Turning Texas blue
There’s an op-ed in the NY Times about efforts to turn Texas into a blue state.
The problem for Democrats is that Hispanics in Texas don’t vote as strongly Democratic as they do in other states, and they have low voter turnout.
However, one difference between Republicans and Democrats is that while Republicans are ashamed to be the party of whites, Democrats are happy with being a party of non-whites, and understand that they can win more elections by reaching out to the demographics that support their party, get them to be even more strongly Democratic, and increase their voter turnout. If Republicans followed this strategy with whites, they might win states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The article contains some bad advice for Republicans:
That also assumes that Republicans continue on their present, self-destructive course. If they moderate their anti-immigrant message, they might cut into the gains that optimistic Democrats are taking for granted.
Knowing that immigrants vote Democratic, why would Republicans want more of them, and more of them to become voting citizens?
There’s also this:
Why [is Hisapnic voter turnout low]? There are a variety of explanations, including cultural ones. It’s pretty easy to feel disenfranchised by a political system that talks about you as an “immigrant” or, worse, an “alien.”
Perhaps an immigration reform bill will cause Hispanics to feel less “disenfranchised” and increase their voter participation. And of course, when they do go to vote, they will vote for Democrats. Democrats know that. Republicans’ best electoral strategy is to fight immigration tooth and nail. If it’s what Democrats support then it’s obviously in Democrats’ electoral interests because Democrats always support their own interests.
IF the Republicans have to spend a dollar of resources in Texas during a presidential election, then the U.S. has gone so far to the left that the Republican party is no longer relevant and the U.S. will effectively be a one party state.
Instead of writing about whether the Republicans should commit suicide by supporting comprehensive immigration reform or waiting until the changing demographics of the U.S. overwhelm any conservative party, maybe people should begin to think about how politics will function in the coming one party state and what will governance and policy look like when the progressives are unrestrained by a two party statem.
superdestroyer
February 20, 2013 at 8:10 am
“maybe people should begin to think about how politics will function in the coming one party state”
A good preview is provided by the State of Massachusetts. Republican party is close to nonexistent, nevertheless Republicans occasionally manage to win an election, sometimes because they are perceived as being less beholden to public employee unions, sometimes by pandering to feminists and homosexuals even more than Democrats do (outside of MA, many people don’t know that same-sex marriage was legalized by judges appointed by Republican governor Bill Weld.) Economically, the state is centrist (for example, the taxes are lower than in CA or NY,) I guess big business knows how to work with the right wing of the Democratic party. Despite state’s liberal reputation, euthanasia is still illegal, having been defeated in a recent referendum.
One moral is that Republicans can alleviate harm inflicted by the one party state by expanding direct democracy (referendums.)
WRB
February 20, 2013 at 10:22 am
Smart conservatives would recognize that the republicans are hapless losers, the better alternative is to join the democrats and make it more conservative
S_McCoy The Winged Lion of Strategy
February 20, 2013 at 6:48 pm
A huge number of mestizos in Texas have lived here for generations. They have businesses, serve in the military, and often don’t even speak Spanish. They certainly don’t see themselves as “immigrants.”
“Hispanic” is one of the dumbest political categories ever devised. There is very little in common between a mestizo illegal immigrant from Central America, a mestizo Texan whose ancestors were in Texas in 1846, and a white descendant of the Cuban elite.
It’s hard to imagine that Texas would be easy to shift blue. White Texans are much more self-confident than whites in most other states, and tend to set the tone for the culture here. I suspect white Texans will become more aggressively anti-Democrat in proportion to Democrat gains. It’s also likely that mestizo Texan support of Democrats will remain somewhat mixed and tepid. If the state shifts, it would be a truly radical and possibly volatile change that I simply don’t see happening in the near future.
David Flory
February 20, 2013 at 8:37 am
This article makes a pretty good case that Texas will be a swing state by 2024:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/30/1114634/-Projecting-Texas-The-Coming-Democratic-Plurality
It doesn’t matter how conservative white Texans are since they will be demographically way outnumbered by non-whites. In fact, Texas already is a minority-majority state. It will just be a much more minority-majority state in the future. Furthermore, there are a lot of moderate voters immigrating from places like California, and these moderate voters will make it even easier to turn Texas blue.
Jay
February 20, 2013 at 12:22 pm
About the time that Texas turns blue is when the moderate white voters from other states will stop coming and the ones already in Texas will start leaving. A Texas run by Hispanics Democrats will not be one that moderate whites will want to move to.
superdestroyer
February 20, 2013 at 9:00 pm
I just want to point out that you just posted a daily kos link
anonymous
February 21, 2013 at 12:32 am
Texan here, 4th generation white of Mexican descent. Whites who have a great grandparent who was a Mexican have about zero in common with recent illegal immigrants, politically or culturally. My great grandma from Mexico is listed as white on the census, but my great grandpa’s first wife, also from Mexico, was not listed as white on the census, so the census takers weren’t blind. They knew a fair blue-eyed woman was not an indian just because she was born in Mexico.
texan
February 20, 2013 at 3:49 pm
What they have in common is that they both vote for Democrats. There are very few Hispanic Republicans in Texas. They are both eligible for government set asides, they are both eligible for special admissions to the state universities, and they will both vote to keep the goodies coming in the future.
The idea that old family Hispanics are Republicans has been totally disproved in both Texas and New Mexico.
.
superdestroyer
February 20, 2013 at 8:59 pm
@superdestroyer
“What they have in common is that they both vote for Democrats.”
No, they don’t. That is bull. More recent Mexican mixed mostly indian immigrants are democrats. Those who have been here for many generations and are white or mostly white are not.
texan
February 21, 2013 at 2:54 pm
To describe the Democrats as the party of non-whites isn’t complete. They are the anti-non-elite-white party, and being anti-non-eite white is at least as much a part of their identity as being pro-anything or anyone. It is the one thing that unites all their factions- rich urban whites, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, women, and gays. The Democrats are an overclass party, of those actually in the overclass and those who identify with it, ironically how they would describe the Republicans.
thrasymachus33308
February 20, 2013 at 9:59 am
I see your point, and find it interesting, but I find it hard to believe that so called elite whites (let’s be honest – it’s only WASPS who are vulnerable) don’t see that supporting non-whites below them in the pyramid ultimately will lead to their dispossession at the top. Exclusive inbreeding has never worked long term for any aristocracy, and the occasional white of exceptional genetic potential of lower class is taken into the fold. Without that wider gene pool to skim from in the supporting pyramid, the elite whites are going to be extinct. This is the inconsistency that disproves the model that you espouse: that somehow democratic elite whites want to foster a minority dominant underclass. Something doesn’t make sense, and so the theory is either incomplete or wrong. However, I agree that your model is the overwhelming impression that one is given by examining the surface.
Tom
February 20, 2013 at 9:55 pm
Well stated.
Stealth
February 20, 2013 at 11:32 am
Has any republican strategist anywhere ever even said “how do we turn (state) red”? Even to themselves? It seems like chess and checkers, comparing what the two parties are doing.
anonymous
February 20, 2013 at 5:06 pm
PA, OH, MI?
rdorsey
February 20, 2013 at 9:04 pm
Bad advice for Republicans in the NYT? Nooooooo…. say it isn’t so! They want Republicans to triumph! They want to relive the glory days of the 1984 election!
Tarl
February 20, 2013 at 5:06 pm
“That also assumes that Republicans continue on their present, self-destructive course. If they moderate their anti-immigrant message,”
Except that there is no anti-immigrant message. Mitt Romney pandered before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce saying he likes that we take in more than 1 million legal immigrants each year and wants more of them! Hispanics didn’t vote for Romney or McCain or Bush (both of whom promoted amnesty).
The GOP is basically open borders. Their decline/demise will not make any difference on the immigration issue.
AssNeck
February 20, 2013 at 5:41 pm
If Texas turns blue, the current left/right divide will cease as we know it.
For good or ill, this won’t result in perpetual Democrat hegemony. The current Democratic Party exists as an alliance against, as thrasymachus33308 puts it, non elite white men, though it currently still has much allegiance from many urban rust belt whites. But once their redneck boogeyman retreats from power and becomes a regional factor only, their alliance will unravel.
Who are the true nonwhite working poor? Blacks or Hispanics?
Who was more oppressed? Women or minorities?
Who deserves more sympathy? Black men in prison or gays in the closet?
The Democratic alliance will unravel once their unifying opponent retreats. “Who, whom?” will plague their ranks and drive them asunder. New leftist political parties could emerge, or the Republicans might appeal to certain groups, maybe Asians, maybe more women, maybe Hispanics. It’s anyone’s guess. We haven’t seen America as a predominantly nonwhite country since the Mayflower.
Sid
February 20, 2013 at 7:21 pm
You make a very interesting point: What would happen to the Democratic Party if there was no longer a Republican Party to scapegoat?
Would it splinter over time racially? Would the blacks/Hispanics still get along with white feminists, SWPLs and gays?
The presidential system we have tends to produce one-party states when one political group has far more clout than the other, but the presidential system might just self-destruct under the weight of multiculturalism.
Who knows?
…but I do know that we will live in “interesting times.”
Jay
February 20, 2013 at 7:53 pm
It doesn’t take much imagination to believe that black and Hispanic political leaders will tell white feminists, SWPLs and gays to pound sand because there’s a new sheriff in town. Do white feminists, SWPLs and gays have much say in Detroit’s municipal government? When the whole country is Detroit writ large, they’ll have just as little say nationally. I only hope that I’m around to see the shocked looks on their idiotic faces.
BS Inc.
February 20, 2013 at 10:27 pm
Thank you for your kind words. So far, one effect of multiculturalism is that presidential candidates must be as opaque as possible. If you offend one group, the media will denounce you readily. Look at Obama: who knew what he stood for in 2008? How many books are there about what his true, hidden agenda is? Who knows what his core beliefs are, even now?
Romney’s positions were tortuous to disassemble. I wanted him to win, but the charges he was a flip flopped weren’t undue. The Obama campaign didn’t attack him for what he believed, but who he was as a businessman. I expect that ambiguity and dissimulation will be the modus operandi of successful presidential nominees in the future, just as no one really knows what a Supreme Court Justice will stand for after Ted Kennedy made Bork a verb.
Sid
February 20, 2013 at 10:46 pm
“Would it splinter over time racially?”
Yes. You got a taste of that with the vote on the Jerusalem plank during last year’s DNC. If current trends continue, Jews will start to feel unwelcome in the Democratic party within a decade; within two, blacks will get antsy too.
Democrats may become the party of the Latino underclass and the secular/atheist/anti-Israel elite; Republicans may become the party of everyone else. Granted, the parties’ respective platforms would have to change somewhat (with both likely shifting to the left), but that has happened before.
DaveinHackensack
February 21, 2013 at 2:46 am
“The current Democratic Party exists as an alliance against, as thrasymachus33308 puts it, non elite white men, though it currently still has much allegiance from many urban rust belt whites. ”
I would add that the alliance is also against non-feminist or “feminist-lite” white women who have relatively little problem with, and seek out opportunities to partake of, “traditional gender roles”.
Since Obama’s election, I would add that the Democrats have been also going out of their way to antagonize libertarians, now that the Left no longer needs to pretend it is in favor of individual liberty in any way.
BS Inc.
February 20, 2013 at 8:18 pm
I fully agree with both points. I’ll add that traditional white women aren’t explicitly vilified into a boogeyman. You don’t hear feminists decry women who keep their notch count in the single digits and stay happily married for decades – you just hear them smear and cruelly insult individual Republican women. They claim to be fine with the genus, but virulently assault the specimens. I don’t like Sarah Palin, but the assaults she took were loathsome and disgusting.
My guess is that they’ll move onto the class of traditional women soon.
Sid
February 20, 2013 at 10:37 pm
The risk of becoming a too explicitly minority party is that Democrat support may erode even further among whites. Romney got 58% of the white vote but much of that came from winning super-majorities of Southern whites. There are still millions of non-Southern whites where the Democrats could see their support implode if they become too pro-minority. Sailer sez Ohio whites only voted 54% for Romney. A more racially radicilized Democrat party could send those blue collar Democrats in the Midwest into the arms of the GOP and push the white vote in states like Ohio and Michigan to well over 60% Republican.
The Undiscovered Jew
February 21, 2013 at 12:08 am
Steve Sailer also rightly pointed out that Romney failed to appeal to rust belt whites in the most important matter: how he would make America better for them. The rust belt whites are the proletariat, to be Marxist about it, so they’re more amenable to government controlling their bosses. Let’s call this corporatism, where the government directs corporations to serve the national good. Obama has not been a Marxist, contra the Tea Party, but more of a corporatist, insofar as that he bailed out the big banks and automotive industries, and since appealed to the rust belt in the last election for saving GM.
Ultimately, the Republican Party CAN still exist as it currently does, so long as it opposes immigration reform as fervently as the Spartans opposed the Persians at Thermoplyae, and makes a conscious effort to appeal to rust belt whites. This means coming down harder on corrupt parts of big business and presenting the Democratic Party as the new party of big money, special deals for Wall Street and run by coastal spites who despise the common man. Basically, present Democrats the way Democrats presented Republicans in the 30s, while still being the party of traditional American values.
Sid
February 21, 2013 at 3:02 pm
Chicago, Maryland, Mass., and now California disprove your thesis. What will hold all of the groups together is the massive amounts of money that the Democrats will be forced to hand out. As long as all of the Democrats believe that whites are paying most of the taxes, they will stay together.
superdestroyer
February 20, 2013 at 9:02 pm
My family fled from California because of how gawdawful it was. All of the people with money are leaving California, and the state is degenerating every year into a lawless, deindustrialized mess. Basically, Atlas Shrugged is happening there, and the Democratic constituents will start to tear at each other once the government has to decide for whom the meager lucre they have left will be rationed.
Sid
February 21, 2013 at 3:12 pm
“The Democratic alliance will unravel once their unifying opponent retreats.”
First, I’ve been saying this here and elsewhere for at least three years. Once Chimpy Bushitler McHalliburton fades from the scene (and he’s done that for the most part already), blaming him gets pretty stale fast.
Second, the newcomers to Texas SO FAR are people who are fleeing California and other despotisms, so they have politics that are simpatico with their new surroundings–otherwise why would they make the move?
Note that this cannot be counted on to continue indefinitely.
Third, as the article states, the Texas GOP has done a far better job than their California counterparts in bringing Hispanics into the party.
Fourth, evangelical Christianity has been embraced by Hispanics in Texas to a far greater extent than elsewhere, with benefits accruing to the GOP.
Fifth, the whole immigration issue is a complete red herring that will fade away for three reasons: like most of the rest of the world, Latin American fertility has fallen over a cliff, meaning there soon will be fewer to make the trip. The economy here continues to suck, so if you’re coming here for a “better life”, you will be quite disappointed (and indeed growth is a lot stronger in Mexico–maybe the next ten years will see gringos heading south?). And it will be only a matter of time before Mexicans say “enough is enough” and take very forceful measures to end the drug wars. Mexico today is what Colombia was in the 90s.
Sixth, even the article’s author admits that it will be an uphill fight for the Dems. Romney won Texas with 57%, and even came within 1000 votes of carrying Harris County (Houston). You don’t do that in a majority non-white state without a lot of help.
sestamibi
February 20, 2013 at 11:37 pm
Interesting points. I would say that Texan culture, which is meritocratic and nowhere near as, ahem, racist as the Deep South was, does a good job of rewarding the hard working character of Mestizos and does a great job of incorporating them into the fold. George W. Bush and Rick Perry alike believed that Hispanics could be incorporated into the Republican Party. I think this may be true for Texas, but not for Hispanics in other States. Texan Republicans can fit Mexicans into their culture; Democrats in other States know how to fit them into their nonwhite mosaic. Hispanics are thus an opportunity for Republicans in Texas, but a liability for Republicans elsewhere.
Sid
February 21, 2013 at 3:45 pm
During the entire time that Bush II was governor of Texas, there were no Hispanics Republicans in the Texas state House or Senate. I believe there is now one or two. However, the Democrats have many Hispanics in public office in Texas. The old money Hispanics in places like San Antonio or South Texas are Democrats and the most Hispanic county in Texas are also the most Democratic voting.
superdestroyer
February 21, 2013 at 8:27 pm
If the Democratic Party becomes so large as to make the U.S. a single party country, the Democratic coalition will start to split. I foresee a major realignment coming within the next 2 decades. The U.S. electoral system strongly favors a two party system, and the U.S. will continue to have two major parties. The coalitions that make up each of the parties, however, will change.
In the last major realignment (1970s), Southern whites became republican and the Northeast became democrat. It used to be the opposite. We can think of multiple ways party coalitions can change. Perhaps there will be a split between SWPLs and latinos/blacks, and the SWPLs might join the rich faction of the Republican party. Maybe blacks will then join with the christian whites.
The reality is that both the Dems and the Republicans are hokie pokie coalitions of loosely associated groups.
AsianDude
February 20, 2013 at 8:56 pm
My point is that a lot of people on this blog appear to think that party coalitions are fixed, which is not true. W’s grandpa was a Republican Senator of Connecticut. W and his younger brother Jeb each became Republican governors of Texas and Florida respectively, something unimaginable in their grandpa’s days. There’s no real reason why blacks and SWPLs belong together in one party, while upper middle class suburban professionals, Ron-Paul libertarians, and the evolution denyer in the other.
AsianDude
February 20, 2013 at 9:06 pm
David Axelrod has already anticipated this issue. That is why the Democrats have so intent are growing the size and scope of the government and getting as high a percentage of adults addicted to government spending. When the government is passing out trillions of dollars, when the code of federal regulations numbers in 100,000′s of pages, when the federal workforce numbers in the millions, no group can be seen as an outsiders. Any outsider will be seen as a target for the ruling party.
What group will splinter off from the Democratic Party and walk away from the trillions that the Democrats are passing out to their core blocks?
superdestroyer
February 21, 2013 at 7:07 am
Government spending requires either taxes or borrowing money from China. I have, and I do, and I will benefit from government programs, but if taxes get too much, I’d start saying “No thanks”
AsianDude
February 21, 2013 at 9:56 am
AsianDude is correct. The Republicans can win the next election if they employ a prudent, crafty Midwest Strategy. Secondly, the Democrats are winning votes by throwing out money to everyone who isn’t a white nonelite, which is only so because they can borrow money with low interest rates. As Medicare and Social Security balloon over the next decade, interest rates will rise. (Paul Krugman apparently skipped over the crowding out effect when he took Macroeconomics 102.) This will mean that Democrats will need to elect whom will receive state goodies. So even if the Republicans act foolishly, let open the gates for Hispanics and make no inroads to the rustbelt whites, factions within the Democrats will tear at each other once some of them are slumped over. The Democrats lost 2010 because Obamacare posses off seniors, whose Medicare funding was slashed for the benefit of minorities.
Sid
February 21, 2013 at 3:23 pm
“The Republicans can win the next election if they employ a prudent, crafty Midwest Strategy. ”
You mean a Rustbelt strategy. The Republicans have the Midwest locked up, at least until Texas turns blue.
Lion of the Blogosphere
February 21, 2013 at 5:37 pm
Texas is not turning blue within the next 20 years – it actually moved MORE republican by about 3 points this year, and Romney won the state OVERWHELMINGLY. Get real. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Florida are the most important electoral states and will continue to be for some time.
Jack
February 20, 2013 at 10:01 pm
Pay Hispanic citizens $100,000 per family member to renouonce citizenship and leave. Fewer Hispanic Americans means more Republican victories. They won’t assimilate because of low IQs and welfare dependency. Better arrange to ship them back to Mexico in the least morally objectionable way, especially if certain discoveries in Hong Kong make it impossible to defend low IQ immigration and other much less moral policies are proposed to deal with an unassimilable Hispanic population…
Btw, Ann Coulter may be an HBD reader because she gets it on immigration – Hispanics are a natural Democrat group and it’s a waste of time for Republicans to try winning them and stop importing them:
HISPANICKED GOP ELITE: THEY’LL RESPECT US IN THE MORNING
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2013-02-20.html
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that Hispanics have the highest illegitimate birthrate in the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2010, for every 1,000 unmarried Hispanic women, 80.6 had children out of wedlock, compared to 65.3 for unmarried black women and 29 for unmarried white women.
If Republicans think we can have mass amnesty for millions of government-dependent immigrants and become a more libertarian country, they’re crazy.
This isn’t because of a failure to “reach out.” Republicans can’t beat Democrats at the government assistance game. From single mothers to corporate subsidy-takers, they want your money and the Democrats promise to give it to them.
Instead of trying to compete with the ethnic lobbies, welfare schemes and racialized politics of the Democrats, perhaps Republicans should allow our immigration system to admit more immigrants who won’t immediately go on government assistance, as 60 percent of new immigrants do now.
The Undiscovered Jew
February 21, 2013 at 12:03 am
And to keep them from returning to collect another $100,000 check, take their fingerprints during the “citizenship buyout” process so they can’t double dip into getting another buyout after they’ve already handed their papers and left.
The Undiscovered Jew
February 21, 2013 at 12:04 am
its too late. how can you deport millions with our liberals calling your a heartless racist? everyone is afraid of being called a racist. republicans will simply roll over just to appear not be racist.
anon
February 21, 2013 at 1:22 pm
its too late. how can you deport millions with our liberals calling your a heartless racist?
Ending and then reversing immigration depends on raising support for those policies to a politically significant level of white voters. If enough whites overtly express opposition to immigration then we can get traction. When the genes for intelligence are found, support for third world immigration will collapse because it’s impossible to argue in favor of low IQ immigration if you concede the third world has lower average IQ than the first.
In the meantime we can work on defunding the left. Call your local state legislators, if they are Republicans, and ask them to support giving college students credit for MOOCs to automate millions of liberals out of their jobs in academia. Boycott newspapers and encourage anyone you know who still subscribes to them to cancel it. Walk the streets to get signatures for anti-public union referendums molded after Wisconsin’s reforms. If the liberal organizations implode the minorities would be politically helpless without their leftist patrons to defend them.
The Undiscovered Jew
February 21, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Deportation just isn’t as big an issue as it appears, as long as the borders are closed. The last three years ICE deported almost 400,000 people each year. If you can cut off the illegal stream, you can see that without any special deportation programs, like an “Operation Wetback” you can take care of the illegal population in a few years without massive deportation sweeps. No one is saying Obama is heartless for deporting over a million people.
Mike
February 22, 2013 at 11:14 pm
If you can cut off the illegal stream, you can see that without any special deportation programs, like an “Operation Wetback” you can take care of the illegal population in a few years without massive deportation sweeps.
This is true of illegal immigration, but I was discussing emigration of legal immigrants with either citizenship or green card residency. Illegal immigrants should be deported with no financial compensation.
The Undiscovered Jew
February 23, 2013 at 11:17 am
There’s historical precedent for Republicans winning much higher percentages of whites than they do today. In 1984, Reagan won 65-67% of the white vote. If politics become much more racially charged (as they must because low IQ minorities will be envious and hostile towards better off whites) it isn’t hard to imagine the GOP could start winning over two thirds of whites on a consistent basis.
The Undiscovered Jew
February 21, 2013 at 12:20 am
The whole Great Lakes region from Pennsylvania to Minnesota is trending Republican because of two factors: 1) The Republican Party is getting whiter as the Democratic Party is getting more non-white. 2) All those states are getting whiter relative to the rest of the country. The Republicans need to get all these states as a short-term strategy.
The long-term strategy for whites is to make California competitive again: that will happen when elite white liberals can no longer control the Democratic Party in their state and THEY will start being affected by mass Hispanic voting against their interests as well. At that point, they will either vote third party or vote Republican out of economic necessity. Whites constituted barely half of Obama’s vote total this election, which means they still control the party and their candidate: but the future does not look good for white liberals because soon, their interests will take a back seat to ethnic grievances.
Bilbo Baggins
March 1, 2013 at 1:19 am