The flip side of the emerging Democratic majority so ably detailed by Ruy Texeira and John Judis is the ever-more-fearful-and-angry emerging Republican minority.
Former Bush speechwriter and Iraq War cheerleader David Frum—a conservative in exile since being fired by the American Enterprise Institute in 2010 for criticizing Fox News and Republican strategy on health care reform—combines astute insight into human nature with clear-headed analysis of the self-interests driving the ever-increasing radicalization of the Republican Party:
“Human beings will typically fight much more ferociously to keep what they possess than to gain something new. And the constituencies that vote Republican happen to possess the most and thus to be exposed to the worst risks of loss.
The Republican voting base includes not only the wealthy with the most to fear from tax increases, but also the elderly and the rural, the two constituencies that benefit the most from federal spending and thus have the most to lose from spending cuts.
All those constituencies together fear that almost any conceivable change will be change for the worse from their point of view: higher taxes, less Medicare, or possibly both. Any attempt to do more for other constituencies — the unemployed, the young — represents an extra, urgent threat to them.
That sense of threat radicalizes voters and donors — and has built a huge reservoir of votes and money for politicians and activists who speak as radically as the donors and voters feel.”
The logical implication is that continued economic growth could prove disastrous for today’s Republican Party (which in turn helps explain why Congressional Republicans have repeatedly tried to block President Obama’s efforts to revive the US economy). If older Americans don’t vote Republican in overwhelming numbers, then Republicans will quickly stop winning elections in most of the country.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
