They’re considered a minority in the United States, composing a rapidly growing sub-set of the population. The majority are immigrants; public sentiment, aroused by nativism, is sometimes hostile towards them. They vote heavily Democratic, but because many are immigrants they turn-out in numbers not as great as the share of the population they compose.
I’m not talking about Latinos. I’m talking about white Catholics in the early 20th century.
Today, Democrats hope that the Latino vote will be an essential part of a permanent majority, the keys to an unyielding period of Democratic dominance. Latinos were a major part of Obama’s victory in states such as Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado. They’ve turned California blue for the foreseeable future. Red states Arizona and Texas are home to millions of Latinos, who represent a threat to the Republican character of those two states. Opportunity beckons.
Or so it seems.
In reality, however, it seems that the path of the Latino vote is the same as that of the white Catholic vote. The more Catholics that entered the country and the more time that passed, the more assimilated they became. In the early 20th century, Catholics were seen as an “other,” as Italian and Irish immigrants not fully part of the Unite States. Today, however, such sentiment is long gone. We regard white Catholics as normal, dull. The days of anti-Catholic discrimination are long gone.
With it has disappeared the Democratic hold over the Catholic vote. JFK won nearly 80% of Catholics because he was Catholic, and because in that time there was still anti-Catholic sentiment. 40 years later, John Kerry lost the Catholic vote, despite being a Catholic.
Will Latinos follow the same path? It seems likely. A large part of what connects Latinos to the Democratic Party is that they are an immigrant community – and Democrats have always represented immigrants. If – when – they assimilate, and the word Latino becomes just another synonym for white, Latinos will behave much as white Catholics do today. Which is to say that they will vote no different from the rest of America.
–Inoljt, http://thepolitikalblog.wordpr…
for Latinos is very apt. But I’d argue that it will take, oh, another 40 years before Latinos have truly “assimilated” and vote like the general population. I also think the days of blacks voting 90-95% Democratic will be over by the end of the next decade.
Jews are completely assimilated into America, in fact they are more successful than Catholics but are still heavily Democratic. Because of the GOP’s allegiance to the Religious Right. If it wasn’t for this fact Jews should be closer to a 50 split between the parties (fiscally to the right of center, socially left of center), but they aren’t. In the same breath Latinos will remain mostly Democrats as long as the GOP clings to their White Nativist . Interestingly enough Latinos vote Democratic at about the same percentage as Jews do. Nativist and Latinos can’t coexist easily in the same party.
As far as Black not voting as heavily Democratic in the next decade I don’t see it. The GOP has a number of factors working against it. They still can’t recruit very good black candidates. Michael Steele has turned into a minstrel who in fact is turning off blacks. The recent rebirth of race tinged language with the birthers/town hallers has ensured another decade of mistrust between blacks and the GOP. That would then just return them to Bush 2004 levels.
Lastly I always ask people with this “wishful” thinking, do you see Evangelicals voting more Democratic in the next decade? Or only the Democrats losing voters? This usually keys me into what the real reason for their writing stories like this are.