.

I'll bother entertain the mere possibility of permanent Democratic majority if and when there is, you know, an actual Democrat who manages to win an actual majority. Until then, I will hold to my expectation that any Democrat centrist enough to win a majority in a two-party contest will find himself Naderized. Which will be enough on its own to keep Republicans competitive.

In any case, the whole idea of an "emerging R/D majority" is nonsense. Between 24-hour news cycles and incessant polling, it's trivial for the two parties to track left or right just enough to drive the needle back to the 49-51 mark, one way or another. One can talk about conservative-vs-liberal trends, but talking about R-vs-D trends is like predicting the temperature in a house with a thermostat.

There are many people in the United States who are not anti-immigrant, yet are not willing to let the borders disappear and be sanguine about it. There are a number of other reasons the Dems will accrue the larger number of Hispanic voters.

One of the people mentioned what happened in California. Well, I lived in cali a long, long time, and what I saw happening with the field workers has nothing to do with immigration, per se. On election day, the workers' bus would come by just before normal lunch time and pick up the workers, and I mean all of the workers, including those who had just been in the states for a few weeks or months. The bus then went to a polling station that had been set up by the local Democaratic polling group, who were all Spanish-speakers. All of the workers voted, and bragged about their being able to vote. They even talked about how a nice Hispanic man even told them who to vote for. Truth can be quite amazing...I'd have never thunked it.

Megan - I must say a hearty congratulations on your move. It takes a long time to go through all of the checks and things, but its well worth it when you finish and start the learning process. If I weren't so old I'd do it myself, for I was accepted once, but couldn't accept it myself, due to a wife who objected (and who I am no longer married to!).

Enjoy your travels.

As one who has lived on the Mississippi since 1956 (with time out for college and graduate school), I can assure wkwillis that we have a 100-year flood every 10 years or so, and a 500-year flood every 30-40 years.

The only problem with an kind of emerging majority is that it involves politicians being elected to office. History shows that the longer someone holds office the more tempted they are to do very bad things. Human nature begin what it is, politicians are likely to bring on their own demise.

One has also to remember that parties and policies are not the same thing.

An emerging Democratic majority may not be a majority that supports whatever it is the Democrats support now.

According to Yancey, aspiring immigrants "will always eventually find the party advocating lower taxes to be their natural political location." Not so. Jews are overwhelmingly prosperous and overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Jews are a unique case in that they have tended to stay on the coasts and/or in high finance, which invariably puts them in dense urban environments where Dem-supported policies tend to prevail.

The emerging middle-class Hispanic bloc, on the other hand, has a much wider spread. Some are on the left coast, of course, but many are operating in the central western states where they are, as often as not, becoming the primary proprieters of small business and industry. I somehow doubt that they're going to vote for politicians who increase the burden of labor processing or taxation.

I think the California example is pretty instructive. Pete Wilson's Prop 187 campaign was a tactical success (the proposition passed) but was a strategic failure. It probably drove Hispanics in California away from the Republican party for a while and doomed the California Republican party into nearly libertarian status in the state. falkoyn's anecdotal and completely useless California story (waving the illegal immigrant voter fraud flag) misses the point completely. The children of those illegal immigrants are US citizens and they vote. Remember California pretty regularly elected Republican governors.

"Which is why the Republicans haven't elected a president since 1988. The fix in the electoral college was only possible by corruption and fraud, and corruption and fraud is only possible because you control the local government and the people on your side are willing to fight for you."

Absolutely amazing. I think you actually believe this too. Amazing.

What will happen is what usually happens. One party takes advantage of being in charge and moves things to far to that direction. Enough people who are NOT like wkwillis are able to look objectively at the situation and vote the other side into power. Who promptly take advantage.
I think the democrats may have set a record on how fast they screw up this time, but it is entirely possible after the last 8 years we may see a Democratic president, house and senate. However, many of these will be conservative democrats who will drag their heels, so things will swing a little bit left. Until next time when they swing a little bit right. Anyone who thinks that we have the most right wing administration in history and that things have swung way over to fascism needs to get off of the internet for awhile and perhaps review a bit of history.

"falkoyn's anecdotal and completely useless California story (waving the illegal immigrant voter fraud flag) misses the point completely."

If a person describes what was seen by their own eyes, and heard by their own ears, that makes it useless? I see that it would from the perspective of someone that doesn't support the facts, anecdotal or otherwise, or it might at least highlight their bias by using Newspeak.

Is there illegal immigrant voter fraud? My experience truly says there is. Does this miss 'the point?' No, because that was part of the point. It's tedious to have to ;point out' every little 'point', because you don't want to patronize people. I believe most of the readers here have a brain to connect dots, points or even facts.

Before Prop 187 the estimated number of illegals in California was less than three and a half million (on the high side). What the proposition did allow, was for the legal residents of the state to make their wishes known to the politicos. It would have made it much harder to give illegals welfare-style benefits. It's passage was fought tooth and nail by the Democrats and their minions. They lost at almost a 60-40 ratio. When the proposition was disembowled by a federal judge, the people's voices were invalidated to allow a notorious Liberal/Progressive judge to make legislation from the bench.

By the end of the decade (2000), the entire electorate had changed. It wasn't because all of the illegals children had aged and were now voters (less than seven years), but the outflow of conservative voters was tremendous. A study conducted just before the millenium showed that almost 70% of the people leaving the state for Nevada, Utah, Idaho, etc., were these conservatives. The large number of people replacing them were not of the conservative bent (about 60%).

I guess it matters whether you have principles or not, Brian, as to whether you want to support an initiative or bill that might tweak off prospective or future voters. If you don't have principles, then you become something squishy, like a Liberal/Pinko/Senator from Maine...you know the type.

By the way, I'd be happy to wave the flag if what it represents is true, or a true representation of closely held principles. Your approval is not needed.

Sweetie, recognize whatever celebration gets you through the night. If it helps you to imagine that heroic Coalition forces are currently blowing away the nasty anti-Democratic forces, than continue applying pressure there. Otherwise, take up your cross of knowing more!

Falkoyn - anecdotal evidence proves absolutely nothing in a policy debate.

"No, because that was part of the point. It's tedious to have to ;point out' every little 'point', because you don't want to patronize people. I believe most of the readers here have a brain to connect dots, points or even facts."

That there is massive illegal immigrant voter fraud? The Bush administration's justice department made voter fraud a huge priority - and they only managed to bring 78 cases to trial last year. In other words it's statistically non existent.

" but the outflow of conservative voters was tremendous. A study conducted just before the millenium showed that almost 70% of the people leaving the state for Nevada, Utah, Idaho, etc., were these conservatives. The large number of people replacing them were not of the conservative bent (about 60%)."

So all the conservatives left the state? Wouldn't demographics indicate that they would be replaced by younger conservatives? The conservatives fled the state argument misses that California's population has grown during this time. In other words the population has grown.

"I guess it matters whether you have principles or not, Brian, as to whether you want to support an initiative or bill that might tweak off prospective or future voters. If you don't have principles, then you become something squishy, like a Liberal/Pinko/Senator from Maine...you know the type."

The problem of course isn't one of "principles" but rather the strongly nativist tone of the people associated with prop 187. I recall hearing the term "wetback" used more than once. Those same tones can be found in much of the Minuteman movement and much of the current debate. As a pure aside calling people "Liberal/Pinkos" means that you really can't be taken seriously in any debate.

What's the GOP's backup plan in case Ezra is right?

Seriously? Probably a redux of what the Democrats did when they were out of power, seeing as it's so popular among politicians of both stripes. Which was:

1. Gripe.

2. Complain.

3. Accuse the opposition of unfair tactics and/or cheating.

4. If anyone brings it up during (3), pretend the skeleton collection in the hall closet doesn't exist. In case of persistence, prepare backup story about leftover Halloween decorations.

5. Lose a couple more elections. Protest that the electorate "just doesn't 'get' the message". Accuse the mainstream voter of ignorance and stupidity during weblog interviews. Bonus points for working in the words "conspiracy" or "sheep".

6. Finally win an election. Declare triumph of principals.

7. ...while ignoring the fact that the real story of your vitory involved the other party turning so rancourous that even a nose-holding vote couldn't keep the odor down to tolerable levels.

8. ...while having no intention of maintaining those principles.

9. Wash, rinse, and repeat every 2-6 election cycles.

Except for the defection of white southerners to the GOP after LBJ, I don't think the social base of the 2 parties has changed much since Al Smith's time.

The Republican elites have broad-based ideals and policies - less government; more economic liberty; and avoidance of foreign entanglements; that should appeal to a majority of Americans, especially immigrants from failed countries with different ideals and policies. Unfortunately the Republican base is inordinately fearful of the "other". From time to time the "other" has mutated from Catholics to East Europeans to city dwellers to non-Christians to non-heterosexuals to African-Americans to Latinos.

The Republican base feels in its heart that a "liberal" (I use the 19th century definition) society can flourish only if it is socially homogenous. To win elections the Republican elite must turn out that base by pandering to the fear of the "other". This in turn makes it easy for the Democratic elites, who advocate policies of economic and social micromanagement by government along with a Wilsonian foreign policy, to win election by turning out voters who are affected by the bigotry of the Republican base.

The wonder of this age is that George W Bush embodies within his presidency all the contradictions of both Democratic and Republican ideals: avoid foreign entanglements by rejecting the UN; a Wilsonian war to bring democracy to Iraq; lower taxes; higher deficits; expanded police power; spending political capital to encourage immigration; and pandering to homophobia.

Jim Linnane

To put it to your words in another frame, the Republicans have combined the know-nothings and the Whigs. And ditched the liberal Abolitionists.

The Republicans combine 'small government' when it comes to taxes and regulation on business, but 'big government' when it comes to protection of substantial corporate interests (Newt Gingrich changing sides after the scale of tobacco contributions was pointed out to him, telcos and net neutrality, bankruptcy act, etc.) and when it comes to social conservatism (abortion, school prayer etc.).

The Republicans have also pursued a 'southern strategy' since Richard Nixon. That means they have picked up a Jacksonian belief that the US can, by throwing its weight around, militarily, achieve its foreign policy ends. And the distrust of international organisations and alliances (see global warming and the IPCC).

The best word for that trend is 'nativism'. We once called it Know-Nothing.

The problem for them is that is, essentially, an affluent white male consensus. That's great from an electoral college point of view (white males vote, and vote in great numbers, and in the right states), but demographically it puts them on the wrong side of where America is going.

The question is what can the Republicans afford to ditch of their coalition? And given the foot soldiers, the people who make the electoral machine work, are disproportionately evangelical Christians, can they craft a party acceptable to enough of the rest of the electorate?

I don't agree with Jim. I can think of two big changes in voting patterns apart from the political conversions of African-Americans and white southerners. Evangelical Christians, still strongly Democratic when Al Smith ran for president, are now largely Republican. This is one the main reasons for Republican success in the last third of the twentieth century. Conversely, politically moderate suburban whites, once the bedrock of the Republican party, have now started voting Democratic.

What Stan said. Also, northern blacks still voted predominantly Republican in Al Smith's time (southern blacks weren't allowed to vote), whereas now they vote predominantly Democratic.

I think the California example is pretty instructive. Pete Wilson's Prop 187 campaign was a tactical success (the proposition passed) but was a strategic failure. It probably drove Hispanics in California away from the Republican party for a while and doomed the California Republican party into nearly libertarian status in the state

Brian Despain, you are swallowing and old, old myth promulgated by libertarian, Club for Growth types, as well as neoconnish conservatives who didn't like Wilson for his moderation on social issues. The fact is, as you state, that Wilson won. Say that three times, Pete Wilson won, Pete Wilson won, Pete Wilson won. He remained so popular in the state that during our electricity crisis round about 2000 (and that had nothing, nothing to do with immigration led population growth, right?) he appeared on commercials with Gray Davis urging us to suck it up and conserve. Disgraced governors aren't invited to do that.

It would help your case if some of the Republican state-wide nominees actually ran on a hardcore immigration control message -- but none have since Wilson. They even tried nominating some Asian guy for Senate if I remember correctly -- presumably to get the Asian immigrant vote . No go.

What is the partial exception that proves the rule -- Ahnold. The terminator ran on getting the power back on and denying Gil Cedillo's attempts to give illegals drivers' licences. He's backtracked a bit since then, but fact is anti-illegal immigration sentiment was a factor is his election.

Steve Sailer addressed the Pete Wilson myth here.

1)Here is what someone else wrote on the subject:

"There hasn't been much recent immigration to New Mexico: most of the Hispanics here have been US citizens for six generations.

They don't vote Republican yet. So we might take that as a guide to the time scale of such shifts."
http://www.parapundit.com/archives/002517.html

That's great from an electoral college point of view (white males vote, and vote in great numbers, and in the right states), but demographically it puts them on the wrong side of where America is going.

A claim like that would be greatly helped by evidence that the change in demographics translates into a change in the popular vote. Instead, we see that in 2004 Bush got the same percentage of the popular vote that Reagan got in 1980 -- 50.7% -- despite 24 years of demographic shift in a theoretically pro-Democrat direction.

(A percentage of the popular vote, mind, that no Democrat has managed to equal in the last four decades of Presidential elections.)

If a person describes what was seen by their own eyes, and heard by their own ears, that makes it useless?

Wait, wait, I know the answer to this one from an earlier post. When a writer pseudonymously makes claims, and those claims are unsupported by rigorous (let alone any) fact-checking, and those claims also seem hyperbolic and quite possibly politically motivated, then they should be approached with a skepticism approaching outright dismissal.

Yes, I seem to recall that, and being unpleasantly rebuked for the thought that a first-person account might hold even a shred of interest. Between that thread and this one, I have come around to the skeptical point of view.

On a totally different note, word has it that Megan is making her move...

There hasn't been much recent immigration to New Mexico: most of the Hispanics here have been US citizens for six generations. They don't vote Republican yet. So we might take that as a guide to the time scale of such shifts.

That argument is based on the false assumption that people are more likely to vote Republican the longer it has been since their ancestors came here. But black and Asian immigrants and their children are much more likely to vote Republican than are black and Asian Americans whose ancestors have been here for a century or more. Almost all of the Hispanic population boom is the result of immigration.

A sixth-generation "Hispanic" American is about as Mexican as Ted Kennedy. Immigrants and their children are in a much different place, politically.

Someone posited the idea that as immigrants move up the social scale they will tend to vote for the party with the best record on lowering taxes, and someone else, in response, pointed out that Jews tend to be successful and financially comfortable yet overwhelmingly vote Democratic. I think Jews may have cultural baggage other groups may not be weighted down with. I love the Tribe, yet except for the Objectivists and libertarians, most Jews I've encountered carry a neurotic guilt about their success and affluence that makes them vulnerable to collectivist baloney. There's also a strong tradition in Judaism about caring for the poor, which has devolved from a benevolent charitable feeling to the more odious, "And I want to force you to share, too!"

Bilwick, I plead guilty. I'm Jewish, about the only thing I remember from my religious education is an obligation to help the poor, and I feel that the gap between the rich and poor in this country is too large. We would be a better country, more unified, more able to compete in the world market, and better fitted to stand the strain of a long struggle with our enemies if we had a government that cared for its people and tried to help them. Too you, this is a sign of neurosis. To me, it's common decency.

Stan, you'll get no disagreement from me that we would be better off if we cared for the poor.

However, I think the point is WE would be better off if WE cared for the poor, and the poor would be better off too. If you're neightboor was down on his luck and YOU helped him, he is not going to keep asking YOU for a handout as he knows YOU can't keep giving it. But with the government, he knows he can keep getting it. Nameless, faceless government handouts can't help but to depress the spirit.

On the flip side of the coin, we our depriving ourselves, as a society, the opportunity, the responsibility, the obligation to server others by forcefully and collectively sharing that responsibility through taxation. Rather than individuall coming together to help those in our community we force everyone to pay a few dollars in the collection platter and forget about the fact that someone out there needs help. As a society, we'd be better off we we took care of those in our communities, rather than just writing a check and forgetting about it.

cdub, I'm not starry-eyed about human nature. I realize that people will lie to get public assistance, I recognize the need for incentives in the form of financial rewards for hard work and high accomplishment, and I don't think that government is the answer to every social problem. But I do think there are problems that can't be solved by private charity, and these have to be addressed by government.

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