When politicians and historians look back at the 2012 presidential election, they may very well declare it a turning point in American politics. The coalition assembled by the Democratic Party under a newly reelected President Obama reflects what the future face of America will look like going forward.
President Obama won reelection despite the cacophony emanating from right-wing media and the obsessive desire of Congressional Republicans to sabotage the Obama presidency from its inception, a desire most famously articulated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in an interview with the National Journal on Oct. 23, 2010 in which he said “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
President Obama’s diverse coalition of African Americans, young people, single women, Hispanics, Asian Americans and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community propelled him to a second term in office in spite of McConnell’s objective. While losing the crucial white vote that has historically dogged the Democrats since the conservative resurgence of the 1980s, particularly in the crucial battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Virginia, Obama still coasted to victory with solid margins in both the national popular and electoral vote.
After the election was over and the ballots were counted, The New York Times reported that Obama won despite only securing 39 percent of white voters and 44 percent of voters older than 65. White men made up only one-quarter of Obama’s winning coalition on Election Day.
After the election, Al Cardenas, the chairman of the influential American Conservative Union, reacted to exit polling data on the future face of the American voter by saying, “Before, we thought it was an important issue, improving demographically. Now, we know it’s an essential issue. You have to ignore reality not to deal with this issue.”
Since Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the demographic makeup of the United States has become predominately less white. Non-Hispanic whites accounted for approximately 90 percent of the vote during the 1970s; in 2008 it stood at 74 percent. The Associated Press has reported that the white vote has declined, on average, three percentage points each presidential election since 1992.
The lasting consequences of these demographic shifts in America’s electorate are striking in their consequence and will be lasting in time. We shouldn’t forget it wasn’t that long ago when Karl Rove was speaking of forging a permanent Republican majority in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election. None would dare entertain the idea now.
The old reliable Republican base of white rural, high income and married, suburban voters is eroding as a new American majority emerges. Thomas B. Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, noted that the minority constituencies that voted for Obama by as wide a margin as 8-2 make up 34 percent of the electorate today and will constitute a majority by 2050.
Ideologically, Hispanics, young people, single women and African Americans do not share the knee-jerk conservatism the right relies on to whip up support and increase voter turnout. This rising majority has become alienated from the Republican Party for several reasons, whether it’s because of their insistence on the self-deportation of illegal immigrants, rejection of same sex marriage, antediluvian views towards birth control and rape or fine-tuned racial dog whistle politics.
And yet, after the Election Day dust had settled and the Republicans began licking their wounds from the elections, the GOP’s leadership continued to remain steadfast in defense of its political platform.
The Republican Governors Association, chaired by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, convened in Las Vegas last week and pledged itself to ideological purity.
Ignoring the demographic shifts throughout the country, particularly in swing states like New Mexico and Colorado, the governors blamed their party’s loss on the organizing efforts of the Obama campaign and Mitt Romney’s lack of appeal among Republican and independent voters.
Representative Mike Pence, newly elected governor of Indiana, said, “No country ever taxed its way back into prosperity.”
“I think most Americans know that,” Pence said. “I think the last thing we ought to do is embrace any policy that would result in a significant tax increase, particularly upon those in the best position to put hurting Americans back to work.”
Republicans ignore the new makeup of the American public at their own peril. Should they continue to neglect it, they risk becoming a regional party of old white men predominately from the Deep South, unable to return to Congress and the White House with either majorities or mandates.
The old strategy of riding Evangelical Christians, white suburbia and big business to victory will not stand the test of time for the GOP. Demography is destiny. The question is, will it doom the Republicans?