The O.C. and the G.O.P.
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The O.C. and the G.O.P.
There's an interesting article from the New York Times tonight about the changing demographics of Orange County, long-known as the right-wing mecca that gave us Richard Nixon and John Wayne and was a hotbed of the John Birch Society. Here's the money paragraphs:
At the end of 2009, nearly 45 percent of the county’s residents spoke a language other than English at home, according to county officials. Whites now make up only 45 percent of the population; this county is teeming with Hispanics, as well as Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese families. Its percentage of foreign-born residents jumped to 30 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 1970, and visits to some of its corners can feel like a trip to a foreign land.
The demographic changes that have swept the county reflect what is happening across the state and much of the nation. It has happened slowly but surely over the course of a generation, becoming increasingly apparent not only in a drive through the 34 cities that fill this sprawling 789-square-mile county south of Los Angeles, but also, most recently, in the results of a presidential election. In 2008, Barack Obama drew 48 percent of the vote here against Senator John McCain of Arizona. (By comparison, in 1980, Jimmy Carter received just 23 percent against Ronald Reagan, the conservative hero whose election as California governor in 1966 and 1970 was boosted in no small part by the affection for him here.)
Two things here really dovetail with the things we've been discussing. One is that this is a clear-cut indicator of one of the major sources of social anxiety for the white, middle-class, 50-and-over folks who are moving into the Tea Party movement. But the numbers also suggest that -- whatever hay the political right may be able to make in the 2010 elections -- in the long run that Tea Party movement may be doomed, unless the GOP shifts gears quickly and comes up with some kind of appeal to younger people and at least some non-whites.
Programming note: I'm going to be appearing as a guest in the 10 o' clock hour on WHHY's "Radio Times" (90.9 FM in Philadelphia) to talk about both the book and this weekend's Beck rally. So among other things, you'll have a chance to call up and harass me verbally for a change.
Comments (65)
There is a growing Vietnamese population in South Philadelphia. If you check their voter registrations you'll see an overwhelming majority of them are with the GOP. Perhaps that is why the powers that be in Philadelphia have done everything in their power to discourage foreigners from setting up shop in our city.— Grill
Comment removed.
"If you believe that CA (and especially OC) is/are somehow becoming more liberal...." . . . Isn't it a question of OC becoming less xenophobic? And isn't that the lesson for the GOP?
Republicans need to learn to pander better to the minorities. They should learn that promising something for nothing at the expense of "the rich" gets you lots of votes.- [[[=== TPS has plenty of time to make up cutesy nicknames because she is incapable of performing an independent analysis of the data at hand. ===]]] Pretty funny, given that our beloved Attytood Republican toadies are obsessed making up "cutesy nicknames" to use when referring to me. Also amusing is that downy likes to refer to me as a "she," because, you know, he's so above things like "cutesy nicknames." But funniest of all is that downy talks about the inability for analysis of data - when he, laughably, is on record as saying that the majority of black people are "unthinking" and analogous to grazing ungulates, because they don't believe that voting for Republicans is in their best interests. If the majority of black people only had downy's analytical skills, they'd realize that unlike him, they are too stupid to see that they are being exploited by Democrats, and that they'd be much better off if they voted for people that they don't believe will best serve their interests. Oh, my sides.— Talking point sleuth
- [[[=== They should learn that promising something for nothing at the expense of "the rich" gets you lots of votes. ===]]] More evidence of the reason why Republicans will continue to fail to get the minority vote. Over and over again we see Republicans on this board expressing the opinion that it isn't that minorities vote Democratic because they feel that Democrats represent their interests better than Republicans. No, according to our beloved "conservatives," minorities vote for Democrats because they are too stupid to see that they are being exploited. You see, something that is so obvious to our "conservative" brothers is beyond the reasoning skills of minorities. If minorities only had the smarts of folks like spocky, they'd realize that they would be much better off voting for candidates who get support from people, like spocky, who go on blogs to post comments about how stupid minorities are. Hilarious.— Talking point sleuth
- "As these folks would have worked hard for their money they probably want to keep it rather than having go into a 'redistribution of wealth'. Sounds like conservatives to me." I bet they hated bailing out the banks, then -- although one hopes that they can now at least readily get a loan two years down the road from that particular episode of upwards wealth redistribution.— Billy Ray Winthorpe
- Comment removed.
- --snip-- GOP Losing Vietnamese American Voters ... among Vietnamese Americans born in the United States, Barack Obama won 69% of the vote and Barack Obama won 60% of the vote of Vietnamese Americans between the ages of 18 and 29. While these two cohorts are minorities within the broader Vietnamese American community (15% and 25%, respectively), obviously these groups are the demographic future of the Vietnamese American community...This trend has been noted in Vietnamese American strongholds like Orange County, California and Houston, Texas. In the latter case, a Vietnamese American Democratic businessman named Hubert Vo defeated a longtime incumbent Republican state representative in 2004 to become the first Vietnamese American in the Texas State Legislature. There are many reasons for this shift away from the Republican Party among Vietnamese Americans. In some ways, one can argue that this is a simple example of assimilation among younger Vietnamese Americans, in that their voting patterns are coming more into line with their same-age counterparts in other ethnic groups and with other Asian Americans. Also, this may just be a classic example of native-born voters drifting away from the home-country orientation of their immigrant parents, particularly given that it has now been 35 years since the end of the Vietnam War and the possibility that the communist government in Vietnam will be overthrown has largely faded, thus diminishing the salience of that issue as a voting issue. However, there is evidence (as discussed in the articles cited herein) that this shift is also because of perceptions among Vietnamese Americans that the Republican Party is becoming less welcoming of immigrant populations, and Vietnamese Americans have shown some support for liberal domestic policy initiatives, such as healthcare reform. --snip-- http://www.frumforum.com/gop-losing-vietnamese-american-voters— Talking point sleuth
- [[[=== I get a tremendous kick out of the fact that you answer to those nicknames. ===]]] Interesting, bile.atkins, because you likewise respond to nicknames like batboy and batty. So, I guess in your opinion if someone responds to those kinds of nicknames it's because they acknowledge the accuracy of how they describe the person they're referring to? Well, then, no doubt you will respond to bile.atkins, now won't you? Too funny.— Talking point sleuth
- --snip-- House Democrats were thrilled by the passage of their major health care legislation, but perhaps no development on Saturday tickled them more than winning the vote of a single Republican: Representative Anh “Joseph” Cao of Louisiana. Mr. Cao (pronounced gow; rhymes with cow), a freshman from New Orleans, was elected last year in an upset victory over Representative William J. Jefferson, a Democrat who was under indictment on federal corruption charges at the time and has since been convicted.... Mr. Cao’s vote offered a rare break in ranks for the House Republican minority, which has tried hard to stay unified on major political issues. On the economic stimulus measure, for instance, the Republicans voted unanimously in opposition. But it was not the first time Mr. Cao broke with his party. He was one of 29 Republicans to join Democrats earlier this year in voting to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program....Mr. Cao, a lawyer, is a minority in several senses: a Republican amid a crowd of Democrats; a Vietnamese-American in an overwhelmingly black district. In his election campaign last year, Mr. Cao promised ethics and integrity. He was born in Vietnam (he is the first Vietnamese-American member of Congress) and he fled with two siblings after the Fall of Saigon in 1975, moving to live with an uncle in Indiana... --snip--— Talking point sleuth
- "GOP Losing Vietnamese American Voters" - TPS, the headline might well read, "Dems losing ALL VOTERS"... November is coming.... November is coming...— IggleFan68
- "Whats needed is both sides need to move to the center, but what I have been noticing is the move to the far left by the democrat party..." English, I agree with you that both parties need to move to the center; the Democrats for their part need to recognize the importance of small business even as they rightly excoriate the big boys. On the other hand, though, as the Republicans vilify the nonworking poor, they ought to give a little thought to the hard-working poor who far outnumber them. It seems to me that that movement by the Republicans towards the far right has been the more pronounced one. To be fair, a lot of our trouble has been the result of factors outside of politics, most notably the rise of the rest of the world as competitors in productive industry. (As an Englishman you can relate, right?) The Republican penchant for favoring corporations and the uber-rich hasn't exactly helped the rest of us negotiate that sea change, though. It's harder than it used to be for working folk to work themselves into a share of the capital.— Billy Ray Winthorpe
- Iggy - the article speaks to long term trends of minority populations - as does Will's post. You were the one yesterday asking why I would post off topic, and now today you post off-topic? Please explain. Also interesting is that the article I linked was written by a long-time conservative who has been hammered by extremist "conservatives" because he has decried how the Republican Party is catering to lunatics.— Talking point sleuth
- ===]]] they ought to give a little thought to the hard-working poor who far outnumber them. ===]]] Clearly, they have given them some thought, Billy Ray. In fact, quite a bit of thought. You see, they have "analyzed" the data very carefully, and concluded that minorities simply aren't as smart as our beloved "conservatives," and that minorities vote Democratic because they're too stupid to see that they're being exploited.— Talking point sleuth
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