Blacks are quite "politically sophisticated" now, and were in the days when they voted en masse for Republicans, too. What you're calling unsophistication is actually open-eyed realism. They've always known they were at the bottom of the totem pole, and have voted for those who they thought most likely to even the playing field. At one time that was the Party of Lincoln. Later on, it was the Party of LBJ. Now, it's the Party of Obama.

I'll agree with you to this extent. With the cultural progress we're seeing and the nearly-nil level of racism in the Millennial generation, a few more generations will likely see genuine economic parity between black people and the rest of the country, and that will make differences among black people politically more important, while the fact of being black becomes less so. At that point, the black vote will become less monolithic, just as already the relatively few well-off blacks tend to vote more Republican than blacks considered overall. However, in order for this to happen, it's a given that you will have liberal (on these issues) dominance over the time necessary for those future generations to be born and come of age.

The trouble with this approach, as McDonald himself acknowledged in your linked article, is that whites are a shrinking demographic as a proportion of the population; moreover, Republican voters are a shrinking demographic among white people. Younger voters are dissilusioned with the GOP and with the "conservative" positions on issues from the recent past. Now liberal dominance (like conservative dominance) is a cyclic thing and never lasts, so at some point in the future we will reach a point where something that might reasonably be called "conservative" is a politically viable brand, BUT if the GOP identifies its form of "conservatism" with the ethnic interests of white people, then it as a party will be in no position to take advantage of that cyclic shift. I say this because white identity politics is on the way out, dying, and never coming back as a dominant force.

This is, very simply, a recipe for political suicide for the Republican Party.

Well, shit, they seem so bound and determined to do it SOMEHOW. Why stop them?

Let dying Parties die.

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

In your link it points out that in the last election, 70% of the votes were cast by European-Americans, that in 2012, this will fall to 65%.

The case that the GOP can win by focusing on whites is undone by the fact that the Democrats also focus on whites. Because not all whites are in the top 1% of income earners or even the top 20%. At 70% of the electorate, a minimum of 20% find themselves in the bottom half, and since the average Asian-American and the average Jewish-American do better than the average white, you are looking at something closer to 40 or 45% of whites being in the bottom half of income earners.
Calling for Tax breaks and balanced budgets, health savings accounts and getting rid of Social Security and student loan programs is not the way to lure these people into the GOP, they are every bit as enamored of social spending as their darker skinned countrymen.
And half of those white voters are women, many of whom have benefited from affirmative action. Union voters in those industries that still find a home the the US are mostly white.
If the white vote were a small portion of the US electorate, like it is in South Africa, you might expect it to vote overwhelmingly for a party that represents it's best interests. But the white vote itself in the US is diverse and much of that white vote does not see the GOP as representing it's best interests, because the GOP does not represent it's best interests.

Look at the current situation, the economic collapse is not something that falls heavily on minorities and largely skips whites, it has fallen pretty heavily on the average white, so railing against Obama, and denigrating his efforts to stave off complete economic collapse may find eager to believe ears amongst the well to do who feel they do pay too much in taxes, but it also will find deaf ears amongst those who feel a real threat to their jobs, their homes, their economic livelihood.

The problem the GOP has is that it pursued a policy of pursuing the racist vote amongst that huge white vote, and the GOP pretty much has the white racist vote locked up, but that vote is in faster decline than the white vote in general, and the cost of procuring that vote has been to write off the votes of many affluent minorities who would be natural consumers of the GOP message.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

Blacks do vote as a block, and consistently wrongly. The Democrat party lives only as long as it's constituents feel like they are getting the short end of the stick and government will give them stuff. That's why the Democrats on the Hill try so hard to make sure that their voters don't feel the burden of individual responsibility, which used to be the hallmark of Americans. Like all democracies, the losers will eventually outnumber the winners, and we'll have a problem in 50 years or so.

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"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher

Keep singin' that song, and keep on losin'.

By the way, there is no such thing as the "Democrat party."

Interesting thought. Perhaps you could show us some historical democracies where this has actually happened.

RRIIgghhttt.

This explains rather neatly why the first time the Republicans were given the Presidency and both Houses SINCE the Great Depression they in fact, BROUGHT BACK THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

What do you call it when people make the same mistake over and over and keep on trying to do it, even when the dire consequences of their idiot folly are staring them in the face? oh, insanity, that's right

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

These are my favorite posts.

Please, in detail, explain to us these mistakes the republicans made that reflect fiscal conservative policy choices and hurt the economy in the long-run.

We have to go back to before Bush, but into a Republican Congress. We also have to speak some of foreign policy

a. 199? Phil Gramm blocks a bill proposed by the Dems to regulate banking so as to dry up terrorist money. This enables plotting for 9/11 to continue.

b.1999 the Republicans pass, along Party lines, the bill repealing the Glass Steagall Act, this enables the practices that will lead to the real estate bubble and the banking meltdown 9 years later. The subPrime meltdown in 2006 is a consequence, not a cause, of this. Though it in fact took place before the overall banking failure, it was a precursor

c. 2001, being warned of 9/11 Bush ignores it.

d. 2003 Bush uses 9/11 and the "threat" of nonexistent WMD to invade Iraq. Iraq is one of the very few stable nations in the area with a leader who, while not a nice person, is not that bad considering the area and who we had worked with before. Most importantly, he is as much a target of al-Qaeda as we are.

e. 2003-2008 Bush continues to wage a ruinously expensive war while cutting taxes. This act, unprecedented for stupidity in WORLD history, skyrockets our deficit.

f. 2006, the Republicans are thrown out of majority positions in the legislature, they remain, however, influential enough to completely block any of the attempts at economic reform proposed by Dems. They will later use these very attempts to promulgate the myth that Barney Frank et al wanted to continue subPrime abuses when, in fact, they were trying to reform the overall banking abuses which the Republicans had started in 1999.

g. 2008. In dealing with the banking meltdown the Republicans, like petulant children, continue to try to block needed reforms, their attitude resembling that of the Nazis at the end of WWII who wanted to destroy all of Europe in a Goettedammerung as the Allies invaded. Their goal has been to topple the US as a free country and then rule from the ruins, as it were. They have continued this to the present day.

There's more, but that's it in a nutshell.

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

Fiscal conservative policies. Not leftist policies that Bush supported.

Also, go back in history to your first example as well.

I'll save you some time, there aren't any examples because it's not possible. Obama is continuing the failed policies of Bush. These are not policies that reflect the beliefs of most "Republicans" (except for the tax cuts), but those tax cuts actually retained the government more revenue. These also are not fiscal conservative policies at all.

So, if you can understand that these are the wrong policies, why would you support Obama's plan (or do you)?

uh...repealing an act regulating banking is not a fiscal policy? What is fiscal policy by your lights?

Invading Iraq was a LEFTIST policy???

The tax cuts did not retain more revenue, they were below the Laffer curve, they stimulated less new revenue than they cut.

Obama's present policies only resemble Bush's because he has been trying to push them past the remaining obstructionist Republicans. I don't support them entirely, they are not enough, and this is why they aren't working yet.

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

Just out of curiosity, what's your source for that? I've heard the opposite claimed many times over by conservatives.

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"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine

Invading Iraq isn't an economic policy at all. However, the decreasing of taxes is so I focused on that.

Obama has continued with the so-called "stimulus" that he knows isn't going to work so he came out yesterday claiming it was a success because it was only meant to prevent teacher's and firefighters from being laid off.

Fiscal conservatives focus on policy that reflects how people are taxed, their economic liberties, monetary policy, etc.

Bush began TARP and had a stimulus and the conservatives were pissed off about that too. These are economic policies that stem from the left. I'm not trying to point fingers, but a fiscal conservative limits the power of government and empowers citizens with more liberty to allow the economy to grow based off of demand. (in a very tiny nutshell).

However, turning the tables and making me explain is not what this is about (even though it's a clever debating tool). I'm not going to dive into specifics until you offer something that comes remotely close to this statement

The problems you are talking about are poor fiscal choices in some instances, but fighting the Iraq war is nothing compared to the cost of Universal Health Care, cap and trade or the "stimulus" package when compared in the long run. Many of the military costs spent in Iraq in Afghanistan would have been spent anyway (on normal military expenditures), but those costs are included in the figures when they calculate the cost of the Iraq war (which is still less than the government spends on health and human services each year).


edit: For the "banking policy" you're referring to. That is not a left or right policy, just a retarded one. I don't know why they did that. However, the banks that gambled away their money should have had to liquidate in bankruptcy.

The short-term effects that we would feel from returning to true capitalism (lets not make this a discussion about schools and post offices) would be drastic. It would be tough at first for almost everyone, however, in the long-run, after returning to the basic principles of demand side economics, we would all benefit.

This would mean a lot more if there were any examples of conservatives considering ANY tax cut to be below the Laffer curve.

Cutting taxes, reduces revenue and increases the deficit and the National Debt.
That is what happened after every tax cut.
Now the economy does grow, and eventually the tax revenues rise above what they were before the tax cuts, but the economy grew when the top income tax rate was 93%, the economy grew when taxes were raised by Clinton, so claiming that economic growth is the result of the tax cuts is sketchy to say the least.
The real test of the tax cuts would be long term sustained growth, but the Bush tax cuts resulted in anemic growth and the collapse of the economic system. BTW, Income taxes were cut in half by the GOP in 1927, if you are looking for another example of the utter ineffectiveness of tax cuts.

There is evidence that the way taxes are cut effects the outcome. Reagan cut taxes for the wealthy and raised taxes on the middle class to partially make up for it. The top 1% increased their worth by 1000% while the middle class barely held even. Bush skewed his tax cuts towards the wealthy (while it is true that slightly more that half of the tax cuts went to the bottom 99% of the economy), the bottom 95% got considerably less than half the benefit.
This type of tax cut is of no value to the economy, as it does nothing but get absorbed in changing asset values, it produces no new jobs, no new investment and no growth, it actually reduces growth, since it raises interest rates.

Then there is the "it isn't tax cuts, it's spending that creates the deficit", but in 8 of 8 years the "Liberal Democratic" congress passed a budget with less spending than the "Conservative Republican" Reagan administration requested, so once again, if Tip O'Neil had to rein in Reagan's spending, why elect Republicans?

Conservatives claim they have the answer, but when they have power things go to hell fast, and then they claim that those weren't real conservatives, much like communists claim that the Soviet Union wasn't real communism.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

Actually there are conservatives who have decided that 10% is the proper tax rate, and they would probably draw the Laffer Curve (a purely hypothetical function, with no actual evidence that it exists) to show that 10% is the right number (it comes from the Bible, OK, end of discussion)

__________________
“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address