Thread: Has the bell begun to toll for the GOP?

Has the bell begun to toll for the GOP?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Posted 05/18/2012 ET
Updated 05/18/2012 ET

Among the more controversial chapters in "Suicide of a Superpower," my book published last fall, was the one titled, "The End of White America."

It dealt with the demographic decline of the white majority and what it portends for education, the U.S. economy, politics and national unity.

That book and chapter proved the proximate cause of my departure from MSNBC, where the network president declared that subjects such as these are inappropriate for "the national dialogue."

Apparently, the mainstream media are reassessing that.

For, in rare unanimity, The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today all led yesterday with the same story.

"Whites Account for Under Half of Births in U.S.," blared the Times headline. "Minority Babies Majority in U.S.," echoed the Post. "Minorities Are Now a Majority of Births," proclaimed USA Today.

The USA Today story continued, "The nation's growing diversity has huge implications for education, economics and politics."

Huge is right.

Not only are whites declining as a share of the population, they are declining in real terms. Between 2010 and 2011, the number of births to white women fell 10 percent. The median age of white Americans, now 43 and rising, means that half of all white women have moved past the age that they are ever likely to bear more children.

White America is a dying tribe.

What do these statistics mean politically? Almost surely the end of the Republican Party as a national governing institution.

Republicans now depend on the vanishing majority for fully 90 percent of their votes in presidential elections, while the Democratic Party wins 60 to 70 percent of the Asian and Hispanic vote and 90 to 95 percent of the black vote.

The Democratic base is growing inexorably, while the Republican base is shriveling.

Already, California, Illinois and New York are lost. The GOP has not carried any of the three in five presidential elections. When Texas -- where whites are a minority and a declining share of the population -- tips, how does the GOP put together an electoral majority?

Western states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona, which Republican nominees like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan swept almost every time they ran, are becoming problematic for the party.

Thus the GOP refrain: We must work harder to win over Hispanics.

Undeniably true. But how does the GOP appeal to them?

Fifty-three percent of all Hispanic children are born out of wedlock, with no father in the home and many of the moms themselves high school dropouts. Most Hispanic kids thus start school far behind.

In tests of fourth-, eighth- and 12th-graders, their scores are closer to those of African-American kids than whites and Asians. Their dropout rate matches that of black kids. Absent affirmative action, not only are America's colleges and universities but her professions are going to look far more Asian and white than the national population.

Not a formula for social peace.

Comes the reply: We must spend more to close the racial gap in test scores. Yet, according to The Washington Examiner, in the District of Columbia, the community where we have spent perhaps the most per capita to close the racial gap in test scores, the racial gap is by far the largest in the nation.

Not only do we seem not to know how to close it after four decades of plunging trillions into public schools, the country is tapped out. We are in the fourth consecutive year of trillion-dollar deficits, and our largest and richest state, California, just discovered its deficit has exploded to $16 billion.

And why should Hispanics vote Republican?

The majority of Hispanics are among that half of the population that pays no income tax. Why should they vote for a party whose major plank is that it will cut income taxes?

Hispanics benefit disproportionately from government programs.

Government puts their kids in Head Start before public school and provides them with Pell grants and student loans after public school.

From kindergarten through 12th grade, government educates their kids for free. Government provides them with free or subsidized health care through Medicaid and clinics. Government provides their families with public housing and rent supplements. Government provides the food stamps that feed the family. Government provides them with an annual earned income tax credit, a check just for working.

Government provides all these things, and what are Republicans going to do? They promise to cut government.

Again, why should Hispanics vote Republican?

Establishment Republicans say the party should support amnesty for illegal aliens. Yet this would make millions more eligible for federal programs in a country sinking in debt and mean millions more Hispanics going to the polls, and millions more coming to America in anticipation of the next amnesty.

How would that help the GOP?

By endlessly expanding Great Society programs, by lopping taxpayers off tax rolls, by supporting open borders and endless immigration from the Third World, the Republican Party, out of sheer nobility of character, has probably ensured its impending departure from history.


Has the bell begun to toll for the GOP? - HUMAN EVENTS

Unfortunately we're becoming a nation of more tax takers than tax makers. Isn't going to end well.

Originally Posted by Jean

Unfortunately we're becoming a nation of more tax takers than tax makers. Isn't going to end well.

As more and more jump on the welfare wagon for a free ride, and fewer and fewer pull the wagon, we will be faced with the question - do we beat the horse or unload the wagon? This administration has decided to beat the horse. Soon it will collapse, as will our society.

GOP problem: 'Their voters are white, aging and dying off'

Minority voters expected to become more of power base in GOP strongholds

Author: By Halimah Abdullah CNN
Published On: May 21 2012 07:03:29 AM CDT Updated On: May 21 2012 12:50:56 PM CDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) - When presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears before Latino small-business owners in Washington on Wednesday, he'll address a group whose explosive birth rates foreshadow a seismic political shift in GOP strongholds in the Deep South and Southwest.

"The Republicans' problem is their voters are white, aging and dying off," said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who studies minority political engagement.

"There will come a time when they suffer catastrophic losses with the realization of the population changes."

Over the next several generations, the wave of minority voters -- who, according to U.S. Census figures released this week, now represent more than half of the nation's population born in the past year -- will become more of a power base in places like Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. That hold will extend across the Southwest all the way to California, experts say.

The coming political revolution could result in a massive changing of the guard on nearly every level of government, potential cultural clashes, and the type of political alliances that are now considered rare.

Offspring of immigrant farm workers

In Georgia, those rumblings are already being felt.

It is a state that depends heavily on immigrant labor to pick peaches and peanuts and work in poultry plants. So when Georgia -- like its Southern sister states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina -- passed a tough anti-immigration bill that also penalizes businesses, Hispanic groups and farmers alike pushed back.

"This election cycle Latinos in Georgia are upset about (the law)," said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of GALEO, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group geared toward Georgia's growing Latino population. "That's going to spur more galvanization than we've ever seen before."

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Southeastern states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee boast some of the greatest percentage increases in Latino population growth. They are also states where the percentage of Hispanics roughly doubled.

And, according to Pew, the Latino population boom helped Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington net additional congressional seats.

Though Georgia's Latino population has mushroomed over the past ten years, according to Pew, roughly 23% of that group is eligible to vote, compared to roughly 76.2% of whites and just over 69% of African-Americans.

Still, activists like Gonzalez are hopeful that lawmakers will see the trends and recognize "Latinos merit a seat at the table as well."

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So far, Republican efforts to offer Latinos a place at the table have fallen short.
The nation's Hispanics tend to vote Democratic, and overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden in 2008.

Romney in particular has stumbled with this critical voting bloc, after his comments suggesting that making the economic landscape tough for illegal immigrants will force them to "self deport."

Trying to convince a growing population

Even Republican Hispanic lawmakers, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, have urged the GOP to soften its language when discussing immigration and such proposals as the House-passed version of the Violence Against Women Act, which killed expanded coverage for illegal immigrants and Native Americans who are victims of domestic abuse, and the failed DREAM Act, which would have given U.S. residency to immigrant kids with high school diplomas.

The GOP is trying to clean up its image with Hispanic voters, with an eye toward the demographic's looming political clout.

Romney is slated to speak at the Latino Coalition's Annual Economic Summit in Washington on Wednesday. Last week, his campaign released "Dia Uno," a Spanish-language version of an ad underscoring Romney's mission for the first day he assumes the presidency.

If Republicans continue to struggle to appeal to Latino voters, Spanish-language ads may not stave off a change that experts like Bositis see coming in the not too distant future, when states such as Georgia go purple and eventually blue.

"There'll be a tipping point where you've got the Republicans in charge, but you'll get to the point when the population becomes minority," Bositis said. "When that happens the statewide offices will fall. Republican governors will fall. Things will change."
This announcement on birth rates "should be a wake-up call to everyone running for political office from this day forward," said Lionel Sosa, a veteran Latino GOP strategist who has helped advise candidates since 1980. "Latinos should no longer be considered minorities. In many crucial electoral states, this 'former minority' is fast becoming the deciding vote. The candidate who reaches out most effectively will win their support."

"Token efforts, such as tamale parties, will no longer work. Winning will require more than outreach. It will require inclusion," Sosa said. "Latinos, African-Americans and people of other races must be represented in the important decision-making strategies of any given campaign, whether it be for a Democrat or Republican."



GOP problem: 'Their voters are white, aging and dying off' | Politics - Home

[QUOTE]As more and more jump on the welfare wagon for a free ride, and fewer and fewer pull the wagon, we will be faced with the question - do we beat the horse or unload the wagon? This administration has decided to beat the horse. Soon it will collapse, as will our society[/QUOTE


Both the horse AND the wagon are symptoms, not the cause. The cause is special interest lobbying money. That is what is killing the country, and the only way to stop it is to eliminate it. Not an easy task when those who need to take this action are the current beneficiaries. Moreover, that tolling sound you hear is not just for the GOP; it is for the entire nation.

One problem is love of country something that has been over looked in our public schools past 40 years, the idea of pandering to various groups is a large portion of our problems along with a government that is corrupt and more interested in nation building rather then solving problems at home. If this country continues to divide by race and politics we will see a total breakdown and internal conflict that will make the civil war seem tame. Sadly there are those in government that appear to want to divide us one can only imagine the reason.

Originally Posted by oldguy

One problem is love of country something that has been over looked in our public schools past 40 years, the idea of pandering to various groups is a large portion of our problems along with a government that is corrupt and more interested in nation building rather then solving problems at home. If this country continues to divide by race and politics we will see a total breakdown and internal conflict that will make the civil war seem tame. Sadly there are those in government that appear to want to divide us one can only imagine the reason.

All the above is sadly true, but more disgusting is the fact that Romney will never beat Obama. The memories of the Bush family are still too vivid in voters minds. Sadly it is both parties that are stealing us blind and destroying the country that we all loved.

Originally Posted by Jean

Unfortunately we're becoming a nation of more tax takers than tax makers. Isn't going to end well.

That is so true Jean.