A demographic shift....

[Prospero]

Post Obama's election victory some commentators adduce it to a growing demographic shift in the US with the growth of ethnic minorities supporting the Democrats. This article from the UK's Royal Society of Arts' journal offers an interesting analysis of the possible political direction of the US in coming decades.

The author is a professor of science and law at University of California, Berkeley


http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/jou.../americas-race

[Stavros]

The only interesting thing in this paper is the use of the concept of 'race' (and it derivatives, such as 'pan-racial'), which is never explained, never justified and which adds confusion whenever it appears. Race is a bogus concept, it has no basis in science, and its only use in culture has been to emphasise that there is a Master Race and that the rest are inferior, and there no prizes for guessing what the Master Race looks like.

To sub-divide, as Taeku Lee does, voters in terms of 'Asian Americans' and 'Latinos' as if they were 'racial' groups begs the question how Chinese and Japanese Americans see themselves; they might consider themselves to be Americans, but to say 'well, you are all from Asia so basically you are the same' is insulting and wrong.

If you want a clear demonstration of how useless it is to use 'race' as a tool in analysis, one that is functionally illterate and intellectually insulting, there is this sentence from late on in the paper:

This seemingly begs the question of why the Democratic party has been circumspect about embarking on a full-throttle campaign to consolidate a pan-racial base of African Americans, Asians, Latinos, Jews, LGBTs and the white working class.

So there you have it, LGBT is not only a racial category, so too is 'white working class'.

If there is a demographic analysis of the 2012 election to be done, this is not it.

[fivekatz]

I think the paper spends too much of its focus on the impact of race in the 2012 election but at the core of those events there were signals not just the racial make-up of the US was changing, but so where the attitudes of younger voters and women of all races.

The Republican general election coalition that emerged in the late 60's fueled on fear and anger at the changing of the status quo, whether it be civil rights, women's rights, the anti-war movement etcetera. This provided the Republican party a base which had very dueling economic goals, that forged it's bond based on social issues which were often wedge issues.

This caused the collapse of the New Deal coalition which had forge its foundation based on shared economic interests but conflicting social goals. Liberals and socially conservatives (southern segregationists) lived uncomfortably but effectively under one tent.

Nixon and the Reagan to a greater degree struck a cord with dog whistle racism, sexism, fear of gays by making strong alliances with the emerging political power of the Christian right.

The problem is that this coalition is aging at the same time the GOP through the Tea Party has dialed up their stances on women's rights, LGBT rights, taken harden stances on imigration (which is a negative dog whistle to Hispanic Americans) and raising new attacks on the poorest Americans under the benign name of entitlement reform. Their appeal rather than Democratic appeal found itself with the walls closing in with the popularity of their positions now being limited to an aging group of Americans national and being stuck in regional areas with vast geography but sparse population centers.

The democrats meanwhile while far from ideal on issues concerning immigration, LGBT, women's rights, protection of social services and a basic belief that the tax code unduly favored the 1%, found a candidate that in National elections that could drive a greater turnout of their coalition. And not to be under estimated the newer generation of voters do not share the old fears of LGBT, women attaining equal rights and the right of choice.

And it can't be under estimated that in addition to the social issues that drove the large numbers of from diverse groups with different wedge issues, I like to think that there was an over riding sense amongst a majority of the people that economic game plan of steady deregulation, privatization and tax policy that favored the 1% have been a failed experiment that has created a wealth gap not seen since the late 1920's.

But to a point the paper is right that America is no longer a country ruled by white men but it is folly not to understand that electoral success in the US in national elections has historical been achieved by creating coalitions with unique interest and characteristics that found enough of their interests answered by a political ideology to vote for the candidates even though they did not share every view of the candidate or goals of fellow constituents.

Look no further than the Reagan Revolution, Nixon's Silent Majority or perhaps the most conflicted of all coalitions the New Deal Coalition which lasted from 1932 - 1968.

Just my take

[fivekatz]

PS- The effect seen in 2008 and 2012 may well be because of the added focus that National elections have, which drives turn out. And the Obama team also must be credited with having an outstanding ability to drive turnout. The trick at this point is of course to be able to translate the GOV efforts that bring people of color, younger voters and the LGBT community out in the numbers they went to the polls in during the national election cycles of 08 and 12.

Until we see that happen, this isn't as much a sea change in the direction of America as it will be a practice in prolonged gridlock.

[Stavros]

...The trick at this point is of course to be able to translate the GOV efforts that bring people of color...

'People of color' -was there ever a more inept, meaningless phrase in the English language?

[Prospero]

I agree with Stavros that the concept of race, deep down, is a bad one. But many people use this cncept as a way of identitfying themselves.Racists do of course - talking quite spuriously of the Jewish race for instance - but also other groups - including those who've been the victims of racism. As for people of color - it is yet another attempt to find a euphemism that covers the wide range of ethnicities whose roots are non-European or white anglo saxon. Wasn't so long ago that respectable papers in the US and UK called black people "negroes' But quite rightly the black community objected to that.

Courtesy and respectfulness demands that we talk to and off each other in terms that generally acceptable to this or that group, surely? In the UK Afro-Caribbean seems to be a perfectly acceptable phrase. In the US I am not sure what is the current acceptable description. is it not people of color?

You might just as well object to the use of the word gay - because it was once widely used with an utterly different meaning.

[Stavros]

I agree with Stavros that the concept of race, deep down, is a bad one. But many people use this cncept as a way of identitfying themselves.Racists do of course - talking quite spuriously of the Jewish race for instance - but also other groups - including those who've been the victims of racism. As for people of color - it is yet another attempt to find a euphemism that covers the wide range of ethnicities whose roots are non-European or white anglo saxon. Wasn't so long ago that respectable papers in the US and UK called black people "negroes' But quite rightly the black community objected to that.

Courtesy and respectfulness demands that we talk to and off each other in terms that generally acceptable to this or that group, surely? In the UK Afro-Caribbean seems to be a perfectly acceptable phrase. In the US I am not sure what is the current acceptable description. is it not people of color?

You might just as well object to the use of the word gay - because it was once widely used with an utterly different meaning.

I am not sure how far people attach labels to themselves, or accept the labes others invent, until they rebel and insist on some other temporary ID -surely all labels are designed to separate people, on the assumption that some people are inferior/superior, don't belong, are in some way disadvantaged -collapsing something as complex as American society into 'identifiable' blocs of voters seems to me to be part of a problem that is extended to other countries; just as calling people 'Gay' is as meaningless as calling them 'Latino'. Why not just call them Americans? We have the same problem in the UK when people who are British are suddenly described as being 'Pakistani' because they have broken the law, as if that was the cause.

[trish]

People participate in communities that are often extremely fuzzy at the edges but nevertheless identifiable. E.g. there is indeed an LGBT community with somewhat common social and political concerns. Because each such community has somewhat identifiably coherent social and political concerns, a political strategy (for good or ill) may target the group via addressing those particular concerns. IMO fivekatz's use of the current labels was neither overly ambiguous nor offensive.

[fivekatz]

The origins of "people of color" being used in polite conversation in the US is unknown to me. But it appears it was found to preferable to phrases such as non-white or minority.

The relevance of the phrase it that it allows one to describe the different groups of non-whites, who while they undoubtedly have unique characteristics and interests, they have all historically been subject to some level of discrimination due to their "non-white anglo" status.

Stavros I certainly applaud your thoughts when you state ..."Why not just call them Americans?" They are after all Americans. But to believe that race, sexual orientation and gender are transparent in American life is not realistic.

In 2012 the GOP took extraordinary steps in a number of states to attempt to surpress the votes of Americans based on race and age. The Dems took extraordinary efforts to get out the vote in the face of the surpression efforts. They did this because members of these groups may have different circumstances and different goals but they also have mutually shared interests.

Those efforts happened because changing demographics do matter in national elections in the US and frankly the last two elections suggest that the GOP will need to focus more on their fiscal policy message and how it translate into economic equity for all, rather than inspiring a large turnout amongst their so called core voters with "dog whistle" wedge issues aimed at certain Americans.

And whether you wish to find other ways to describe non-white, non-hetero, poor people and women who wish choice, they have become a coalition formed not so much by the Dems as by the GOPs policy pronouncements towards them.

Just my take

[Stavros]

I admit to being a bit obsessed with language, although race to me is gibberish from whichever angle it is approached. It was interesting watching the documentary on drugs in America, The House I Live In, to hear David Simon, the Baltimore crime journalist who created both Homicide: Life on the Streets, and The Wire, argue that drugs in America was class-based.

If we must break down people into manageable categories, social groupings seem to me to have a more secure basis in reality -it also makes a category like 'Black American' or 'Latino' more flexible, because you can then sub-divide what appears to be a single bloc, and delineate differences that exist within those alleged 'communities', differences of income, of aspiration, of politics, etc. It eliminates 'race' as a workable concept, repacing it with something easy to understand.

The curious aspect of US politics is that the demographic shift is being used to explain Obama's election victories, yet the Senate and the House have not changed markedly over the last 30 or so years, yet that is where the battles over policy take place. It will be interesting to see if the Democrats can take back control of the House in the mid-term elections, which is why the behaviour of the GOP over the next 18 months could reveal how far this party is so badly divided even 'loyal Republicans' desert it. But I am not sure it will happen; either the boundaries of districts need to change for change to take place, or for everything to remain the same.