Hmm.
[NAACP President Ben] Jealous says the 2014 midterm election will be the real bellwether for black turnout. “Black turnout set records this year despite record attempts to suppress the black vote,” he said.
I think he meant last year. And I think we had record black turnout because of voter suppression efforts, not despite them. Trying to take away black voting rights had a galvanizing effect and really helped organizers in the field who had no difficulty making the election personal. In addition, I think that blacks were extremely attuned to the many ways in which the first black president wasn’t afforded the same respect given to all prior presidents. From the Strategy of No that Mitch McConnell devised even before inauguration day, to the constant conversation about birth certificates and ACORN and the New Black Panthers and socialism and Kenya and Islam, blacks felt that the president was being unfairly maligned and opposed in a totally unprecedented way.
This was a deliberate effort on the Republicans’ part to polarize the electorate along racial lines so that they could win a greater share of the white vote, and they succeeded in their effort. The problem was that millions of white voters who voted in 2008 simply stayed home in 2012, while blacks turned out in droves to defend the president. Perhaps the strategy would have worked if one judge after another hadn’t ruled against their voter suppression efforts.
So, now we have to wonder what happens when the Republicans turn the racial polarization off? Does turnout return to the mean?
The fact that the next Democratic nominee is unlikely to be black will change the dynamic by itself, probably costing the Republicans an unnaturally high percentage of the white vote. If they aren’t actively pursuing voter suppression efforts, and the Democrats aren’t running a black candidate, that could eliminate the Democrats’ advantage of unnaturally high black turnout.
I suspect that the deliberate antagonization of blacks will have a longer-lasting impact on the electorate than the Kenyan-Mooslim stuff because the latter works on a more subliminal level and needs to be stoked constantly to be effective.
I noticed that “souls to polls” efforts in states like Florida definitely negated the various attempts to suppress ethnic minority vote last year, which was a great thing. Obviously, in their attempt to “rebrand” themselves, the GOP did not learn the appropriate lesson and has instead persisted in various states to prevent minorities from voting – just awful. I know mid-terms tend to be low turnout affairs – hopefully planning is already afoot for next year’s “souls to polls” efforts to make sure the GOP gets the message loud and clear.
Republicans have not learned their lesson. The NC legislature, for example, is passing a Voter ID law that is a transparent attempt to provide a basis for intimidating minority voters.
My view right now of 2014 is that it is going to be a confused mess. Both the Democrats and the GOP at least the national ones are losing legitimacy. But, most likely the the “I hate Congress, but I like my Congressman” dynamic will prevail and we will have the same mess for the final two years of Obama’s term.
That is, unless there is some realigning event that dramatically changes the geographic distribution of public sentiment. One that has happened but not yet on the radar is the fact that CO2 concentration has crossed 400 ppm for the first time in 4 million years. Another might be the tipping point for conversion to wind and solar power, which would have a stimulative effect like the internet did in the 1990s.
And the one that scares Republicans the most is if prosperity reappeared in full bloom under a Democratic administration. Of course, with their current political position, they could claim it was because of the expansionary austerity program the pushed on the Obama administration and claim credit. But then, the whole point of austerity is to prevent a New Deal style resurgence.
The fact that the next Democratic nominee is unlikely to be black will change the dynamic by itself, probably costing the Republicans an unnaturally high percentage of the white vote.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-election/the-hidden-history-of-the-american-electorate-ii–20120
822
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/12/26/the-growing-electoral-clout-of-blacks-is-driven-by-turnout
-not-demographics/
08 Obama was the third most successful Democratic candidate among white voters since Lyndon Johnson, behind only 76 Carter and 96 Clinton. He got 43% of the white vote. That was better than Humphrey, McGovern, 80 Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, 92 Clinton, Gore and Kerry.
12 Obama was less successful, getting 39% of the vote. A total which is still equal or greater than Humphrey, McGovern, 80 Carter, Mondale, Dukakis and 92 Clinton. Thus falling in the middle of the historical pack.
The GOP is the same white supremacist party they’ve always been. They get roughly the same percentage of the white vote they always do. Their “problem” is that there are now more non-white votes that need getting. Obama gets trucked in the 80s by McCain or Romney or even an inanimate carbon rod. But any empirical reading would suggest he (and his party) have faced no atypical, ahistorical racial penalty compared to their predecessors.
Other than that, your case is airtight.
When are Republicans going to turn racial polarization off? They have nothing without it.
More to the point, which Republicans are going to turn the racial polarization off? The Republican Party at the state level is dominated in almost every state in the country now by people who’ve risen to power on the strength of it – they either believe in it themselves, owe their careers to it, or both. The financiers and realpolitik types have lost control of the party at the state level.
Tarheel mentioned the North Carolina voter ID laws being passed through. From voter ID to preposterous abortion bans to anti-immigrant legislation to the more ordinary budgetary gutting of social services, Republicans are, in a coordinated fashion (thanks to ALEC and other behind-the-scenes groups), pushing these agendas in every state where they have power, and most where they don’t. In service to those agendas, they’re saying idiotic, bigoted, and offensive things on a regular basis in every state.
In the end all politics is local. If the Republican candidates in your town are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic assholes, the national party can do all the rebranding and polishing they like and it won’t help.
Via TPM, the AP reports that for the first time in history, the black voter turnout surpassed white turnout for the first time in history. The question is, was this all about Obama, or more broadly motivated? Will the exuberance of feeling powerful through the ballot box mark a long-term change in voting patterns?
I suspect that the high turnout among minorities was significantly motivated by the GOP suppression attempts. There was more attention focused on it than ever before, and it became a major political issue on its own. Hopefully we won’t have to depend anymore on white voters to push back against GOP subversion of what’s left of American democracy.
I suspect you’re right. Personalities come and go, but your basic political identity gets locked in.
The Republicans have made large numbers of minority voters into people whose core political identity is based around rallying in opposition to the Republicans.