This is music to my ears:
In forthcoming Census Bureau release, racial and ethnic minorities are expected to make up 90 percent of total US growth since 2000…
What is the GOP going to do to stay in power? How much time do they have on their hands? The last election, they used loads of money to keep afloat—and still didn’t take the Senate. During Bush’s time, they did all sorts redistricting tricks. We saw what happened in the 2000 presidential election. But this is not running on gas; this is running on fumes.
just gotta keep the Hispanics from voting. I’m worried you’re going to start to see a return of Jim crow laws, portrayed as anti-fraud measures. Photo ID required to vote, etc.
Actually, I think it’s just plain ol’ regular fucking that is responsible for population growth. Nothing holy about it.
Uh… aren’t Hispanics generally more religious?
@3 Religious doesn’t equate to conservative.
and have a greater desire to live with freedom and liberty?
I was born/raised in S. Colorado which has over a 50% Hispanic population. Good people in general, but they can be just as bigoted and conservative as any right-wing Republican. I can’t believe some of the things my Grandma says about migrant workers.
Although, the county historically has voted for Democrats, so perhaps you are right.
@4 – I’d agree with that but try telling The Stranger staff that the GOP doesn’t directly equate to religious conservatism.
@4 &5,
I spent a lot of time in Mexico City, Puebla, and Cholula and found Mexico (can’t say for other countries) is very similar to the US. People in the cities tend to be more liberal (as we think of it) and those in the more rural areas are more conservative. That said, the Church has a much bigger role even in the cities and culturally those “values” of course match up much more closely to the repubs. It really could go either way depending on where a person is coming from/where they are born in the US.
¡Chinga Sagrada!
@4 certainly an undeniable correlation though
Eh, until they learn how to vote, nobody’s ever going to take them seriously.
Fact is, half of them are illegal and can’t vote. All the more reason to ignore them.
The number of votes don’t matter..it’s who is allowed to vote that matters. Oh and also who does your counting and with Diebold on their side the US could become 90% non-white and the GOP will still win in huge landslides.
I, for one, welcome the election of president Jesus Hernandez-Gomez in 2020 and the collective heart-attack of all the old white geezers when he takes the oath of office in English and Spanish with his hand on la biblia.
As our new Hispanic neighbors accumulate wealth you can sure as shit believe that a lot of them will become conservative. Conservatives will never go away regardless of the ethnic make up the country. The GOP will adapt or be replaced by a newer, shiner conservative party. If you think the country is going to become some kind of progressive Disneyland you need to stop sniffing the glue.
Seriously.
@3: Yes, they’re mostly Catholic; thus the dramatic population growth.
Whether religious means conservative or not, even real religious conservatism doesn’t equate to voting Republican. How many conservative Muslims voted to re-elect Bush?
Running on vapors!
Meh.
Big corporations decide who wins elections in this country, not voters, and the republicans have just about got them all.
They’ve already started legislation like @1 mentioned. The republicans will make sure that the only people who are authorized to vote are the people who vote republican.
Eventually, they’ll have an overwhelming majority, at which point they’ll sell the government off in chunks to private corporations and the U.S. will end its days as a company town.
Hopefully I’ll be either dead or in Europe by then.
@18 – You guys almost have it right except for one important point. The Dems are also in on the scheme and are happy to trade power back and forth with the Repubs so the people think “change” is always a real possibility. Our entire system is one of corporatism. The only ways out that I can see is either a complete collapse of our monetary system or we actually start electing people who truly hate the game and want to change it. Yes, like Rand and Ron Paul.
@6 – Yeah. My folks live in Albuquerque, NM. Took them a while to get the hang of the race relations there, coming from Seattle. My dad summed up his experience as: “There are the “Hispanics,” (who have some money) and there are the “Mexicans,” (who don’t.) And nobody is more racist against the Mexicans as the Hispanics.”
@18 Yes cause the corporate powers that run the country clearly wanted Obama to be president.
@19 HAHA! That’s was pretty funny. Thanks for the crack up!
This is actually not that great.
After the Mexican War, when we stole half of Mexico, we had more Hispanics – proportionately – than now.
Just saying.
The half of my family that is Hispanic is ecstatic about this, though.
All your votes is belong to Freedom.
Just more stereotypical Mudede stupidity. Wow you are naive. I realize you live in whitey white Seattle and are married to a white woman and that you almost never hang around with other blacks and never never hang out with Mexican migrants, but all that is no excuse for your ignorance.
Most of the Mexican “immigrants” are EVEN MORE REDNECK, MACHO, MISOGYNiST, HOMOPHOBIC and CONSERVATIVE than all the white rednecks that you hate so much. Guess what? Most of them hate blacks like you even more than whites do.
Naive, sheltered moron!
@8,
I think it stands to reason that most Mexicans who emigrate here are from rural parts of Mexico, as those areas are more poverty stricken and have fewer jobs. Those immigrants doing migrant farm labor are also sticking to more rural parts of the States, for obvious reasons.
@16,
African Americans are also religious and generally socially conservative, but, as long as the Republican Party is the party of racism and anti-immigration, it won’t be winning over black, Latino, or Muslim voters anytime soon.
@19 I was almost about to agree with until the end there. The solution isn’t to elect politicians we can trust to change things because you can never trust politicians to change things, not ever. Politicians will only acquiesce to reforms when the masses make clear they’re getting ready to storm the castle. It’s people power, social movements that gets shit done, not politicians (Who supports earmarks now? Oh right, Rand Paul).
Charles, your cluelessness seems to know no end. Hispanic populations tend to be socially conservative. They are very vulnerable to wedge issues like gay marriage and religion.
Just because someone doesn’t check the “white” box on their census doesn’t mean they necessarily vote Democrat. You really shouldn’t post stuff like this if you don’t have any idea what you are talking about, but I suppose that is your M.O.
As others have stated, you can’t equate Hispanic or Latino with Democrat. Look at Miami.
The GOP will lie and lie, just like they always do, and trick poor people into thinking the GOP can help them get rich. While laughing all the way to the (bailed-out) bank.
@21 List of Obama’s top contributors:
University of California $1,591,395
Goldman Sachs $994,795
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
Citigroup Inc $701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
Stanford University $586,557
National Amusements Inc $551,683
UBS AG $543,219
Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
IBM Corp $528,822
Columbia University $528,302
Morgan Stanley $514,881
General Electric $499,130
US Government $494,820
Latham & Watkins $493,835
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contri…
His Chief of Staff is a former CEO for JP Morgan for crying out loud. Obama wouldn’t even push for the reinstate of Glass-Steagall. The corporate powers that run the country we’re gonna get their way no matter who won the election, that’s the whole point of rigging the game.
Sharon Angle’s large loss to an unpopular Harry Reid in the last Nevada US Senate race was attributed to support of the Latino vote in Nevada. It seemed to take everyone by surprise (except, perhaps for Reid) because nobody had done a decent job of polling and understanding these voters. This mistake won’t happen again, and it will be very interesting to see if Angle will attempt to run for Ensign’s US Senate seat.
Lastly, this is a likely preview of may happen on the east side as Doc Hastings and Kathy McMorris-Rodgers are going to have to appeal to a rapidly changing voter base.
@27 that’s Cubans.
Most of the “Cuban” refugees were from traditionally more typical GOP strata, and thus don’t tend to mirror population elsewhere.
never underestimate the gop talent of finding scapegoats for the bigotry of any group.
they’ll find somebody the hispanics can hate and ride that donkey till the cows come home.
@20, “There are the “Hispanics,” (who have some money) and there are the “Mexicans,” (who don’t.) And nobody is more racist against the Mexicans as the Hispanics.”
Sums it up, except I’d substitute “Spanish” for “Hispanic”. I thought I was of “Spanish” ancestry until I went to college and the only box to check said “Hispanic” or Mexican-American. I still don’t know what Hispanic means.
For those debating the question of religiosity, the higher a population is in religiosity, the higher correlation to support a conservative CAUSE. What this means is while they are not likely to support a wholly Conservative candidate, they will support Social Conservative ballot measures and referendums. The ultimate example of this is Proposition 8 in California, which saw a high proportion of the higher in religiosity black population vote against it.
What this means more than likely is that when Social Conservative causes are put to the public vote, they are more likely to be voted against. Whereas the Republican party has far too many bigots and sins against minorities to survive.
@33 we’ve literally changed the census definition quite a few times for Hispanic. Originally, you couldn’t be Black (formerly Brown) and Hispanic. It pretty much changes definition every 10 years.
@29
Yeah right, Obama’s just another corporate tool in the pockets of big business. Matter of fact the corporations cast the deciding ballots in his campaign win. Our democracy is an illusion.
Good Afternoon Charles,
Gonna disagree. I don’t see a correlation between an emerging Hispanic majority (quite a possibility in 50 years or so) and a diminishing GOP. California’s last Governor before the current one Jerry Brown, was a Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger and as I recall elected twice. My understanding is California IS majority Hispanic.
Also, the term Hispanic while relatively recent (I think it was created in the 60s to attempt to ensure more representation of peoples of Spanish and/or Latin American descent) may be obsolete. According to my most recent National Geographic, intermarriage between whites (whatever that term may mean) and Hispanics is nearly 50% and more and more citizens in the USA are identifying themselves multi-ethnically and multi-racially. Identity politics may be heading out. It remains to be seen which party will benefit from that. Personally, I believe both major parties will remain strong.
Like I’ve been saying for a while now, “one dollar, one vote.”
@36 That’s the thing, they didn’t need him to win. They had their bases covered regardless, since both parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of Corporate America, and those parties have done their damndest to rig the system against 3rd (read: possibly uncorrupted yet) parties.
@33 – I think you’re right. When writing the above, I was trying to remember the exact words dad used, and Hispanic didn’t sound quite right, but Latino was definitely wrong. I think “Spanish” may indeed be the race de jour for the middle-class brown folk in NM.
Bubble on, O melting pot!
What is interesting is by 2040 or so, the minorities of this country will make up the majority of people in the U.S. So if all the Asians, Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans, etc. all banded together, they could take over the government. Oh yes, big business would still have its white boy club, but if you got organized and people voted, well, that would be fun.
@42 Gonna take a hell of an effort to get over the hump. Apartheid can be tough to overcome, especially with the powered class as deeply entrenched as White Guy USA.
@42 – You’re mistaking “minorities” for a homogenous bunch.
Communities are formed around shared similarities, while what you’re suggesting is exactly the opposite. “Whites”, “Blacks”, Christians, Muslims, boy scouts, etc…they each band together because of something they share. “Not white” is not an identity.
#43 – Most of the people on here are mistaking “white guys” for a homegenous bunch, but that’s standard practice on this blog.
I for one welcome our new Hispanic Majority Caucus.
I didn’t mean all these groups were alike (c’mon) but if they put their own group’s interest aside in the course of trying to win the White House (and large majorities of Congress), it could be done.
@47 – If they’re all setting their own group’s interest aside, then whose interests are being advanced? I kinda get what you’re saying, that people of various colors should try to support each other’s political asperations, but they already kinda DO. The kinds of black candidates put forward by the Republicans, for example, tend to be fairly affluent, and as bad at working for the needs of the poor as their white counterparts. Similarly, there are white candidates with an excellent record of aiding the disenfranchised.
Saying “if all you wildly differing peoples would put aside your differences to form a united front against a common enemy, we’d win this thing” is fine. It’s basically the Democratic party platform. It’s why they make great underdogs. But as soon as they WIN the battle, the individual differences come into play, and the process becomes internally divisive. The conservative base tends to be very welcoming of authoritarianism, and so they unite behind their leadership. The Democratic party is made up of a wide gamut of moderates, left-leaners, genuine liberals and whackjobs. And much like your proposed Coalition of Coloreds, it turns out they often disagree with each other on what the “right answer” is.
The only difference is that instead of a bunch of old white people saying “Them damn mexicans took our jobs!”, its going to be a bunch of old brown people saying “Them damn crackers took our jobs!”
It’s astounding how often people say the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot, and yet it turns out that’s not the case. But people keep saying it.