Wednesday, November 07, 2012

The Republican loss

Obama's win in the U.S. election demonstrates a problem with the model of right-liberal (Republican) versus left-liberal (Democrat) politics.

The problem goes like this. The Democrats have the support of ethnic minorities and those who feel dependent on the state. Given the continuing mass immigration into America, and the growth of welfare dependency, this provides a growing electoral base for the left-liberal party.

The Republicans have to rely on a white/employed/married base. You might think, therefore, that the Republicans would not want to undermine this base through large-scale immigration. But right-liberals generally have an ideological commitment to immigration. They tend to see it favourably in terms of the workings of the market and as an aspect of "freedom" (of the actions of self-made individuals).

This right-liberal approval of large-scale immigration is apparent in the farewell address of Ronald Reagan:
...I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still...

Everybody getting their chance in the market to become 'self-made' is the aim. (What makes Reagan sound patriotic here is that he puts the vision in positive terms, whereas someone on the left might talk about guilt and oppression.)

But this idea of America being "open to anyone" makes the task of winning elections for the right-liberal party more difficult with each passing year. For a time the right-liberals can mobilise the white/married/employed/conservative voting base, but eventually that base will shrink as a proportion of voters and prove inadequate. The Reagan vision of a shining city is not viable in the long-term for a right-liberal party.

Those on the left are aware of the shifting ground. For instance, back in May an article published by the Brookings Institute declared confidently that minorities would decide the 2012 election:
Obama and the Democrats believe demography is on their side. Census 2010 made abundantly clear that racial and ethnic minorities, especially Hispanics, are dominating national growth and will for decades to come. The Democratic agenda— favoring broader federal support for medical care, housing, and education seems designed to curry the favor of these groups, which played a huge role in tipping the balance in his favor in several key swing states.

18 comments:

  1. As the producers dwindle and even hide from the system, economic collapse is not far behind. Count on it.

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  2. There isn't much to be done at this point, politically.

    If the US conservatives run on an anti-immigration program, they lose nationally (they can win in some states like Arizona for the time being) because the demographics have already shifted -- that goose is already cooked. Even the existing half-hearted and inconsistent criticisms of immigration policy from some of the conservatives have cost them pretty much the entire Latino vote in the US, despite quite a few of these people being "culturally conservative". The problem is that they are in the US now, they are voting, and they see immigration reform as hostile to themselves, even though they are already here, so it's a lose/lose issue politically for the conservatives here.

    The idea of creating a broad anti-immigration white coalition in the US is more wish thinking than reality, because even though whites in places like Ohio and Michigan know that they are economically undermined by immigration in some sense, they care more about other things (as we saw yesterday) and are quite happy to be in coalitions together with Latinos against other whites.

    What I expect to happen is that the GOP will move to the left, and end up in the centre. There will be a fight over that. The party could split into a moderate branch and a conservative one, or it could simply be taken over by one of those two groups (most likely the conservative one, based on how things have been going), with the moderates dropping away into the world of political independents or being absorbed gradually into the democrats.

    Conservatives can still win on the local and state level in the US (Oklahoma was entirely red yesterday, for example), but not on the national level. The demographics are too daunting and are impossible to stem at this point as a practical matter. The US is morphing into a different kind of country.

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  3. It's no surprise, really, what's going on.

    What is funny is how 90% or so of white Europeans have only contempt for the Republicans, and see Obama as the far better choice. This is happening just as their own societies are becoming overwhelmed with immigrants, yet they actively support parties that enable this process...

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  4. It´s mostly an issue of demographic change, yet the media would have you believe that there is a "War on Women". If there is a "War on Women", it´s all false rape. Religious people are too busy concentrating on religion, their lives and even on science (e.g. climate change, evolution, etc).

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  5. Brendan,

    I wish I could disagree, and you never know what politics might throw up, but the logic of the situation does seem to point toward the Republicans doing best at state level and most likely moving leftward to compete with the Democrats at a national level.

    That doesn't mean there's nothing to do politically. If you're a traditionalist white the point is to work to break down the right-liberal/left-liberal monopoly in politics. When more whites begin to see beyond the limitations of liberalism, then other possibilities emerge.

    White America remains a very large and significant body of people in the world and worth the struggle to revive.

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  6. What is funny is how 90% or so of white Europeans have only contempt for the Republicans, and see Obama as the far better choice.

    Yes, there's a huge lesson for white Europeans if only they would see it.

    A lot of people just don't think deeply enough about future outcomes. They like the warm and fuzzy feeling of the here and now.

    We have to do what we can to influence the exceptional minority who are troubled by the larger trends in society.

    The quality of the alternative we offer to these people does matter.

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  7. A large number of Whites are disgustingly suicidal in a way they cannot even comprehend.
    I say shun these people. Name them and cease associating with them.
    Let them dissolve their identities in peace (though I doubt they will let us be Whites in peace).

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  8. Historically I think the vast majority of Democratic Party voters have been from an Anglo background too. This has shifted in recent years, admittedly.

    The way to grow the Republican voter base certainly won't be in futile and unworkable proposals like ending immigration (impossible in somewhere as large as the US); it will be because the failures of Democratic politics - and the tendency of collectivist ideas to encourage corruption - will inevitably see a number of voters defect to the right. 'A conservative is a liberal mugged by reality', and all that.

    Probably won't happen in the short-term - but in the longer-term, if the Republicans get their shit together - it will.

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  9. Contrary to what mass-media journalists and similar moral syphilitics would have you believe, Latinos cast a mere 10% (!) of the ballots on this occasion:

    http://www.vdare.com/articles/romney-white-share-falls-short-of-2010

    Of course, real conservatives do not imagine that a political system supported by 50%-plus-one of the populace has any innate moral value. Indeed, during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, real conservatives quite openly defended Franco, Salazar, Pinochet, the Greek military, Lee Kuan Yew, Ian Smith, and suchlike non-majority-vote leaders.

    Then they stopped being real conservatives, started being Girlie Pseudo-conservatives, and became infected with the same democratist bug that had long had the Openly Girlie Left in its grip. They remain thus infected even now. (Romney's remark about 47% of Americans being fundamentally welfare parasites was probably the sole truth he told in his entire campaign.)

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  10. The "giving the minorities a go" is a product of generous we're living in good times thinking. As opportunities start to obviously shrink there won't be this same desire to help others at our expense.

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  11. Brendan is wrong...

    I say it loud and I say it proud.

    Minorities love to be dominated.

    They love it. You call them out on their shit and they will first go after you with everything they got. But...if you stand tall and just smile like a crocodile...

    Hispanics especially back off. They LOVE strength.

    Who doesn't?

    So yes, a white coalition of racially aware STRONG Take No Shit speak the truth whites could have hispanics eating out of their hands.

    Because we are right, we are the truth and they know it in their hearts

    There's a reason why latin american women go after blonde blue eyed men like diamonds in the rough.

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  12. It appears that Obama has won almost as much of the "Catholic" vote in 2012 as he did in 2008. This genuinely surprised me. When visiting the States in February, I heard bishop after bishop actually condemn Obama's pro-contraception dirigisme, with a forcefulness which no Australian prelate has shown on any subject since Cardinal Gilroy's retirement in 1971.

    What I did not then realise was that America's bishops were merely bluffing, and that the Obama imperium called their bluff. Since modern Catholic decision-making in both countries is in practice nothing more (though also nothing less) than a scam run for perverts by perverts' stooges, the smallest hint of blackmail from Obama's myrmidons would have been enough to quell episcopal protests. (Just as Denis Hart's momentary spasm of tough talk, when John Brumby's regime rammed through pro-abort laws in 2008, was silenced almost as soon as it occurred: for reasons to which the Victorian Parliament's current investigation of clerical abuse gives eloquent testimony). In practice, the Stateside episcopate appears to have become much the same freak-show of invertebrate vaudevillians that our own ostensibly Catholic episcopate has been for decades.

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  13. futile and unworkable proposals like ending immigration (impossible in somewhere as large as the US)

    Tim, that's the problem. Someone of your political orientation is committed to continuing mass immigration. But that then changes the political landscape in a way that shifts power to the left.

    Yes, the ruling party might stuff up or become unpopular because of economic problems. But that's of little use if, in the future, the whole political landscape has shifted leftward.

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  14. Barring imminent economic collapse it looks as if the US is headed towards a one party cultural marxist system. Both parties have elected a new people.

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  15. The way to grow the Republican voter base certainly won't be in futile and unworkable proposals like ending immigration (impossible in somewhere as large as the US);

    It is not impossible because the US is "too large".

    It is impossible because the left has the votes to keep the border open, and wants to do so because this acts to their political advantage.

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  16. Don't necessarily agree with your argument Mark - '...Someone of your political orientation is committed to continuing mass immigration. But that then changes the political landscape in a way that shifts power to the left.'

    One strong reason that attracts immigrants to the US (or Australia) from other countries is the perception that the place they are moving to has a strong economy, strong laws, and a desirable culture. So they have a clear motivation to want to preserve and participate in this - indeed, because they usually need to find steady work and make a home for themselves quickly, the desire to preserve and add to these advantages is often urgent. Immigration isn't a disadvantage to right-wing policies and ideas; indeed it often helps to foster such a culture.

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  17. TimT,

    Your argument that,

    "Immigration isn't a disadvantage to right-wing policies and ideas; indeed it often helps to foster such a culture",

    explains why 70% of Latino's vote Democrat as opposed to 100%. Whilst a minority will respect their new homeland's values and ethics to the extent of trying to closely identify with the original population, the majority will see themselves as the "outsider" and vote for their Left wing "outsider" patrons.

    Whilst right wing politicians might support immigration on economic grounds the Left wing groups know that there's real political gold in doing so.

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  18. Jesse I suspect that the demographics are much more complicated than those figures suggest. I also suspect that the US Republicans will work much, much harder to win over those groups in subsequent elections; the figures will probably change quite a lot in a few years.

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