Who Will Inherit the Clinton Coalition?
Obama’s McGovern coalition — uniting white liberals and black voters — has attracted warm enthusiasm, but Clinton’s coalition has received far less attention. Many believe, for obvious reasons, that Republicans have lost Latino voters for a generation. But as a friend suggested to me the other day, we are likely seeing the beginning of the end of “Latino” as a meaningful sociological category.
We all know that America’s Latino population is diverse, and that Mexican-origin Latinos, Cubans, and Dominicans are all very different. Layer over that varying degrees of assimilation, affluence, and intermarriage, and layer over that patterns of domestic migration and child-rearing. A large Mexican influx slows assimilation to some extent in some regions, but Mexico’s age structure is changing. At the same time, Mexican social norms are changing to allow for more female labor force participation — a force that will further reduce the Mexican influx. Can we imagine, say, a right-of-center Mexican American candidate effectively arguing that some form of moderate immigration restriction will prove beneficial to Mexican Americans? Yes. We can also imagine elite-educated Latino liberals who favor a liberalized immigration regime. These tendencies will likely clash. Pretty soon there won’t be a recognizably distinctive Latino politics.
The force that retards black-white integration — persistent social discomfort and anti-exogamy taboos — is far less strong in the case of Latino-Anglo integration. At the risk of being a little silly, consider the case of well-regarded actor Jessica Alba. We’re fast approaching a point at which non-Spanish-speaking Alba, whose father is a native-born American of Mexican origin, will become the norm. However much Alba insists that she wants her child to be Spanish-speaking and Latino-identified, she is half-Danish and her partner, Cash Warren, is not of Mexican origin. Identity is volitional to a very great extent, to be sure, but convincing the child of this union to embrace La Raza-ite politics will likely be a trying and time-consuming endeavor. I’m not sure Alba and Warren and up to the task.
We think of Obama as a transformational figure. But recall that his coalition — the Lamont coalition — has been around at least since the McGovern era. The important difference is that the coalition has, perhaps temporarily, grown larger as a share of the population. As more foreign-born Latinos acquire citizenship, as the native-born Latino population increases, etc., that is likely to change. And that could be a very good thing for center-right politics.
While I agree with you that “well-regarded” can be taken to mean, “people look at her a lot (and well),” that’s really not how it is generally used. Please take note.
— Sanjay · Apr 1, 10:16 PM · #
I guess I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek, Sanjay.
— Reihan · Apr 1, 11:09 PM · #
Ahem. I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek, Sanjay.
— Reihan · Apr 1, 11:10 PM · #
“I’m excited for my baby to be brown. I just have to believe the dark gene is going to survive. Cash and I are like, please!”
it can be modeled as a binomial distribution….
— razib · Apr 1, 11:36 PM · #
I’m not a “well-regarded actor” but my siblings and I prove your point about Latino exogamy: only one of us five has married another Latino. My son on his mother’s side is part of one of those Scots-Irish Southern families that James Webb wrote about.
As for a “recognizably distinctive Latino politics” I would argue that there isn’t one now. What there is can better be described as a reaction to ham-handed conservative over-reaching and, yes, nativism. For instance, when immigration restrictionists go beyond making arguments based on economics or obeying the law and argue that Latinos are a kind of fifth column, e.g. “reconquista,” or that they so completely “other” as to be incapable of assimilation. At that point, agreeing with them on the immigration issue seems like an act of self-negation.
I’m not certain what, if anything, this portends for center-right politics mostly because I have my doubts that center-right politics can become the kind of “Sam’s Club” conservatism you and Douthat advocate. If it can become that then you may be right given the working/middle class aspirations of many Latinos. Veremos.
— Roberto Rivera · Apr 1, 11:41 PM · #
Razib, you’re thinking something like, The Human Stain?
— Sanjay · Apr 2, 12:46 AM · #
“Razib, you’re thinking something like, The Human Stain?”
yes. most skin color variation is controlled by around a half a dozen genes of large effect. depending on the genetic architecture you can usually get a rough idea of the offspring potential variance from the parents.
by the way, alba’s fiance has a black american father. so i guess that makes him black?
— razib · Apr 2, 02:59 AM · #
p.s. to be clear, because cash waren is of substantial african ancestry it seems plausible that alba’s offspring could be browner than either. it has less to do with strong dark genes than sampling out of two heterozygous individuals.
— razib · Apr 2, 03:01 AM · #
Well, I disagree that what retards integration is social comfort or a failure to inter-breed. (I find the use of exogamy in regarding inter-human relationships, uh, disturbing.) As usual I would refer you to Lewis Gordon in Bad Faith and Anti-Black Racism for a cogent . Historically, the argument that black integration is slowed by a failure of blacks to intermarry or interbreed has essentially served to scold black people for not becoming white. I don’t think you’re doing that, of course; but I do think on a basic level it’s kind of nonsensical to talk about integration as a product of eliminating the quality that produces difference, if you catch my drift.
Also, let me say that racial self-definition, when regarding racial discrimination, is meaningless. The definition that matters, in practical terms, is the definition endorsed by racists. How do you know if you’re black? If an anti-black racist regards you as such, of course. Because it’s the racist who places the most agency in the construct of race, it’s the racist who controls racial definition.
— Freddie · Apr 2, 03:45 AM · #
I’m a libertarian-leaning, historically Republican-voting gay man of Scots-Irish heritage who grew up Southern Baptist and now consider myself a borderline agnostic but still Christian in the general sense. I’m insulted by the assumption of some acquaintances that my politics should be a function of my “gayness”, rather than my own ability to reason. This is why I detest identity politics and the cultural Marxism which keeps it alive. It is also why I am puzzled by the antipathy to Mexican / Latin immigrants coming from some allegedly thoughtful Republicans. Identity politics belongs to Democrats, not Republicans. These immigrants are largely Christian, mostly hard-working, family-oriented, and, in spite of some outliers, by most all accounts they love the American ideal. We have more than a few Latinos serving in our armed forces. How on earth could a group of people like that threaten America in the long run ?
So, as regards the Clinton coalition, I suspect a lot of them – maybe most – will drift to McCain this fall – including not a small percentage of the Mexican-American vote, if McCain does not succumb to the xenophobes in the Republican party.
Obama’s coalition, as far as I can tell, is mainly what some call the “angry left”. He is still floating along with minimal friction because most journalists are on his side. But his supporters – with the exception of a lot of college students who have been marinated in statism and the politics of alienation by their professors – are mostly the same old leftwing folks from the McGovern era – “Society is fundamentally flawed and America is a bully” (yada yada). What is the average age of the angry posters at DailyKos ? I bet more than a few of them have gray hair. I predict that if Obama gets the nomination and is elected ( unlikely IMO ), we will quickly see just how philosophically bankrupt the left-wing of the Democrat party really is. Obama is a nice attractive package, but he is merely a mask for the same old tired 1960s Marxist residue. Old wine. New bottle. Tax, redistribute, rent-seek, regulate, subsidize. Yawn.
So my guess is that in the long run, because most Latinos are strivers, a majority of them will drift to what I hope will be a new coalition of free-market oriented socially tolerant folks who truly want to move “beyond race” – at least in the political arena. Which political party represents such a truly progressive coalition does not matter to me. If that happens, then the blue-collar bigots, religious right and Lou Dobbs worshippers will discover they deserve one another. I can dream, can’t I ?
— Hayekian · Apr 2, 04:33 AM · #
Identity politics belongs to Democrats, not Republicans
No. Republicans constantly play identity politics; they just do it in the guise of pretending not to. The Republican revolution in 1994 was one of the most stunning victories for identity politics in American history. The entire narrative of the election was that the white Christian straight male could not catch a break; they hit that meme again and again and again, and to great effect.
One of the tricks of conservative politics is to complain of the ethnic, racial or other particularism of liberal politics, while constantly playing to the particularism of white, Christian men. The trick is, you complain that black/feminist/queer/etc. politics don’t speak to “universal truths”; then you define the universal as the white, the moneyed, the straight and the Christian. Just like a black author is constantly derided for not appealing the universal, because the universal is defined as that which is closest to whiteness.
— Freddie · Apr 2, 01:40 PM · #
Reihan, what you are describing is the Southern California I grew up in in the 1960s, when my close friends were Mexican-Icelandic, Mexican-Swedish, and Spanish surnamed but mostly Irish. That’s ancient history now because of the vastness of the Latin American immigration since then means that most Latinos in California now go to school, work, and marry within a Latino social environment.
If you are interested in a less theoretical forecast, see my American Conservative article “Is Brown the New Black?”
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_03_10/feature.html
— Steve Sailer · Apr 2, 06:19 PM · #
Freddie, I think some clarification is needed on what my understanding is of the definition of “identity politics”. First, you are absolutely correct that Republicans have made specific appeals to white voters and Christian voters, in terms of both race and values. Sometimes these appeals were subtle, but still powerful. Sometimes, mainly during the Civil Rights era, they were more blatant appeals based on race. But much of what fueled the white voter backlash and movement of white working class voters to the Republican party was not just race, but also related anger over things like busing, welfare, and the general percieved decline in traditional morality. The 1994 election was about a lot more than appeals to white Christian men. It was the culmination of a revolution within the Republican party that had been decades in the making, and it was primarily driven by ideas, not racial identity. It appears that you assume a certain set of beliefs about politics is applicable only to white people. If you believe that, how do you explain people like Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell ?
Now, regarding identity politics, there is a difference between appealing to a block of voters based on fear of things which those voters associate with people of another race, and saying that your race should determine your political views. Both are odious, IMO. But they are not the same. The latter is what I define as identity politics – the idea that a person cannot be right-wing and be “authentically black”, or “authentically gay”.
I happen to believe that the principles of individual liberty, free markets and private property are the foundations of a civilized existence. I don’t see a realistic alternative. And I do not think that these principles belong only to white people or Christians. It seems to me that to believe otherwise is racist.
— Hayekian · Apr 3, 02:01 AM · #
“If you believe that, how do you explain people like Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell?”
Conservative African American academics & pundits get lots more visibility because so few African Americans vote conservative. Note Bush’s single-digit approval ratings among African Americans and the declining numbers of registered Black Republicans during the tenure of GW Bush.
— CParis · Apr 3, 07:32 PM · #
Perhaps Roberto Rivera would care to tell us where well-known community leader and Clinton co-chair DoloresHuerta falls on the fifth-column scale.
Perhaps Reihan Salam would care to name five (OK, make it three) Mexican-American politicians that oppose illegal activity and that don’t have links to the MexicanGovernment, far-left loose borders groups, and the like.
— TLB · Apr 3, 07:48 PM · #