July 8, 2006

My cover story on the Democrats' basic problem

in the July 31, 2006 issue of The American Conservative is now out electronically. An excerpt:

The Democrats' fundamental weakness is that even after four decades of their strenuously celebrating the moral supremacy of every organized minority, our political system remains, more or less, one of majority rule. It's hard to win a majority if you don't personally want to be part of the majority because your ego centers around visualizing yourself as better than the average American. If you don't like the American majority, either in principle or in person, the majority won't like you.

The GOP, in contrast, presents itself as the party of normal Americans -- or, at least, of normal American voters, whose demographic transformation lags decades behind the raw population totals... The President carried 58 percent of the white vote, and, perhaps most importantly, 66 percent of married white men and 61 percent of married white women....

Crucially, the Democrats garner the votes of merely one out of three of America's wedded white guys -- the demographic segment that, to a fair if impolitic approximation, not only runs the country but also keeps the country running. Because Democrats have increasingly alienated the group who, more than any other, gets things done in America, it's become implausible for the Democrats to portray themselves as the natural governing party. Thus, they have become dependent upon Republican miscues, which, luckily for the Democrats (although not for the country), have been abundant.

This relegates the Democrats to trying to lash together unwieldy coalitions of minorities united mainly in their alienation from majority attitudes. This is possible, but it's harder than the GOP's task of mobilizing a fairly cohesive body of supporters. The Democrats resemble the ramshackle, squabbling multi-tribe army of the Persian Empire and the Republicans the relatively cohesive phalanxes of Alexander.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

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