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Consider the Hispanic vote. Are Democrats winning Hispanics because they put forward a more welcoming face than Republicans do — one more in keeping with America’s tradition of assimilating migrants yearning to breathe free? Yes, up to a point. But they’re also winning recent immigrants because those immigrants often aren’t assimilating successfully — or worse, are assimilating downward, thanks to rising out-of-wedlock birthrates and high dropout rates. The Democratic edge among Hispanics depends heavily on these darker trends: the weaker that families and communities are, the more necessary government support inevitably seems.
Likewise with the growing number of unmarried Americans, especially unmarried women. Yes, social issues like abortion help explain why these voters lean Democratic. But the more important explanation is that single life is generally more insecure and chaotic than married life, and single life with children — which is now commonplace for women under 30 — is almost impossible to navigate without the support the welfare state provides.
What unites all of these stories is the growing failure of America’s local associations — civic, familial, religious — to foster stability, encourage solidarity and make mobility possible.
This is a crisis that the Republican Party often badly misunderstands, casting Democratic-leaning voters as lazy moochers or spoiled children seeking “gifts” (as a certain former Republican presidential nominee would have it) rather than recognizing the reality of their economic struggles. “ This is thoughtful. The liberals are winning those groups primarily because so many of them in the US are failing and so they look to Obama/Dems/gubmnt to be their Dad/family. He says if these people were successfully functional then they wouldn't vote Dems.
And he says that Republicans/ Romney) do their best to turn them off by calling them moochers which didn't work that well this time.
This is thoughtful. The liberals are winning those groups primarily because so many of them in the US are failing and so they look to Obama/Dems/gubmnt to be their Dad/family. He says if these people were successfully functional then they wouldn't vote Dems.I wish it were true that when they become economically successful they quit voting Democrat, But many will stay with the party, and it's for that very same reason you'll find so many Italians, Jews and Irish voting for Democrats. When their grand-parents got off the boats, the Democrat ward bosses were there to help them get work, find a place to live, and in return, get their votes. This wasn't done by government spending, but by politicians building their bases. And it was in sharp contrast to what the immigrants perceived as the greedy business owners.
This sort of thing tends to make people loyal for life, and we've seen that played out for the past 80 years. Even though the Democrat voters continued to move up the economic ladder, they have the memory of their sainted Grandmother voting straight Democrat all her life, and talking bad about the business owners of her day, who were likely Republican.