Zoltan Hajnal, an associate professor of political science at U.C. San Diego, has written a book called "America's Uneven Democracy". I found that out when I read his editorial column in the Wall Street Journal. Based on his column there's no chance of me picking up his book. The column is a pathetic string of unfounded assumptions, the major one being that there is some Republican strategy to ignore or attack minorities.
Relying on white support is not a new strategy for the party. In 2008, 91% of the votes that John McCain received in his presidential bid came from white voters.
The problem for Republicans is two-fold. First, whites may currently be the majority but they are a declining demographic. The proportion of all voters who are white has already declined to 75% today from 94% in 1960. By 2050, whites are no longer expected to be a majority of the U.S. population.
Second, Republicans are alienating racial and ethnic minorities—the voters who will ultimately replace the white majority and who they need to stay in power. In every national election in the past few decades, Democrats have dominated the nonwhite vote.
I'm surprised that the Journal actually printed the thing. Among the grossest failures of his article is the absence of any explanation or support for his claim that Republicans are alienating minorities. Professor Hajnal apparently hasn't noticed that the head of the Republican party is African-American -- Michael Steele -- and one of its most prominent rising stars is Hispanic -- Marco Rubio, Senator-elect from Florida.
On top of that, those predominantly white voters South Carolina and Florida elected the first African-American Republicans to congress since J.C. Watts, Republican of Oklahoma, retired in 2003.
One of them, Allen West, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army, prevailed in a tough fight in a South Florida district. The other, Tim Scott, is the first black Republican to be elected to the House of Representatives from South Carolina in over a century. They will be the first black Republicans in Congress since J. C. Watts of Oklahoma retired in 2003.
[...]
Mr. Scott, 45, was elected to the Charleston County Council in 1995 and the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2008. In the Congressional primary, this year he defeated both Carroll Campbell III, the son of a former South Carolina governor, and, in a runoff, Paul Thurmond, the son of former Senator Strom Thurmond, to take the seat in the First Congressional District, which hugs the South Carolina coast.
Mr. West, 49, has never held public office. Born and raised in a military family in Atlanta, he rose to battalion commander in Iraq. His 22-year military career came to an end during the war when he was relieved of his command after using a gun to coerce information from an Iraqi police officer during an interrogation. After retiring from the military in 2004, he moved to Florida, taught high school for a year and then went to Afghanistan as an adviser to the Afghan army.
John Thrasher, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said Mr. West won the battle to represent the 22nd Congressional District, which includes the coast of South Florida, because “he’s a great American patriot that resonated with people.”
“His opponent was Pelosi-Obama liberal,” Mr. Thrasher added, “and Allen gave them a different understanding of how government could be.”
Mr. West said he was more surprised that he won as a Republican in a district carried by the Democratic presidential nominee three elections in a row than as an African-American in a district with a white majority. But, he added, “I am honored to be first black Republican congressman from the state of Florida since Reconstruction. There is a historic aspect of it.”
Meanwhile back on the progressive plantation, Professor Hajnal takes another wild swing-and-a-miss at Republicans.
Republicans thus face a real dilemma. They may be able to gain over the short term by continuing their current strategy of ignoring or attacking minorities. But that is short-sighted.
Over the long term—as white voters become a smaller and smaller fraction of the electorate and Latinos and other racial and ethnic minorities become a larger and larger share of the electorate—any campaign that appeals primarily to whites will be doomed.
So here we go again with the same tiresome excuses for getting soundly thrashed in the midterms. For the past two years Democrats have been calling the tea partiers racist, desperately and futily hoping that the charge would stick. Sixty-plus house seats later we're seeing how that worked out. The professor does not.
Professor Hajnal repeats the old incantations, conjuring up some nonexistent Republican plan for "attacking minorities" as a campaign strategy. But he doesn't say it all that well, and he doesn't offer the slightest bit of support for what he says.
Progressives remain steadfastly delusional, but there is a method to their madness. In describing a Republican demographic doomsday scenario, the political science professor maps out a real strategy, but it's the progressive strategy. Sadly enough, stoking the fires of racism, class warfare, and hatred is their only hope. Progressives can't succeed without it. Since they have absolutely no idea of what to do about the economy, what else can they do to get elected?
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