There is a simpler explanation for why the Rs prefer a white party. They can't recruit new elements without losing their base. There are plenty of socially conservative PoC, and Nixon showed that the Republicans could redefine any non-black PoC as white. But building such a coalition would drive out their racist base. The racists (and allies among the snake chunkers) are low-propensity voters. Without constant doses of outrage against dusky folk, the base won't get to the polls. The party could try to amp up the outrage against the (((elites))), but that's already pretty close to the breaking point.
Demographic changes of note that affect whites specifically: fewer white births, more aging white conservatives, population shifts as older conservative whites move to rural settings to optimize fixed incomes while young white people flee to cities for jobs and education while farm states require bigger subsidies for failing economies. Fewer white Europeans wanting to come to the USA are creating cause for panic. America is becoming more non-white. The growing panic over these facts is what got Trump elected.
Anyone who grew up in the 20th century USA was not-so-subtly indoctrinated into the ideology that (non-white = non-American). Many parts of rural America have yet to enter the 21st century and embrace the racial diversity of the cities. They think their inalienable rights and freedoms as the Master Race are under threat by a tsunami of non-European "invaders".
These trends all suggest that America is becoming less white and less Christian, but in the short term many individual rural-ish states will try to entrench voting restrictions that favor aging white boomer Christians over other groups. Rural low population conservative states will always have advantages in the Electoral College and Senate, even as their population declines continue, so these anti-democratic laws affect urban areas and states as well.
But there are plenty of related-but-opposing trends in most non-white communities that are longer term. Those trends are turning many rural states more brown, just as many Hispanic and Asian folk who've "made it" are becoming more socially conservative as well....not unlike the Texas border counties Levitz typically alludes to that are becoming more conservative. Many 'model minority' Hispanics and Asians are redefining themselves as "white" and "Christian" by embracing SBC-style Evangelical Christianity., which makes them less scary to rural Boomers.
There is a simpler explanation for why the Rs prefer a white party. They can't recruit new elements without losing their base. There are plenty of socially conservative PoC, and Nixon showed that the Republicans could redefine any non-black PoC as white. But building such a coalition would drive out their racist base. The racists (and allies among the snake chunkers) are low-propensity voters. Without constant doses of outrage against dusky folk, the base won't get to the polls. The party could try to amp up the outrage against the (((elites))), but that's already pretty close to the breaking point.
Well, I remember Jack Kemp. Bruce Bartlett remembers Jack Kemp...
Demographic changes of note that affect whites specifically: fewer white births, more aging white conservatives, population shifts as older conservative whites move to rural settings to optimize fixed incomes while young white people flee to cities for jobs and education while farm states require bigger subsidies for failing economies. Fewer white Europeans wanting to come to the USA are creating cause for panic. America is becoming more non-white. The growing panic over these facts is what got Trump elected.
Anyone who grew up in the 20th century USA was not-so-subtly indoctrinated into the ideology that (non-white = non-American). Many parts of rural America have yet to enter the 21st century and embrace the racial diversity of the cities. They think their inalienable rights and freedoms as the Master Race are under threat by a tsunami of non-European "invaders".
These trends all suggest that America is becoming less white and less Christian, but in the short term many individual rural-ish states will try to entrench voting restrictions that favor aging white boomer Christians over other groups. Rural low population conservative states will always have advantages in the Electoral College and Senate, even as their population declines continue, so these anti-democratic laws affect urban areas and states as well.
But there are plenty of related-but-opposing trends in most non-white communities that are longer term. Those trends are turning many rural states more brown, just as many Hispanic and Asian folk who've "made it" are becoming more socially conservative as well....not unlike the Texas border counties Levitz typically alludes to that are becoming more conservative. Many 'model minority' Hispanics and Asians are redefining themselves as "white" and "Christian" by embracing SBC-style Evangelical Christianity., which makes them less scary to rural Boomers.