I saw conservative pollster Sean Trende (a reasonably sharp guy for a winger) pushing the idea that “missing white voters” were the reason Romney lost, but it hadn’t occurred to me that could be a rationale for Republicans’ deciding to skip Latino outreach…..
Phyllis Schlafly of the pro-family group Eagle Forum called the GOP’s need to reach out to Hispanic voters a “great myth” during a conservative radio program Wednesday.
“The Hispanics who have come in like this will vote Democrat and there’s not the slightest bit of evidence that they will vote Republican,” Schlafly said on “Focus Today.” “And the people the Republicans should reach out to are the white votes, the white voters who didn’t vote in the last election and there are millions of them.”
Schlafly told PolicyMic she believes that Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election because “his drop-off from white voters was tremendous”….
As I’ve said before, wingers are casting about for reasons to block immigration reform, and they’ll come up with plenty of good reasons to oppose it. Suppose it passes over their dead bodies as it were, i.e. after overcoming a filibuster in the Senate, without meeting the “Hastert rule” in the House, and over the screeching objections of Rush et al. Then the predicted political downside of immigration reform for Republicans could indeed become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Chris
The only whites they’re missing are either politically apathetic or those like me who are revolted by their attempts to suppress the rights of my fellow Americans because they don’t share my skin tone or my religion. The Southern Strategy has been going on for nearly fifty years; every vote that could be farmed through appeals to racial and class prejudices, has been farmed.
Now, if they’re trying to say that they’d do better by appealing to white people who aren’t racist or apathetic white people who for whatever reason aren’t turned on by their “everything is the blacks’ fault!” crap, then that might be a step in the right direction. But somehow I suspect they’re simply going to take this as a sign that they’re not trying hard enough, and double down on their fifty year old routine.
“White men! White women! The Jew is using the black as muscle against you…” etc.
Tom Levenson
Note to anyone wondering if they were hallucinating: I just pulled the post I just published as I hadn’t looked at the blog before hitting the button, and thus failed to note that Mistermix and DougJ were already jostling the space. It’ll come back in an hour or so.
And yes, one of the unmistakable bright spots for progressive politics is the folly of our opponents. That phenomenon has worked a treat for Barack Obama, and we should all take notes…
JPL
Are they going to do an out reach with white females who believe in contraception, also? Limbaugh called all of sluts so there is that little problem.
Corner Stone
Damn that Honky Grandma be trippin’!
schrodinger's cat
Immigration is a no win policy for the GOP on its current trajectory. Unless they tone down their all fear (of latinos, women, immigrants in general, gays, you name it) all the time strategy, they are not going to get the new immigrants to vote for them. Passing immigration reform is going to enrage a large portion their base. So they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
Eric
The new gop would oppose middle class tax cuts as handouts to illegal immigrants at this point. For libs the perfect is the enemy of the good. For new conservative, the brown is the enemy of the Good (white man)
Doug Milhous J
@Tom Levenson:
Didn’t mean to post on top of you if that’s what happened, but if you’re posting on top of me…don’t worry about it. I like the unpredictability of the posting schedule here personally.
karen
Did they really need a rationale?
Shakezula
I’m sure Our Lady of Hate has some ideas for getting these white voters fired up. Perhaps pointing out that Obama’s policies have given them many crosses to bear and hoods run the government.
Trakker
Missing white voters?! Almost every white person I know, even the right-leaning ones here in the DC area, voted for Obama. I find it irritating that the right assumes white voters are all Republicans.
Let’s be clear, Romney couldn’t find enough white BIGOTS to vote for him. Maybe there just aren’t enough of them left in America to elect a Republican President.
schrodinger's cat
[email protected]
Did you read MoU idiocy of yesterday? This is my take.
Craigo
She is – half? two thirds? – right.
Hispanics are, for the most part, not conservatives Republicans in waiting. They’re far more pro-choice and pro-gay than the general population, and they favor a broad safety net.
And a few million fewer white people voted in 2012 than in 2008. No one seems to have considered that they stayed home because they were dead. That’s what happens when the oldest cohort favors you, and the youngest favors your opponent.
Roger Moore
I guess the process of turning Bush II into an unperson also includes forgetting how he got elected. He won a substantially higher percentage of the Latino vote than any other Republican candidate since Reagan, largely because he actually tried to win it. I know it’s a bad idea to interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake, but it’s still maddening to watch this kind of nonsense.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My first thought: Did Schlafly steal the fucking philosopher’s stone from Nicolas Flamel?
Second: one reason the GOP is harping on Benghazi! and now the IRS– a political gift from some low-level bureaucrats– is to distract the Bubbas from immigration. See Graham, Senator Aunt Pittypat.
schrodinger's cat
I also call bullshit on the oft repeated Republican claim, that immigrants (Latino, Asian, whatever..) are
conservatives of the Republican brand.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Let it be said, I still cannot wrap my head around the very existence of Phyllis Schafly, a woman who’s made a career largely off telling everyone that women shouldn’t have careers.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ve said before that immigration will be the poison pill for their coalition that civil rights was for ours. The Republican elites love it, the Republican base hates it. And both of them really care about the issue (vulture capitalism craves cheap labor like racist populism craves ethnic/national purity), so it’s not something they’ll be willing to defer to the other side on forever. At some point, things will come to a head and it’ll no longer be possible to keep kicking the can down the road.
schrodinger's cat
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Is she still alive? I thought she was dead.
JCT
This harridan is WAY past her expiration date. Who the fuck listens to Phyllis Schlafly?
Oh, the Republican Party does – figures.
“White Outreach” – great slogan. Words fail.
Eric
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: While mothering a member of the gay horde. Eff that self righteous @&$&&
Patricia Kayden
It’s amazing that Rightwingers did everything they could to block the Black/Brown vote and now are complaining about the “missing White vote”. Wow. Just wow. Hope they keep running with that nonsense and continue to turn off minority voters.
By the way, Romney got 65% of the White male vote. What more could he have done to get 100%?
kindness
I can’t trust any debate that uses Schlafly as a reference point. No doubt she is a good marker for the ‘I’ve got my head buried up my ass an live in a non-existent Dominionist world’ groups. I don’t belong to that group though and feel they are idiots. So I pass it by.
The Other Chuck
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Let’s not forget her son, a walking talking incarnation of Poe’s Law.
japa21
All evidence is that the percent of white voters voting Republican will continue to drop. The largest block of white voters they have are in the senior group, which, by the laws of nature, is shrinking. And those people moving into that demographic are more liberal than their predecessors.
Using the race card is not as effective as it once was. As Chris pointed out above, those who would be influenced by that already have been and have voted. And other areas they used to use fear as a motivator, i.e. national security, are now more and more being considered strengths for the Dems.
The only thing they have going for them is the gerrymandering, and even the composition of strong GOP districts is changing, so even the impact of that will lessen. Next year may be the GOP’s last chance to maintain any relevancy for a long time.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think a lot of them like the Republican message about self reliance and entrepreneurial spirit. If the Republicans could back that message with some action and scale back the xenophobia, they could actually win the immigrant vote.
Corner Stone
@Craigo:
Do you have data to cite for this?
dedc79
It’s amazing how willing Schlaflly is to help the Democratic Party. They’re not even paying her (as far as we know, anyway).
Cacti
@Patricia Kayden:
Romney also pulled in 59% of the white vote overall, the highest share of any candidate since Papa Bush in 1988.
The idea that there’s some vast, untapped vein of crackers that deserted Romney is pure fiction.
Ella in New Mexico
My friends and I booed this woman at a college sponsored debate with Eleanor Smeal in 1981. She was fading out of the news as a mean, sexist, racist anachronism then. Why is she still anyone anybody wants to listen to now?
some guy
the Schumer-Rubio Amnesty Bill will drive the racist angry White vote, for sure, just not in the direction the GOP thinks it will.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think the only Asians and Hispanics they know are the socially hyper-conservative ones that they interact with through church networks, at pro-life rallys, etc. Because of that, they delude themselves that everyone who looks like them must share their priorities and prejudices.
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/11/1186319/-For-the-millionth-time-no-Latinos-are-not-socially-conservative
elmo
In two election cycles – maybe three – you’re going to see this poster with the names of the parties reversed. Guaranteed.
Redshirt
Don’t worry. Once the Republican army of Brownshirts is truly released to their purpose, Brown people’s votes won’t matter anymore.
White male property owners only, just like The Holy Founders intended.
ChrisNYC
Everything old. Bob Dole in ’96:
In the litany of complaints detailed by Mr. Dole today, there was a new charge: that the Democrats were ”rushing” immigrants with criminal backgrounds into the country so they could vote for President Clinton.
”We have all these new people coming into America, rushing through the immigration process,” Mr. Dole said. ”We find out that maybe as high as 10 percent are criminals. They want to get them ready for Election Day.”
Seanly
I’d be interested to see Nate Silver’s breakdown along these lines.
EDIT: Another thing that pisses me off is that there is this unspoken assumption that all the Hispanics are new immigrants to America. Many people of Hispanic descent have long, long family histories in the USA.
belieber
Liquor and whores
Liquor and whores
Cigarettes and dope and mustard and bologna
Liquor and whores
I went down
Drinkin’ at the Legion
I met a girl she was nice
She was pretty and pleasing
She said “Hey boy
We should do some marrying”
I said sure but before we do
There’s something that you should know
I like
Liquor and whores
Liquor and whores
Cigarettes and dope and mustard and bologna
Liquor and whores…
Then one night down at the legion
She walked in, I was drunk on gin
Dancin with a lady friend
She said hey boy, You’d better fly the fuck home
I said no cause five little words I coulda
Swore I said to you
I like
Liquor and whores
Liquor and whores
Cigarettes and dope and mustard and bologna
Liquor and whores…
nellcote
OT but speaking of clueless white people:
Just two weeks later, McCain quietly traveled to Syria, and his office distributed photos from his visit to news organizations. One image, in particular, has generated some unexpected attention.
Senator John McCain’s office is pushing back against reports that while visiting Syria this week he posed in a photo with rebels who kidnapped 11 Lebanese Shi’ite pilgrims.
The photo, released by McCain’s office, shows McCain with a group of rebels. Among them are two men identified in the Lebanese press as Mohamed Nour and Abu Ibrahim, two of the kidnappers of the group from Lebanon.
McCain’s office insists the senator was not aware that he’d met with Nour and Ibrahim — if they are, in fact, the men in the photograph — and they had not been identified as such during his trip. The spokesperson added that if McCain had unknowingly met with kidnappers, “that is regrettable.”
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: If you look at the data from the last election you will see that Latino, Asian and the newly naturalized citizen vote all went heavily for Obama, much more so than the overall electorate. I remember reading that Obama won the South Asian vote by 80 to 20%.
Tom Levenson
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s a bit of what I wrote about…to be seen in a little bit.
@Doug Milhous J: No worries. I like the unpredictability too…but I don’t mind pulling a post to give everyone a little room.
gnomedad
And we all know what “like this” means.
The Moar You Know
Go with this, GOP. You know you want to. The truthiness of the idea is undeniable.
Comrade Dread
Speaking as one of those white votes that will not vote Republican, you could reach out to me by embracing single-payer health care, giving a damn about the environment, realizing that greed is not a virtue, that a safety net should be available for all Americans, that retirees should be provided for, that unions should be strengthened to give workers a voice and power, that science is important and we should act on the evidence available even if we find it inconvenient, that the solution to gun violence isn’t easier gun laws, and that Jesus spend His days helping the poor, sick, needy, and spiritual outcasts and not fighting for political power.
Somehow, I don’t think you’ll be reaching out to me in the near future.
Corner Stone
@Patricia Kayden: Thanks. That info indicates they are approx 10 points farther ahead of the general public on both pro-choice and same-sex issues. Pretty significant if it holds up as the (overly generalized) Hispanic voters age.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
They’re pulling the same nonsense they did with the unskewed polls. A good guess is that the reason the white vote was down in 2012 is that some white voters who would have voted for Obama got disappointed and stayed home; that’s why Romney’s percent of the white vote went up while the white voting rate went down. But the Republicans want to believe they can keep Romney’s percentage of the white vote while also raising the percentage of eligible whites who vote back to historical levels. It’s nonsense, but we’re better off letting them continue to believe it.
Cacti
@nellcote:
Nothing, no nothing, could go wrong with sending weapons to this group of “freedom fighters”.
the Conster
Didn’t our old friend matoko_chan constantly remind us that the GOP would die on this petard? They just can’t win nationally by needing more than 65% of the white vote, and there isn’t a viable Republican candidate who will be able to appeal to the non-whites and the tea party red meat base that demands purity of hate. It can’t be done. Romney tried to adopt every position and lie about past positions and lied about positions he adopted the same day, all with the press playing along, and he still couldn’t pull it off.
Shakezula
And McCodger is insisting we can get arms to the “right people.”
If you tried to pass this off as a subplot in a work of fiction people would LOL.
jheartney
@elmo: I thought we’ve had the equivalent of that poster going in all the wingnut media ever since 2008. Or arguably, since 1980.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Yep. If the white vote was down AND Romney got a higher percentage of it than McCain did, that’s by far the most logical explanation.
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster: Why was she banned when other trolls have been given a free rein?
JPL
@nellcote: This is on nbc.com
McCain insists US weapons would ‘help the right people’ in Syria war
It appears that MSMedia thinks paling around with terrorists is okey dokey
El Cid
I’m sure if they just keep scraping and scraping harder there will be a whole ‘nother barrel under the bottom of the current barrel. Has to be.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chris:
You don’t understand. America is a center-right nation! Culturally conservative whites are the norm, a silent majority. Liberals are just weak elitists, surrounded by real Americans who support conservative issues. Minorities are too lazy to be a political force, and giving them free stuff just makes them dependent and produces hyperinflation. Reagan proved all of this! Just ask Tom Brokaw! It logically follows that Republicans will win every election for the rest of time if the heartland Americans busy working had and going to church can just be woken up to politics.
Did I leave anything out?
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m intensely aware of Asian American voting patterns. I live in CA-27, which is actually plurality Asian American and elected the first Asian American woman to Congress (Judy Chu). Lots of my coworkers are Asian American immigrants. My impression is that a lot of them are generally sympathetic to the positive aspects of the Republican message, but have started to vote Democratic because they’ve noticed that the Republicans only deliver on their promises of racism and xenophobia.
the Conster
@schrodinger’s cat:
Good question. She spammed every thread, but she was way more interesting than the current crop.
? Martin
@Cacti:
Well, no. Phyllis’s argument is really that all white voters should vote Republican, so Mitt did lose 41% of that vote.
And the problem the GOP faces on demographics is a subtle one. Over 80% of americans age 50+ are white and about 3% are latino. When you get down to 35 and unders, it’s 60% white and 18% latino. When you get down to 20 and unders, whites are right at the edge of slipping out of the plurality.
Everyone talks about the immigration situation as though age is not a variable in it, but age is actually the most important variable. Each year 8 white voters vanish due to death, to be replaced by 5 white voters and 3 latino voters. Those 5 new white voters grew up with the 3 latino voters and are not afraid of them, so the GOP messaging just isn’t working there. By 2016 that trend is going to take a million more reliable GOP votes off the table.
Here in CA, 75% of births are non-white. Texas isn’t that far behind us. 4 election cycles from now, they’ll be voting. And if immigration reform passes, the average age of immigrants is 27. They’re only going to take the numbers above and make them vastly worse.
The GOP is fucked either way.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
A lot of the other trolls have been banned multiple times, too, which is why they keep changing nyms. M_C was just smart enough to take the message and stay away after her third (or was it fourth) ban.
Cacti
@Roger Moore:
That recent story about the GOP Hispanic outreach director in Florida, who resigned his post and registered Dem said pretty much the same thing.
He said that he was drawn to the GOP because he admired their messages of self-reliance and entrepreneurial spirit. But in the end, he left because of the prevailing “culture of intolerance” in the party toward Hispanic people as a whole.
gelfling545
@Doug Milhous J: I know a lot of people seem to get concerned over this, but I enjoy the unpredictability of people posting about whatever catches their interest as it occurs to them. Just wanted to say.
Frankensteinbeck
@the Conster:
Yes, but it’s not like that was a brilliant, original insight. The demographic timer was already known and much-discussed. MC, being somewhat dim and virulently racist, harped on it as if it were the only political issue of any importance whatsoever.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Because open racism is the thing most likely to get anyone banned here. She would do stuff like cheering the deaths of white Christians, who she asserted were genetically inferior because of evolution. And that’s not getting into how she treated Amir Khalid for pointing out to her that not all Muslims are the same.
Steeplejack
@ChrisNYC:
Yet another reason for a “Fuck you!” to old Bob Dole weeping a few days ago about how his beloved Republican Party has inexplicably lost its way. He played a central role in making it what it is today.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
And, statistically speaking, something like 1 in 6 of those young whites will wind up marrying a Hispanic (or Asian American, African American, etc.) and presumably think about having biracial children. Something tells me those people are going to be pretty resistant to the Republicans’ white power message.
schrodinger's cat
@Frankensteinbeck:Thanks, now I remember. Yes that was pretty bad form on her part.
Cacti
@? Martin:
According to the census bureau, 2012 was the tipping point nationally in birth rates, with non-hispanic whites dipping below 50% of the total for the first time in US history.
? Martin
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, I agree completely. There are a lot of small-c conservative ideas that are widely held – not being in debt, holding onto a cultural identity, and so on. The GOP talks about those things, but I think everyone at least here in CA realizes that conservatism only exists to protect the white, male, straight majority. They’re more than happy to tear down the Vietnamese cultural identity, or the gay cultural identity because it’s a threat to their grand vision of returning to the days of Bonanza (I realized that Leave it to Beaver was too radical for them – not enough guns).
the Conster
@Frankensteinbeck:
I located her somewhere on the autism spectrum and basically scrolled past her comments, so other than her obsession with demographics I missed the other stuff.
Craigo
@Corner Stone:
ACA: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/04/01/1801341/obamacare-latino-outreach/
Choice: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/11/latinos-endorse-legal-abortion/
Marriage: http://www.pewforum.org/Race/Latinos-Religion-and-Campaign-2012.aspx#gay
Hispanic support for the Democratic/liberal position is higher than in the public at large for each.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin:
The GOP is not in favor of immigrants holding on to their cultural identity. They want assimilation, anything else is supposed to be multi-culti. See for example their push to make English the official language. Religiosity is OK, but only if you are Christian, see the freakout about mosques.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Now, if these sympathetic voters could just take that to its logical conclusion and realize that the reason Republicans only deliver on the racism and xenophobia and not on their “positive” messages on economics, based on “self reliance and the entrepreneurial spirit,” is because that positive message is a crock and a pipe dream, which isn’t supposed to “deliver” to anyone but a very small, elite minority…
ChrisNYC
@Steeplejack: Indeed. That’s why I found that — I was trying to remember what his “where’s the outrage” diatribe was about. And the immi thing was covered in the same story. Also him urging the voters to “rise up against the liberal media.” Gah.
elmo
@jheartney:
In wingnut media, yes, with a furtive look around and a cough. But I think it’s going to become explicit, and not restricted to the swamps. Worse than Jesse Helms’ “Hands” ad.
Mike E
Diane Rehm’s first hour was a sorta last-chance outreach/rehab moment for the GOP, including moments of sheer hilarity that had her re-asking questions to repub spokespeeps because they didn’t seem capable of answering them the first time. When Michelle Bernard is the voice of reason during the hour, you know your brand is fucked.
KRK
Just what the truth is, I can’t say anymore.
Frankensteinbeck
@the Conster:
You didn’t miss much. Her favorite topics were that Muslims can’t be proselytized, conservatives (who she conflated equally with white Christians) had lower IQ because of genetics and evolution, and all libertarians are wrong about everything and evil in every way. This latter struck me as a deep irony, because if you switched out points of dogma she would fit right in with 19 year old libertarians. She would find some simple, obvious piece of wisdom and expound on it like she had figured out the secret of the universe and we were all cudlips for not agreeing that she was the smartest ever. Three fourths of her comments were calling everyone else stupid for not understanding that her current little rule was all powerful and countered any arguments. She made a number of fantastically wrong predictions, mostly about Muslims sweeping all Westerners out of the Middle East, and the only things she was ever right about were things everyone else already knew – like the demographic timer.
As you can tell, I strongly disliked her and I’m grateful she’s gone.
scav
@schrodinger’s cat: There are a lot of traditional small-c consernative preferences that the current GOP — especially the teahard wing and off-shoots –don’t hold to, if not actively oppose. There’s a logical association of co-varying principles and preferences off somewhere and there’s the flash mob of triggered prejudices and free-floating night-terrors that’s currently wearing (or fighting over who wears) the official branded elephant button.
schrodinger's cat
Expanding on my previous point why immigrants don’t fall for the GOP clap trap, they usually have experience with parties of the GOP type and know the harm they inflict on minorities. Also many leave because of the suffocating hold traditionalists have on the politics in their former home countries, and why would they embrace the party that does the same in their adopted home.
? Martin
@Roger Moore: Yeah, the conversation with my kids is remarkable. We don’t have a huge latino population in our schools, but we do have a lot of asian, persian, indian kids and a huge number of biracial families – white/asian, white/black, white/latino, black/latino, black/asian – just among the people we know. My son didn’t grow up with nothing but white faces. He’s not going to be attracted to only white girls. And he’s growing up around a lot of gay households too, several of his friends have two dads or two moms. His band is as multicultural as you can imagine, same with the football team, and the cheerleaders.
He watches the news and is absolutely dumbfounded that people are afraid of the thing he’s growing up with. It’s the thing he yells at the TV about – because he still turns to me with disbelief that anyone would be afraid of gay people. He simply cannot process that. I don’t think the GOP realize just how impossible it’s going to be to win his generation over. For millions of kids this is what America looks like – and they love it. I’m pretty convinced that because there is no clear majority population, that’s played a huge role in why there’s very little bullying here. There’s just no obvious us and them for sides to form around.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
Not one for Biblical quotes, usually, but doesn’t this one fit the bill?
“And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’””
ArchPundit
@schrodinger’s cat: Still alive and haunting Clayton, Missouri. I can see the condo building from the corner.
ArchPundit
@Ella in New Mexico: Hell Wash U gave her an honorary degree two years ago. Some faculty members who were women had some issues with that choice.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, no fan of MC, she butchered like Vanilla Ice but thought she was Rakim.
But at least she’s not as smug-tentious as Ted Bundy and his dog, Helen.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
This. I like to say that very few people are culturally conservative in the abstract sense of wanting to preserve all traditional cultures equally. Most people who call themselves cultural conservatives are actually cultural chauvinists who want to exalt their traditional culture over others’. They may ally themselves with conservatives from other cultures to fight the liberals, but that’s an alliance of convenience that’s going to fall apart the moment the liberals are out of the way.
@Chris:
I think the Asian American community has more or less figured that out. The key thing is that they like some things from column A and some things from column B. Now that they’ve figured out that the Republicans won’t deliver on the good parts of their message, they’re swinging hard for the Democrats’ support of better health care, public education, and decent infrastructure. As somebody around here said, cutting funding for public schools and the UC system is not the way to win the Asian American vote.
Doug Milhous J
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think she had mental issues and the whole spectacle seemed cruel sometimes.
NonyNony
@Roger Moore:
Or, and here’s a shocking idea, the white voting rate didn’t actually drop.
CNN Exit polls 2008: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1
White Voters: 74%
African American: 13%
Latino: 9%
Asian: 2%
Other: 3%
CNN Exit polls 2012: http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president
Percentage White Voters: 72%
African American: 13%
Latino: 10%
Asian: 3%
Other: 2%
The “drop” in the white vote is completely explainable by growth in the size of the other demographics and more engaged voters, not by white people staying away from the polls in droves. Considering that non-Latino Whites make up 64% of the population, while “Hispanic or Latino” makes up 16% of the population, this is exactly how the numbers would trend if more folks who consider themselves Latino started voting. Not how it would look if white people suddenly started disengaging.
(Now if you want to make an argument for lower voter turnout overall being an artifact of people being disappointed with Obama and staying away from the polls, that’s a different story. But if that’s the case it appears to be an across the board disappointment that affected all demographics in order to make these numbers trend as closely as they do between the two elections. And yeah – one set of exit polls is not nearly sufficient, but if a larger amount of data supported the “white people stayed home in 2012” I’d be very surprised.)
NonyNony
Argh – moderation! What did I say? I don’t think I mentioned the economic regime that must never be named!
Bruce S
I think that if you’re Phyllis Schlafly, one would be absolutely right in making this argument. Increasingly her search for elusive white voters will be taking place in cemeteries, but you are who you are and you go with what you’ve got.
How old is this broad. I’m old and I remember her from when I was a kid in St. Louis as the local voice of Bircherism. When I was in high school I actually got a letter to the editor of the local paper published – when Pat Buchanan was in charge of the editorial page, no less – challenging her attacks on “decadent modern art” as a communist conspiracy. I compared her views on “modern art” to Stalin’s and Socialist Realism. Zing! One of her minions bounced some of their crazy back at me, but at least I got my shot in. She was crazy then and she’s still crazy after all these years. I’m just surprised she’s still alive. I guess she’s too mean to die…
ArchPundit
False. Hysterically so. Also, too, many non-voting whites would be Dems.
Well, then the GOP is just fucked. Don’t let the door hit you on the way to hell.
Chris
@? Martin:
Interesting. That sounds a lot like my middle and high school experience (early to mid 2000s, Washington DC suburbia). It was a French school and international as all hell (though American English was still the main language outside of class) so I’m wary of drawing assumptions from that experience about American school kids in general, but it sounds like your kids’ experience was pretty much the same as mine. Including the low to nonexistent bullying.
(Mind you, according to Facebook, there was that one kid who went back to France, joined the Navy, and is now a frothing at the mouth homophobe and Front National voter. Not sure how the fuck that happened given the environment he grew up in – and it’s not like he was an outcast or a loner in school. You get weirdos everywhere, I guess).
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
There are some provisions of the immigration bill that are worth reviewing. Here’s at here’s a legitimate critique of the immigration bill as it stands currently. The article is focused on the STEM provisions and what that means for the US labor market (particularly for scientists such as myself). Personally, I’m not especially concerned, but others are:
Corner Stone
@Craigo: Thanks. Patricia Kayden at #32 posted a summary by GOS that was also interesting on overall general Hispanic attitudes.
Petorado
Divisiveness is the only thing the R’s have going for them. They are no longer for anything, they no longer want to do anything or build anything, and their worldview is a zero-sum game of splitting up whatever is already in front of them and giving it to their rich friends. If you elect a Republican to Congress you are essentially paying someone to sit around and do nothing. There’s no rationale to vote Republican other than bias and hatred, and that’s the only drum Shlafly has to beat.
ranchandsyrup
Math just isn’t their strong suit. They can’t even get “imaginary numbers” right.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: They also assume a relationship of Catholics to church hierarchy that most Catholics do not have. Church was always more of a social club in my town than the activist Jesus Camps that Republicans are familiar with. In my town there were separate Spanish language masses so how would they know anyway?
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Here’s hoping that the Hispanic community works the same way, since it’s the biggest one by far.
One of the more depressing moments in 20th century history was the IGMFY defection of so many people from “ethnic white” minority groups (historically oppressed but “became white” halfway through the century) from Democrats to Republicans over the course of the sixties and seventies. I’ve more or less braced myself that a similar event will probably happen to Hispanics eventually, but I would dearly love to be proved wrong. Not all the “ethnic whites” followed that path – Jews continue to skew heavily Democratic.
(Though of course, I realize that that moment, if it ever comes, is decades in the future).
ArchPundit
@Bruce S: How old is this broad.
88. Not even worth much in a Dead Pool.
Corner Stone
@Petorado:
We’d be a lot better off if they actually did sit around and do nothing. Unfortunately, they take the money our taxes provide them and do their damndest with it.
schrodinger's cat
@Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage): Sanders and his Republican pal Grassley are against any and all changes to skilled immigration. And Ron Hira is the Indian version of Richwine’s thesis advisor Borjas, opposed to almost all immigration.
ETA: Giving individuals the ability to self petition for visas and not tying the visa to the employer/job can fix most of the current problems with skilled immigration.
Chris
@Petorado:
I think it’s pretty much always been that way, not just now. Republicans dominate by getting behind a national/ethnic majority of 50% and change, then setting it at the throat of the remaining 49%, the logic being that if the people are at each other’s throats, they won’t notice the 1%ers fleecing them. Back in the Gilded Age, the 51% majority was Northern WASPs, with Southerners and immigrants being the un-American enemies of the people.
ArchPundit
@Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage): I don’t think it’s the end of the world, but there isn’t a shortage of STEM workers according to the Sloan Foundation. It’s about lowering the price of the labor more than anything. But no matter how many times it’s been pointed out that there is no STEM shortage, politicians use it to increase H1B1 visas.
I think there is an argument to be made that isn’t all bad though–as more STEM workers can lead to more innovation and entrepreneurship, but that’s not the argument Hatch and others are making.
Mike E
@Petorado: How shitty would it look on a bumpersticker, but, This.
BC
One thing Schlafy misses: Romney could have boosted turnout of whites in IN, NE, KS, OK, TX, WY, UT, GA, AL, MS, SC, LA, ID to almost 100% – and all of them could vote for the Republican – and he still would have lost to Obama in the electoral college. He may have had more gross votes, but as Gore found out in 2000, that means nothing. The states in play are the states with changing demographics. These states may change as the demographics change – I personally think that Latinos in Texas and Arizona will make those states purple. But that is the demographic challenge for the GOP. They just don’t have enough whites in the states that matter to win national elections.
Tone In DC
@? Martin:
LULz. Gotta have those 2nd amendment implements.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: It’s kind of old news, but back in the 90s there was a lot of debate about where Asians fell on affirmative action, because there was a lot of speculation (some realistic, some based on “model minority” tropes) that Asians had more to gain from the end of AA in the UC system than white people did. It looks to me like that was true. It hasn’t done anything for the Republican party in CA though.
Redshirt
Democrats or Progressives or Liberals or whatever tag you want to use will always be a step behind because of the dynamic highlighted here: Repukes deal with base emotions, with anger and hate and mistrust. “Lizard Brain” stuff. Dems deal with structural issues, complicated schemes to help the less fortunate, the old, the immigrants, etc. Higher concept stuff.
Emotions are always easier than thought.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Mexican-Americans are different from other immigrants in that they were here first and the country came to them rather than the other way around. Many formerly Mexican areas of the Southwest had a strong established culture that wasn’t wiped out by Anglo immigrants, to the point that there’s been as much assimilation of Anglos to Chicano culture as the other way around. Something similar happened with Cajun/Creole culture in Louisiana, and they’re still culturally and in many ways politically distinct today.
Put another way, Mexican Americans have avoided becoming honorary whites for the better part of two centuries; there’s no particular reason to think it’s going to happen any time soon.
catclub
@Trakker: “Missing white voters?! Almost every white person I know, even the right-leaning ones here in the DC area, voted for Obama. I find it irritating that the right assumes white voters are all Republicans.”
This. In Mississippi, about 11% of white voters were for Obama. That is much worse than John Kerry
did. So she must mean white voters in states that Obama won. The fact that whites in Ohio, Colorado
and Michigan may differ in important ways from white voters in Mississippi is left as an exercise for the reader.
Bruce S
@BC:
Wow – electoral math. Like opinions aren’t enough?
NickT
@Bruce S:
She’s pickled in her own venom.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Cid:
Barrels all the way down!
Jay C
Even considering the source of this nonsense (Phyllis F*cking Schlafly? That miserable old harpy hasn’t died or retired yet??) – the very formulation of her political thesis tends to reinforce its own refutation. In 2013, she is talking about the “white vote” in terms that seem about right for the year of her birth (1924) – a sort of casual (and probably unconscious) assumption that “white voters” are some sort of monolithic bloc, with political motivations, she seems to believe, based solely on “white” identity politics: i.e. racist defense of white privilege and reflexive antagonism towards any “non-whites”. That “white” voters – or a significant minority of them, anyway – might have moved on from these attitudes seems not to have occurred to her. Nor, for that matter, to large numbers of Republican “leaders” nationwide. And yet they wonder why the Party can’t attract Hispanic voters??
Mr Stagger Lee
@Roger Moore: And consider if it wasn’t Mexican bashing the teatards engage in,it would be Asian bashing (the Yellow Peril) plus anti-Muslim prejudice that has got East Indians thrown in because in a teatard mind there is no difference between a Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, or a Muslim. The GOP today is no friend of anyone who is not of Aryan stock, except for the tokens.
? Martin
@Chris:
This is run of the mill public school out here. Yeah, it’s not representative of the country, but it’s increasingly representative of California, New York, other places. It’s sure as hell not going the other way.
NickT
Speaking of GOP voter outreach:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/fox-s-erick-erickson-female-breadwinners-are-antithetical
The chicken-fucking will continue until morale improves.
Roger Moore
@Mr Stagger Lee:
Using the corrupted definition of Aryan, mind you, not the original definition that applied to Indo-Persian people, who the white supremacists would love to leave out.
Chris
@NickT:
Every time you hear them whine about anti-science, just respond with some combination of “teach the controversy,” “not all scientists agree,” “it’s an unproven theory,” and all their other greatest hits. If that shit’s going to be out there in the national discourse, might as well use it. If nothing else, it makes for a good trolling seance.
? Martin
@SatanicPanic: There wasn’t really much to affirmative action in UC when it was going on. It helped some black students get into Berkeley, but anyone displaced just got into San Diego instead. And we’re talking about maybe 100 students out of what, 60,000 new students a year?
Asians are in an interesting spot regarding UC policy. There are a lot of Asians at marginal schools but they typically do very well on standardized tests (they’re very aggressive with test prep). So, depending on how much weight goes into those tests from the system determines how well they fare. The white kids do best when the weighting is toward advanced placement and honors courses, because the wealthier schools can afford to offer those. The minority students do best when the weighting is on overall GPA with the honors and AP balanced out (UC knows which schools offer what, so if a student is doing the top level course with an A, they get treated the same whether that top course is a standard course or an AP course – the student isn’t penalized for going to a school that doesn’t offer AP).
Right now the selection is geared to the last category – with honors/AP de-emphasized, and with standardized tests underweighted. Not only is it producing more ethnic and economic diversity, but more geographic diversity as well. Time was every kid in Rancho Palos Verdes got in – not so now. Now the kids from Calexico have a fighting chance.
ET
To Phyllis all Hispanics came to the country illegally – except the Cubans of course. Therefore all Hispanics vote Democratic. If they all vote Democratic they will all never vote Republican. Ever.
Of course she doesn’t seem to understand that not all Hispanics came to the country illegally. There are quite a few whose families have been in this country for generations. She also doesn’t understand (or more likely care) that shitting on the all often makes the all – including those that might be inclined to vote Republican – pretty pissed. Ted Cruz is not exactly white and he is Republican.
Phyllis is just an old white bigot living in the glory days of overt race-baiting who can’t understand why “those people” just don’t shut up let their “betters” run things.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: Interesting. I didn’t know at the time what all went into it. I was accepted in the last year before they dropped AA and oddly enough I’m from very close to Calexico (and I had a girlfriend from Rancho Palos Verdes…). Just based on the difference at UCSD from when I went there to what it looks like now, it seems less diverse than I remember it. But then I could be misremebering.
NickT
@Chris:
A good trolling seance is when Sully channels Mythical Zombie Reagan while his wage-slaves do all the actual work of blogging.
NickT
And speaking of the immigrant outreach by the teabaggers:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/tea-partier-susan-collins-will-listen-on-immigration?ref=fpb
Lovely people, those teabaggers.
AxelFoley
So now they’re blaming white people for Romney’s loss?
Are we sure peak wingnut is a lie?
Forum Transmitted Disease
@schrodinger’s cat: She left. Wasn’t banned.
Ugly truth is, as the other trolls prove, is that Word Press does not have the functionality to ban certain users.
Jebediah
@NickT:
The local Fox affiliate had a reporter at my local Starbucks yesterday morning talking to people. I doubt very much he got anything like Lou Dobbs’ reaction – and to be fair to the reporter (Hal Eisner) he did not seem to be fishing for that at all. Of course, local Fox affiliate ≠ Fox “News,” not 100% anyway.
Aimai
@ArchPundit: maybe employing the ones we have would have the same effect on innovation? If the job is there I fail to see why having a temporary worker increases the chances for innovation.