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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31395 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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Here is the Cato institute proofing with many studies that Hispanics turned to the Dems because the local GOP was more and more anti-immigration. That pushed minorities away:

https://www.cato.org/blog/proposition-187-turned-california-blue

Hispanic voters were alienated from the GOP and welcomed by the Democratic Party during the fights over Proposition 187, Wilson’s reelection, and during a series of other propositions proposed in the mid-1990s. One way this shift occurred was by galvanizing Hispanic naturalization in response to the perceived GOP threat.

Here is Mother Jones saying that demography is destiny and the whites deserved it:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/11/it-was-redistricting-not-prop-187-that-turned-california-blue/

It’s that simple. Prop 187 probably cemented Hispanic support for Democrats, but that was about it. It was demographics and redistricting that really made the difference.

If you believe in the demographic theory of presidential elections, the same thing will happen nationally when the non-white vote reaches about 50 percent. Unfortunately, that’s still a decade or two away.

Prop 187 passed, and should have been law.

The fact that it was overturned and within one generation California was no longer majority white should tell you all you need to know about Democracy. Apparently you can't just vote on things you want done, and when you do, you deserve to be wiped out.

Most critiques about the Cato study is that it is intentionally ignorant about different groups of hispanics. There was a group of, essentially, founding Californians (same with Texas and most border states) that are legitimately what you would call 'hispanic whites' that were culturally indistinguishable from an Okie or 49er that came from Iowa or Nebraska in the 1850s. They were then "supplemented" with non natives from, primarily, Mexico who were completely different and leaned heavily Democrat. Because they were poor and unassimilated.

I suspect the demographics are destiny strategy is going to backfire anyway. Immigrants will initially vote for whichever party is promising not to deport their extended family, but once they are all citizens that leverage goes away. Once their physical safety from deportation is secured, those voters actually start wanting things. Things that the Democratic Party seems unable or unwilling to provide. Just look at how the party seems to be simultaneously hemorrhaging both Jewish and Muslim voters. Or the increasing tension between African Americans and newly arrived immigrant groups. Or the way that the LGBTQ bloc conflicts with the social opinions of most of the newly arriving ethnicities. The Democrats have taken on too many different identity groups and the contradictions are starting to burst them asunder.

Don't know why the downvotes, we've seen this quite a lot. People are people at the end of the day. The wants and needs are usually pretty similar. And vote-buying in a macro sense is only mildly effective, to the extent that in many cases (not all but many) it doesn't even make sense for the ruling politician or party to pursue it. Plus, in my opinion many ethnic voting blocks are fundamentally temporary, not structural. Okay, fine, sure, worldview does play a part in politics, even a major one. But like, if we're talking about Mexican-Americans for example, there's no actual fundamental reason they'd be Democratic voters instead of Republican ones. And at risk of being over-broad, polling data seems to support my view.

I mean it depends on the propaganda. If they can continue to paint the GOP as Nazi authoritarians who hate minorities and women, I think you could keep most immigrants on the D side. Most are coming from regimes that are authoritarian in some form or another and aren’t keen to have that happen here.

There's at least some loose relationship between voting patterns and the truth, though. The GOP is only able to be painted as Nazi authoritarians because some actual authoritarians do hang out with them, just like the Dems are only able to be painted as out-of-touch, gender-obsessed ideological warriors because they exist and Dems also commonly hang out with them.

Most of the Hispanics I've talked to however tend to be disillusioned with communism and general leftism and actually like the GOP rhetoric (this was Miami though, the Southwestern trends I'm a little less familiar with) and the financial policies too (lots of Trump fans for economy alone I've seen). GOP sticking points tend to be other issues. Like someone brought up Prop 187, which was raising specters of racial profiling and practical, daily QoL hits on actual Hispanic citizens. That, arguably, wasn't really propaganda. And of course Hispanics in general are much more traditional-family focused and religious, both traditional GOP wheelhouses.

Hispanics are already moving towards Trump.

Just look at how the party seems to be simultaneously hemorrhaging both Jewish and Muslim voters.

Is it? Or is it just losing turnout support

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