Predicting earthquakes and other cataclysmic events is a lot like the Farmer’s Almanac prognosticating that it will be a good year for sorghum and soybeans. In either case, a close examination of trends is the only moderately-reliable means of forecasting future occurrences. Anticipating political outcomes is a little more complicated given the human factors involved. In that respect, trend analysis may prove unreliable in predicting the outcome of short-term events such as individual elections. However, as the basis for extrapolation in assessing the likelihood of long-term behaviors, trend analysis is a solid approach.
In 1969, Kevin Phillips published "The Emerging Republican Majority," predicting the rise of the conservative Republican movement, probably as a knee-jerk, reactionary response to the perceived liberal excesses turbulent ‘60s. To a large extent, the enduring Republican Majority that Phillips and his successors like Karl Rove predicted, has never really materialized. The elections of both Nixon and Reagan were, to a significant extent, aided and abetted by disaffected Democrats looking for a new direction and not finding it in their party. But not all of these folks became life-long converts to Republicanism. And as the Republican party drifted further to the right under Reagan, was spoken for by such right-wing ideologues as Pat Buchanan, and was infiltrated by the likes of the Pat Robertsons and Gary Bauers, etc., some of these so-called "Reagan Democrats" began to wake up and smell the coffee. The elections of Bush41 and Bush43, had more to do with weak Democratic candidates and poorly-managed campaigns than sudden infatuation with conservative philosophy, although no small fraction of Democrats and Independent voters were seduced by the insincere notions of "a knder, gentler nation" and "compassionate conservatism."
In 2001, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published a book entitled "The Emerging Democratic Majority" in which they examined demographic (ethnic, gender, and geographic) and political trends, along with the profound effects on society of America's transition to a post-industrial economy, and several other social and economic dynamics, and predicted that the converging influence of these factors, sometime around 2008, would hasten the emergence of a new Democratic majority. Their thesis was ridiculed by the conservative punditry and political operatives alike, who, as a result of George Bush’s ascendancy following 9/11, drank the kool-aid and began to believe in their own inevitability, to the extent that many spoke of a "Permanent Republican Majority." Judis and Teixeira could not have imagined the extent to which Bush and the Republican establishment would be able to ride the coat-tails of 9/11 to political dominance. But at the same time, neither Judis and Teixeira, nor their Republican counterparts, could have envisioned the Abramoff scandal, Terry Schiavo, Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Duke Cunningham, Alberto Gonzales, Macacca, David Vitter, Ted Stevens, the Iraq quagmire, Abu Graib, an Afghanistan on the brink of chaos, saber rattling with Iran, gasoline at $3.50 a gallon, the mortgage mess, a failed Bush presidency, an out-of-control, power hungry, war-mongering vice president, the 2006 election, and so on. How quickly the winds have changed.
In today’s Washington Post (link below), John Judis and Ruy Teixeira have an article entitled "Get Ready for a Democratic Era" in which they present the same argument, once again based on the aforementioned trends, but now bolstered by the fact that Republicans have shot themselves in the foot so many times they have all but run out of bullets.
The difference between Judis and Teixeira’s thesis and that of the Phillips/Rove/Fred Barnes/Bob Novak school, is that Judis and Teixeira have taken a long, multi-generational view of the process, particularly in a demographic sense, whereas the conservative bench seems to have taken a "get-rich-quick" approach. Even if the latter were successful, it may prove difficult, over the long term, to defend and sustain a so-called "Permanent Republican Majority" in the face of the seismic power of a slowly-but-surely Emerging Democratic Majority. That being said, it will be up to the Democrats to adopt policies and legislation that enables sustainable economic growth in a manner that is fair across the board, that facilitates equal access to affordable health care and education, that provides a viable, fair-minded, and humanistic solution to the problem of illegal immigration, and to ensure the security of this nation. If they can do this in the face of likely Republican obstructionism and flaming criticism from the right-leaning media, they will have a sustainable political dominance for at least a generation, if not longer. If the Democrats fail to accomplish this, they will be inviting a new Republican insurgency, a new breed of Gingrichs, McConnells, and Lotts, and maybe even more Bushs. But the wind is at the Democrats backs. The bases are loaded with no outs. Please don't blow it.
My hat is off to Mr. Judis and Mr. Teixeira, for being correct in their approach, for being patient, and for having the class not to say "I told you so......."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...