Immigration to the US is if anything accelerating. The 1924-1965 immigration law had been racist and set strict quotas for everyone but northern Europeans. Since 1965, up to 25,000 immigrants can come from each country in the world. Increasingly, immigrants come not from Europe but from Latin America & the Caribbean, from Asia, and from Africa. Immigrants and their children will by 2050 increasingly account for most new Americans. This chart is what the United State will more and more look like in the coming decades– heavily Latino, Caribbean and Asian and African (about 1.5 million of the “other” category is Africans).
Since Latinos and Asians overwhelmingly voted for President Obama, this diagram also charts the decline of the Republican Party if it doesn’t stop being the party mainly of angry white men.
Paul Krugman has been writing a lot lately expressing his doubt that the Republican Party will be able anytime soon to cease being the party mainly of angry white men because it is so encased in its own bubble of received beliefs that it is impervious to real-world, objective feedback.
I think the GOP’s problem is more fundamental than that, which ironically makes its followers more vigorous and intimidating.
I think the bubble of received beliefs are entirely self-serving for the followers, given what they want out of life. We may say that a working-class white man who opposes decent wages and living conditions for the poor just to spite non-whites is voting against his own interests. He may say that it is not his “place” to demand a greater share of the profits of his bosses, whom he instinctively feels are leaders of his tribe, his blood, his volk. He may feel that being part of the Master Race is all that makes him special, and unions won’t change that. Anything that weakens his tribe threatens his status.
This is the way in which the rich have profited from destroying the rational aspirations of the successful working class of 50 years ago. The irrational aspirations are actually more powerful than the rational ones ever could be. The racist tribalist, and his cousin the religious fanatic, is capable of feats, monstrous feats, that the ordinary bourgeoise consumer can’t imagine. Those elites which can manipulate these ancient and reactionary beliefs thus can bully vast numbers of ordinary people who lack the will to fight back.
There’s getting to be a new wave of African immigration too. It’s been going on in Houston for years, bourgeoise Nigerians following the trail blazed by basketball immortal Hakeem Olajuwon. They actually have an ethnic, English-language newspaper here, as well as a digital subchannel on broadcast TV. Nigerian soap operas are a trip.
Hard to figure out the effects of this incoming group. I’d hate to see a brain drain further retard Africa’s development. They also seem to include a lot of extremist Pentecostals (like those pushing the death-to-gays law in Uganda). However, they could become so successful as to be a positive influence in America. I think this will be yet another ethnic group you can count on the Democratic side as we get to the 2nd generation.
Looks like the demographic changes that will happen to the US in the next 30 years are similar to what happened in Los Angeles during the past 30 years.
It’s great to live in a city with so much cultural variety.