Back in 2002, Ruy Teixeira and John Judis published a book boldly proclaiming The Emerging Democratic Majority. Demographics were destiny, said the authors.  The coloring of America would transform politics in the Democrats’ favor for a long time. 

In the 20 years since, no such majority has materialized.  Is it stalled or stillborn?  Is the Democrat Party, instead, becoming an incredibly shrinking party lorded over by privileged, progressive whites?  We won’t pretend to read tealeaves or sift data with such glorious insight as Teixeira and Judis. But we can observe what’s happening now.  The Democrats' anticipated emerging majority may be an emerging minority.  Even Teixeira has suspicions.         

The demographic changes that Teixeira and Judis ballyhooed as pivotal to Democrats aren’t producing the desired results. Seems Latinos have their own minds and want to pursue their own interests, even if that leads to them voting for Republicans. Middle- and working-class Americans of all colors are fleeing Democrats, too. That broader trend is more troubling for the Party of Biden.

If enough Latinos defect from Democrats and stay defected, the extreme “progressivism” -- including D.C.-based election rigging, curtailing gun rights, and court packing -- that Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden have pushed zealously becomes dustbin fodder.      

Erosion of Latino support for Democrats started during the Trump presidency.  Noted the Wall Street Journal, January 12:

Nationwide, Mr. Trump’s share of the Latino vote grew by 8 percentage points compared with 2016, according to Catalist, a Democratic voter-data firm.  

Biden garnered 750,000 fewer Latino votes in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, reports WSJ. The Journal offers a why, but we’ll let Teixeira answer.

From Teixeira’s The Liberal Patriot (Substack), July 14:

Recent data indicate that success for the abortion-gun control-January 6^th strategy, to the extent it is working (and might work in the future) is attributable to those voters for whom these issues loom large and are less likely to be influenced by current economic problems. Such voters are disproportionately likely to be college-educated whites and it is here that Democrats have been demonstrating unusual strength.  [italics added]     

Other than echo-chamber dwelling affluent, progressive whites, Latinos and working- and middle-class folk don’t give a hoot about the phony January 6 insurrection.  Gun control isn’t a push-button issue, either. Abortion?  Plenty of Latinos identify as Catholic or, increasingly, fundamentalist Christian. Abortion is a grave sin to them. 

People of faith don’t like to go crosswise God, something that better-heeled, secularist (read atheist) whites, consumed with their virtue-signaling and journeys of self-obsession, dismiss as caveman sensibility.  For these heathens, if a baby in the womb is inconvenient, well, kill the child, right up to the moment of birth. That extremism turns off many Latinos.    

Mayra Flores, newly elected congresswoman from a heavily Hispanic, historically Democrat district in South Texas, ran on the theme, “God, family, and country.” That and Flores advancing a practical agenda of protecting jobs, helping small businesses, fighting inflation, producing energy here at home, and, yes, securing the border proved a winning formula. 

Flores daring to strike a patriotic theme raised the hackles of the insular, smug, college-educated whites who run the New York Times. They branded Flores as a “far-right Latina.” Let’s see how that plays off college campuses and outside Democrat-run cities’ and ‘burbs’ very white upscale precincts.   

But the news is actually worse for Democrats.  Working-class voters aren’t just a little disaffected with them. Teixeira reports that “Democrats lose among all working-class voters by 11 points, but carry the college-educated by 23 points. This is less a class gap than a yawning chasm.”

Those college educated are decidedly white and financially better off.     

Via Teixeira, Axios makes this stunning admission, July 13:

Democrats are becoming the party of upscale voters concerned more about issues like gun control and abortion rights.

Republicans are quietly building a multiracial coalition of working-class voters, with inflation as an accelerant.

The Democrats’ chief dilemma is hiding in plain sight.  Most Americans -- pick your color and race -- must wrestle day-to-day with grubby realities like earning livings, keeping jobs, paying bills, paying rents or mortgages, and taking care of kids.  They worry about the high costs of gasoline, home heating and cooling, and groceries.  They don’t hate cops and know that criminals need to be jailed.  They understand that Democrats are hamstringing cops, making their communities less safe. They recoil at lax prosecution by Soros-funded DAs.    

They don’t have the luxury of championing radical isms or pushing boutique issues, like transgenderism and proper pronoun usage.  They’re revolted by teachers who try to sexually indoctrinate their kids rather than stick to teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, which too many kids are poor at, thanks to low standards and teachers who’d rather social crusade in classrooms.

If the voter trends we’re seeing among minority and working-class people hold, a sea-change in American politics is coming.  The trends are too recent to declare a sea-change, but the 2024 presidential election may prove the decider.  It may be the earthquake that realigns the parties, with Democrats suffering longer-term. 

Electoral debacles in 2022 and 2024 may prove worse for Democrats than Reagan’s 1980 blowout of Jimmy Carter, whose presidency was marked by impotence and serial failures.  Reagan’s landslide was the beginning of the end of Democrat hegemony, which dated back to Franklin Roosevelt. 2024 may hand the GOP greater sustained dominance.       

What do Latinos and blacks get most often from progressive whites? Pandering, and snits from the likes of Joe Biden when he thinks blacks are uppity.   

Remember during the 2020 election when Biden upbraided black podcaster Charlamagne? 

The Guardian, May 22, 2020:

After a campaign aide said Biden had to wrap up the conversation, Charlamagne said: ‘Listen, you’ve got to come see us when you come to New York, VP Biden. It’s a long way until November. We’ve got more questions.’

‘You’ve got more questions?’ Biden replied. ‘Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.’ He said Charlamagne and voters should ‘take a look at my record, man!’  [italics added]   

Biden’s condescending remark wasn’t a one-off.  Biden has a track record that smells a lot like racism. Progressive whites feel entitled to decide who’s black enough and who isn’t. Look at the savaging that Clarence Thomas took for playing a key role in striking down Roe v. Wade.  Racism doesn’t apply when progressive whites attack conservative blacks or Latinos. They make the rules, after all.

Jill Biden’s “breakfast taco” comment to a “Latinx” audience was simply more condescension from a white woman who’s enjoyed great privilege in her adult life. Being labeled “Latinx” is generally resented among Latinos.  It’s a tag that progressive whites imposed.        

The Democrat Party is owned and operated by affluent, progressive whites. Their wealth makes them Oz behind the curtain.  Whatever the pretenses about being for equity and diversity -- when was the last time a prominent rich, progressive white stepped down from his or her high-paying job in favor of a “person of color?” -- whatever the window-dressing afforded by leftist black and Latino politicians and activists, the party belongs to wealthy whites in Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Boston, Seattle, and wherever else these whites hole up. 

Affluent, progressive whites are social inbreds, unable to relate to the struggles of everyday Americans -- even more so minorities.  They’re priming their counterfeit party of color to take a fall of historic proportions.  We can’t predict it, but we surely hope for it. 

J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.             

Image: Ted Eytan