Sean Trende is one of the better conservative political analysts out there. His predictions for 2012 election were off, but he did consider Obama the favorite at least, and he does make logical use of teh math. He’s written a series of articles about how Republicans don’t need to pass immigration reform because (a) the Latino vote is not monolithic and (b) Republicans can flourish by doubling down on the white vote. Ed Kilgore gives a thorough summary of the arguments here.
I don’t agree with his arguments at all, but they’re not nonsense. Sooner or later Republicans were going to come up with reasonably quantitative arguments about why they don’t need immigration reform, and, truthfully, Trende is a cut above the global warming deniers and unskew the polls types.
The only reason Boehner would push immigration reform through the House would be that he’s convinced that the GOP needs its passage to survive. Any reasonably plausibly argument that the GOP doesn’t need its passage after all may be enough to kill the bill.
The prophet Nostradumbass
This post reads like it’s from Taiwan. Still there?
Doug Milhous J
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Yes
Hunter Gathers
The immigration bill is already pining for the fjords. With white liberals spending all their time debating whether or not Snowden is a Great American or the Greatest American, the kicking of it’s corpse by the House will probably go completely unnoticed outside of Univision. Oh sure, they’ll be about 15 minutes of outrage at teh GOS, but after that it’s back whether or not Obama is a sellout, corporate shill, gutless, egotistical, or whatever else Tru Progressives deem him to be this week. It’s about as exciting as watching flies fuck.
Comrade Luke
One of the most irritating things I read is when people say “Just wait until they die off”, talking about conservatives/racists/religious zealots or “Just wait until they get in big enough numbers” about minorities.
First, assuming that these people will be replaced by others that uniformly agree with your point of view is incredibly naïve. Second, it’s basically saying “Don’t change a thing”, which is both lazy and unrealistic.
If all we do is sit around and wait, we’re going to be very, very disappointed with the result.
cokane
I believe there is some merit to Trende’s argument. First off, I don’t know if passing immigration reform will greatly improve GOP performance with Latinos or other minorities. Immigration isn’t the only issue Latinos care about. And many Latinos are breaking with the GOP because of reasons above and beyond immigration.
Second, the often cited 71-27 Latino margin from 2012 might not be as accurate as some people think. The entire state of Texas was not included in this polling, and its home to many conservative Latinos. Just saying, the 71-27 split may not be as accurate as it’s made out to be.
Lastly, there is some merit to what the crazies like Rep. Steve King say about immigration reform. Illegal immigrants are going to tend to be working class voters. The overwhelming majority of them are going to vote Democrat if they become citizens one day.
Anoniminous
According to Roper Romney won 59% of the White Vote and got slaughtered. Bush won 58% (statistically “the same”) and won re-election. The difference was the Hispanic and Asian vote that went 53/44 (Kerry/Bush) and 56/43 in ’04 and 71/27 and 73/26.
Further, the percentage of the White vote wrt to the overall electorate is dropping ~2.5% between presidential elections. So the GOP is maintaining (more-or-less) their voting percentage of a declining demographic.
It may be mathematically possible to “double-down” on the White vote but it isn’t realistic. Especially when the White Woman demographic is taken into consideration.
Hunter Gathers
@cokane: Romney won the white vote by around 20 points. Obama beat him because he cleaned Romney’s clock with every other demographic group. Latinos may be culturally conservative up to a point, but when one of the two major parties is screaming ‘Go back to Mexico, you lazy fucking spic’, all of the anti-abortion measures in the Universe isn’t going to sway many of those voters. Besides, Texas is already majority minority. Latinos there just don’t vote at the same rate there that they do practically everywhere else. Yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling guarantees that those rates won’t change anytime in the near future. This is your democracy, America. Fucking cherish the shit out of it.
Anoniminous
@Comrade Luke:
The demographic shift presents an opportunity. That’s all. It’s up to activists to seize the opportunity to make the needed changes.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Boner could try to push through an immigration bill but I doubt that the House would pass one because (1), it would be a piece of shit, turning off Democrats, and (2), the Teahadists would do everything they could to sabotage it.
I think it’s getting to the point that the only thing Boner can control in the House is his bowels.
An aside: I am enjoying reading Erick, Son of Erick, regularly ripping into Rubio over his immigration positions. I am rooting for injuries on both sides.
Jerzy Russian
@DougJ at top: Are you sweating your ass off in Taiwan? I know I did when I visited there in June many years ago. Also, lack of twilight there kind of freaked me out when first experienced it.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Hunter Gathers: California will be majority minority soon too, not that it matters very much here for the R’s, who are already fucked.
cokane
@Hunter Gathers: my point was that the Republicans have already dug such a hole for themselves with minority groups, for various reasons, that there might not be as much sense in trying to reverse that.
The election was still 51-47, which is pretty darned close. From a short-term 2016, 2020, perspective, Republicans could put it all on white and come out the winner. It’s not impossible.
amk
@cokane: Are you assuming another Obama in the future to represent dems ? If that ain’t happening, the “Republicans could put it all on white and come out the winner’, ain’t happening either. mittbot, rove, billionaires and the entire rethug gang rabble roused on a 1 billion dollar race baiting strategy and still the kenyan muslin kicked them in the nuts and pulled it with a 4 point win.
nwithers
It’s a sad state of affairs when the nicest thing you can say about a Republican talking head is “I don’t agree with his arguments at all, but they’re not nonsense.”
The prophet Nostradumbass
Here is a good article about what many women need to deal with in order to get an abortion.
Odie Hugh Manatee
OT:
Sipp E. Cupp finds it “shockingly pathetic” that some people consider Texas state Senator Wendy Davis a hero for blocking the passage of the abortion bill. Someone needs to stick a dick in Sipp E.’s mouth to plug it.
What, too soon?
Biff Longbotham
Don’t know anything about Trende or the specifics of his arguments, but on the surface, the idea that “the Latino vote is not monolithic” should appeal to Repubs. After all, a principle ‘winning’ strategery of theirs has been to have the white middle class demographic vote against their economic self-interest.
Chris
@nwithers:
In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
Joey Maloney
@Odie Hugh Manatee: No, too rapey.
Eric k
@cokane: @cokane:
The total popular vote is pretty much 45-45 to start so getting to 47 isn’t much. Plus where the votes are matters. The Reps can stay at 47% by getting even a higher percentage of the White vote in KY, WV, Georgia, etc and lose the EC even worse than they did this time, AZ and Texas are getting less white, just to pick two states.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Joey Maloney:
Make it a corndog then. :)
cokane
@Eric k: this kind of triumphalism isn’t really warranted and is reminiscent of the kind preached by republicans in 2004. obama was a special candidate, very gifted, very clean record, few gaffes, ran a very intelligent gotv campaign. these things are not necessarily going to repeat themselves in 2016.
Black turnout rates will likely decrease from 2008, 2012 levels. This is going to have an effect in florida, ohio, and virginia. Latino and asian votes may not break as heavily for the democrats. external circumstances such as the economy could be even more unfavorable for democrats.
The Republicans also might not completely fuck up their ground game operation, might wise up a little on campaigning, and might run a more inspiring candidate than Romney.
RareSanity
@cokane:
While that all of that may be true, there’s still three more years of Republicans being Republicans, that their next candidate will have to overcome.
Linda
However killing immigration reform hurts the Republican Party overall, for individual gerrymandered Republicans in Congress, a vote to kill it protects their individual reelection chances, and protects them from being primaried by someone farther to the right. And that’s all they care about, period–their own asses. A local tomato processing plant has announced that it will close this summer, because they don’t have enough (migrant) labor to stay open, but the yahoos here and elsewhere don’t give a damn–they are playing a reallly short game, and taking care of themselves.
amk
@cokane: That’s lot of mights, which in reality are won’ts.
Aimai
@Odie Hugh Manatee: can we not have rape jokes or jokes that imply that being the recipient of sex is degrading.
Kay
Republicans ( and a lot of Democrats) believe this in OH, actually.
They say the white vote was down 6%, is the number.
This is also the Huckabee/Santorum argument, white secular working class. It’s the GOP variant on populism.
I think there’s something to it, because younger white working class people are (IMO) less
religious.
I don’t know, though. It might be a wash.
I think the stars could align for them if Democrats don’t do.better on appealing to.working class people IN GENERAL.
I’m not seeing “the laser like focus on the middle class” (no one ever admits ‘working class’) I think Democrats need to do well in the midterms. We don’t have to approach this like Republicans. We could do a broad, inclusive working class appeal that doesn’t focus exclusively on slicing and dicing the white electorate and setting them against the non-white electorate.
We don’t have to.look at this like Republicans do, where we accept the parameters and do battle for our share. They’re boxed into this strategy. We’re not. We have some options.
Omnes Omnibus
@cokane: What white people are the Republicans going to get to vote for them that they don’t already have? I posit that those of us who don’t vote Republican now ain’t going to start doing so in the foreseeable future. How can they double down?
Kay
In other words, I think this only works for Republicans IF Democrats fall into the trap of adopting the other side of THEIR argument/ strategy.
They wouldn’t do this if they had a choice, we have a choice, so let’s not be dopes and get pulled into their desperation play. They would LOVE to make this “battle for male, white working class who are hard to turn out”, because they have nothing else. There’s just no reason to adopt the other side of that. It’s narrow. We can do better.
Bobby Thomson
Killing the bill implies it ever had a chance and wasn’t a cynical effort just to be perceived as doing something while doing nothing. Not true. Republicans don’t see it as in their electoral interests and they definitely don’t favor it on the merits.
sherparick
Trende appears to argue for letting the Freak Flag fly for a pure White/Confederate Party that George Wallace, Theodore Bilbo, Strom Thurmond, and Jefferson Davis could be proud of (frankly I thought that was what they were doing the last 4 years) as a way of attracting “working class, secular, Northern whites.” First, one could argue that if the 41 to 42 % of us white folks who don’t feel the tribal pull of the Stars and Bars are not voting for the Repugs yet, waving the Battle Flag of racism a little harder is not likely to attract us. The folk I descend from referred to these folks as “Secesh” and their flag the flag of treason that we were shooting at Shiloh, Stones’ River, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, etc (my Great-Great Grandfather and five of his uncles served in the Armies of the Cumberland and Tennessee – they helped Sherman make Georgia howl).
As Trende himself notes the cultural/race argument has not brought these folks over to the Repugs yet, no matter their disillusionment with Obama in particular and the Democrats in general for non-Greenwald, non-Firebagger, reasons (the Democratic elite’s love affair with trade agreements that serve a corporate agenda with a promise of trickle down to the workers is I think a good a reason as any for disillusionment as real median incomes fall by $1,000 a year rate). http://www.nationalmemo.com/wages-fall-at-record-pace/ (By the way, this falling median income since January, with the tax increases and sequestration spending cuts (AUSTERITY!!!), not Benghazi, IRS, Snowden, etc. for the decline and or stagnation in Obama’s approval ratings.
Mr. Trende suggests a rhetorical nod to these concerns might draw votes to the Confederate Party, even as that Party promises, in the Ryan budget, to gut the Government social insurance programs of the 20th century. I think you see this right now with Congressman Ryan publicly showing his concern for the poor (and making sure the “Poor” are identified as Black and Brown – what a coincidence). I still don’t think this dog will hunt with folks who are pretty conscious of their dependence a Government safety net of social security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and food stamps when facing the whims of the marketplace and are repelled by the Confederates cultural politics. I guess as a Republican hack, Trende is trying to figure out a Rovian way to dominate with just the white vote, but it is one that not even Rove is not buying.
P.S. The Wendy Davis phenomenon is interesting. As polling in Texas indicates, one of the reasons that the Rove and Confederates took charge the last 20 years is that a lot of non-church affiliated, secular, working class whites just stopped participating in politics, while the Evangelical ministers were starting to shepherd their flocks to the pull and anyone who did not vote Repub did not love Jesus.
P.S.S. I would not have perfect confidence that folks in their 20s voting Democrat will vote that way after they enter their 40s and 50s. A lot of my hippie, radical friends in college are now right-wing Republicans. One good friend was a pro-choice, proudly independent voter 20 years ago, but a sudden awareness of her mortality and the social network of her extended family have made her a born-again Christian and solid Repug voter.
Shrillhouse
@Odie Hugh Manatee: AWFUL.
JGabriel
Omnes Omnibus:
That’s what I think is one of the fatal flaws in Trende’s thinking: how many white xenophobic assholes are there that Trende thinks can be re-motivated to vote by intensified appeals to white people? I mean, seriously, are there really a lot of white people voting Democratic because the Republicans just ain’t white enough?
Trende’s whole argument reads like a slippery slope to fascism, if’n ya ask me.
.
azlib
An immigration bill can pass the House. All Boehner has to do is drop the Hastert rule and let the democratic process take its course.
Rommie
@sherparick: Yeah, many of these supposed untapped white voters are in the Northeast and upper Midwest. While there’s certainly no shortage of GOP influence in these areas (the Michigan-Indiana border could be charitably called “North Alabama”), trying to expand it by doubling down on the values of Old Dixie will annoy more old-school Yankees than get new riders to march with the modern-day Stonewall.
I’m more worried someone with a Clue(tm) on the GOP side will brew a vintage pot of Snake Oil policies and split the minority majority vote just enough to let them win. Thankfully, they seem willing to serve up their standard BS with a new coat of paint so far.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: The Ron Paulite libertarian issues that aren’t already obsessions of the Glenn Beck crowd (pot, privacy, civil liberties) could bring a chunk of affluent, young-to-middle-aged white voters over to the Republicans if there were candidates there willing to capitalize on them. Currently it’s basically just the Paul family, and the rest of the party is doing the opposite, but I could see an opening there.
But I’m not convinced there are actually that many of them. It always seems like Ron Paul has this huge national constituency if you get your political news from the Internet. In actual elections, not so much. It’s the one thing I can think of.
schrodinger's cat
As usual they are forgetting women, I know of at least a couple of families, where the husband votes Republican and the wife Democrat. Next up, GOP will try to disenfranchise women voters.
ETA: When I was canvassing for Obama last year in a town that was more 90% white and working class, I had the same experience.
negative 1
Trende’s larger point about the appeal to blue collar whites is, in my opinion, rather a large one to ignore. Most of our union members are social conservatives (and many are closet racists). One day it may occur to a rethuglican to appeal to them with a message of “we are for those who work, no matter how much they make” and agree not to go after unions and their laborers in favor of demonizing those on public assistance of any kind (which, by the way, isn’t most blue collar workers of any stripe). If they do that, they will appeal to plenty of the lower middle to middle class hispanics (mainly from the Dominican Republic here) in this state as well as the Perot coalition Trende talks about.
The thing is, no one talks about ‘the Irish vote’ any more. Why? Because after a couple of generations, you identify more with your socioeconomic status than you do with an ethnicity that you never really were, you were just from the US. Or you intermarry, and it’s real fuzzy. Democrats believing “well hispanics voted Dem in 2012, we’ve got them forever!” is stupid and short sighted. After all, when was the last time you saw an African American vote (R)?
Cassidy
If the GOP figures out that all it needs to do is drop the god-bothering and fetus worshipping, then they’ll have a resurgence. It’s an easy solution but almost impossible to implement.
schrodinger's cat
@Cassidy: But how can they do that when that is their base.
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
One wonders why the GOP seems to take every possible opportunity to goad female voters.
Women were not a minority constituency in the last election, and Robme lost them by 11 points overall, with wider margins in several swing states.
Cassidy
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s why I say impossible to implement. The solution is simple, but. fortunately for us, they can’t move beyond their own nature.
Patricia Kayden
“Republicans can flourish by doubling down on the white vote.”
They got a majority of the White male and female vote in 2012. Good luck with that strategy.
penpen
@Odie Hugh Manatee: come on dude, that’s terrible
JoyfulA
I’m heartened by the Asian-American vote. When last I seriously canvassed to GOTV in my township, I was stunned by the number of Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, etc., I encountered on my street lists. The voting percentages tell me that the Republicans don’t have Asian-Americans on their street lists.
I later learned via the newspaper that south-central Pennsylvania has much the highest percentage of people in the state who profess a religion other than Christianity or Judaism—not Philadelphia, not Pittsburgh. Which is cool.
negative 1
@Cassidy: But I actually think that you’re wrong. They lose voters and any real grassroots they have if they drop those things. When was the last time you saw Executive VPs going house to house to rally support for tax reform? Who does that leave for them to get to the polls? The upper 10% of wage earners only gives you at most 10% of the population.
Cassidy
@negative 1: Maybe. I think they pick up a large section of right leaning, young men and women who are turned off by the constant harping on abortions and slut shaming, etc. People have short memories in this country.
Another Halocene Human
@Odie Hugh Manatee: you’d have to knock that corporate RW dick out of her mouth first
“shockingly pathetic” thrown on a superior, but lower economic class rival sounds like high school shit
which is about where SE Cupp is stuck emotionally, anyway
Another Halocene Human
@negative 1: But they already did this! Buncha dumfuk angry white male union members vote GOP! (Their wives often not so much, whether hubby knows it or not.)
ranchandsyrup
They’re gonna have to play both sides. Peel some emoprogs and liberaltarians while doubling down on the crazy right wing. Rand Paul is showing them the path by speaking out of both sides of his mouth to the desires of the respective groups with nary a mention of his contradictory positions by the courtier press. Paul/Glenzilla ticket would win 150% of the vote if you unskew the polls.
Doug, your bar for sane conservatives is set about 3 feet under ground.
Snarki, child of Loki
Well, sure…
all the GOP needs is to increase their proportion of the white vote to 110%, that’s certainly within reach in cracker-dominated districts.
It makes just as much sense as their budget plans!
Sondra
@Anoniminous:
I think this sounds about right, but there is almost always more to it.
There was probably a backlash about Romney’s religion: it didn’t help win the % of the white Jewish vote that votes Republican. Knowing that Mormons in general and Romney in particular have “baptised” dead Jews.
Not to mention some Evangelicals who consider it a cult. Or the % of black religious people who usually vote R, but remember the horrible aspersions of Mormons against their race.
Granted that last group doesn’t account for the so called absent white voters, but it contributes to the overall drop-off of pro- R voters in general.