We are heading towards an inevitable cultural and political polarization via an epic battle for increasingly scarce public resources between two factions that will depend upon them.
Mostly white Baby Boomers heading into retirement age are gonna fight like mad to hang onto their promised entitlement benefits. And the mostly Latino working class will not be able to survive in acceptable living conditions without expanding government assistance. It’s very hard to see where the money will come from to do both (and I challenge anyone who thinks it can to show me a financial configuration where it would be practical) meaning politicians will have to pick and choose.
I’ll say right off the bat that this will be a controversial diary. It’s very hard to evaluate long-term political trend lines and my theories could certainly be proved wrong, but the trajectory of American culture and politics show me an America that will be polarized along ethnic and generational lines in the not-too-distant future, much more so than is the case today. It’s not certain exactly where the battle lines will be drawn in our two-party system when the realignment occurs, but if they fall as I expect they will, a reinvigorated Republican Party will represent a political majority at some point in the next decade and likely hang on to it for a couple of decades. Details below the fold…
At the core of my theory is that America is on the precipice of undergoing two dramatic demographic shifts. The Baby Boomers will be retiring in the tens of millions in the decades ahead….and the Latino population is poised to grow to approximatly a third of the nation’s overall population. Even one of these two trendlines would be enough to radically transform a nation’s character (and subsequently, its politics), but with both happening at the same time, it’s hard to see how we avoid a culture clash worse than anything seen in most of our lifetimes.
The extent to which this culture clash and political realignment is based directly upon racial and ethnic issues is hard to gauge. My hunch is that if comprehensive immigration reform is signed into law this year, the wheels will be set in motion sooner rather than later.** While the initial outrage will be primarily limited to talk radio audiences, converts will be won over if (or most likely when) access to living wage employment, particularly in blue-collar sectors, grows habitually scarcer for the 290+ million Americans who were not on the receiving end of CIF. And even outside of blue-collar employment competition, what will the response be when millions of formerly illegal immigrants granted a path to citizenship in 2009 are again given what will be perceived as preferential treatment in higher education and the workplace due to affirmative action policies? It strikes me a powder keg ready to blow and bitterly divide the country.
**We find it incomprehensible that leftist multi-culti rags like the Daily Kos are now fearful of the same dangerous socio-political trends we have been articulating for years. In fact it has been the Kos and their minions who have pushed for open borders and generous social services to illegal mestizos since their inception. While this article is worth noting, bear in mind the Marxists over at the Daily Kos are talking out of both sides of their mouth, at least in this article. Then again, that’s all the Daily Kos is worried about is which party will be in power, European Americans be damned. –Ed.