Notice how everyone avoids any disucssion of exactly what the U.S. will be like when the majority is Hispanic. There is the progressive argument that eventuall the Hispanic immigrants will become just like Ozzie and Harriett.

The opposite argument is that the U.S. will become like Mexico or Brazil is a permanent ruling class and a vast underclass.

The odds Hispanic immigrants will be changed by the dominant culture is far greater than that they will transform it into the neofeudal too long common to Central and South American nations.

That’s not to say the U.S. is in no danger of such a fate. In fact, we’ve drawn much closer over the past 30 years.

Keep following where conservative Republican ideologues lead and that will be America’s destination. It’s exactly what their economic Darwinism, unremitting greed for money and power, and regressive political ideology lead to.

“And being from one of the southern states you must know that it ws the Democrats who were the segregationists, until the 60’s or the ’70’s”

The term “Dixiecrat” gained currency to describe Southern Democrats who were not only segregationist but more militaristic and hard-line anticommunists than many Republicans of the time. By the mid-1950s’s, they saw handwriting all over the wall, but continued running as Democrats on tradition and the momentum of still-proud association wth Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. That, despite Eleanor Roosevelt’s outspokenness on civil rights reform.

Strom Thurmond, who bolted the Democratic Party in the late 1940′s to run against Harry Truman, was a harbinger of Dixiecrats-cum-Republicans to come.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, passed largely thanks to President Lyndon Johnson’s herculean efforts and the acquiescence of several Southern and border-state Democrats who owed him, did indeed deliver the South to Republicans within a few years.

Any more, Johnson seems to be remembered only for his terrible Vietnam escalation. That’s a shame, because flawed though he was in that, Johnson accomplished more in less time than any president except FDR, and distinguished himself with acts of political courage and of principle over political expedience of a magnitude rarely seen in U.S. history.

After 1965, Dixiecrats mostly either retired or liberated their inner Republican, having been assured, wink-nod, that the GOP’s progressive national stand on civil rights wouldn’t unduly encroach on some of the race-based traditions of their Southern way of life.

The bargain has held together remarkably well for the GOP and southern politicians ever since. Krugman does make an intriguing and plausible case about the bid for Hispanics, though. If he’s right, it would be in keeping with Republicans’ trademark tendency to overreach badly in pursuit of political advantage.

Everybody in the family recognizes he’s a racist. But he won’t admit to being a racist even though he clearly believes that black people are dumber, more corrupt, more prone to crime, lazier, and more sexually driven than white people. He is the GOP base in so many ways. He speaks of “colorblindness” but would never hire a black person if he wasn’t forced to. He actually points out the occasions where a black person in his office “is surprisingly competent considering he/she is a non-caucasian.” snicker snicker. Yes that’s his form of humor. Oh, and he contributes money to some black Republican PAC because he likes that they don’t complain about racists like him.

You want to know why so few blacks vote Republican? Because they know what the base of Republican Party really believes. Most blacks will tell you that the Democrats aren’t to be trusted either. That the Dems are using them for their votes. But for blacks, the Dems are the lesser of two evils. Most African Americans are extremely liberal on economic issues, and they see through all the culture war crap that whips up religious folk for the GOP. In fact, a reason so many blacks love Bill Clinton so much is that they see countless examples of blacks held up and crucified by self-righteous moralizers; Clinton, to them, was persecuted the way black people are persecuted. It was this that made Clinton the “first black President.”

Look at cities like El Paso. It is becoming more like Mexico instead of the residents becoming more like Iowians.

Notice how everyone avoids any disucssion of exactly what the U.S. will be like when the majority is Hispanic. There is the progressive argument that eventuall the Hispanic immigrants will become just like Ozzie and Harriett.

Lets put this in perspective:

Notice how everyone avoids any disucssion of exactly what the U.S. will be like when the majority is HispanicItalian and Irish. There is the progressive argument that eventuall the Hispanic these immigrants will become just like Ozzie and Harriett.
I know taht some of these Hispanics are illegals, but 100 years ago the illegal Italians were called W.O.P.’s.
WithoutPapers.
Times change…

As far as Austin’s post, it is far more insulting than anything Krugman claimed.

The prediciton is that the U.S. will be less than 50% white by 2050. That is 40 years so it is something that your granddaughter will have to deal with.

The bill of rights may not mean anything in a community where blacks and hispanics are the majority. Just look at places like Baltimore where the crime rate is very high and the government cannot seem to close felony cases and the government definitely cannot protect the citizens from criminals. Just look at the Dont Snitch movement.

All middle class whites have to do is see how the African-American community acted in the Duke Rape case and they rightly see that the Bill of Rights may not mean anything in the future.

However as they advance up the social ladder they do in fact meld in with the existing population. They will become the middle class not consume it. I live in the CA bay area and have some experience with what its like to live in an area with lots of hispanic immigrants and its not so bad.

This mentality of something new and unfounded happening, that is going to take away from America instead of add to it, has repeated itself many times with numerous waves of immigrants. Will they change the landscape? Certainly, just as Boston is known as an Irish city it is still without a doubt an American city with its own culture. Its about flavor and overall it makes us stronger.

Basically the idea that they are going to “Take over” is just silly to me and doesn’t have much actual likelyhood of happening. I do have issues with those that wish to live in my country and not assimilate, but assimilation happens over time whether people wish to participate or not.

Hispanic counts more than Mexico. There are currently somewhere around 40 million hispanics living in the U.S. and they are having children at twice the rate as whites. California, New Mexico, and Texas will soon be majority Hispanic.

Look at how whites in California are handling the growing Hispanic population. they are either moving to walled communities, moving to areas that are majority white, or moving to other states. The absolute number of whites in California has decreased since 1990. the one thing that whites, no matter their politics, are doing is living side by side with Hispanics.

Now that is a quintessential “centrist” post.

Lol yea. If mexico has a population boom well past their current 108 million and then they ALL move here that might be the case. Everyone here avoids discussing it because its not going to happen.

I’m sorta in line with Krugman’s thing. The vast majority of my family are what you’d consider prime GOP “Base”, and I can tell you they are practically all racists. Not Klan material racist, but definitely run the gamut from openly using the word nigger to wouldn’t pick them up if they were driving a cab racism. Their friends who also are “Base” are the same way. Throw in the various comments of people like Rush’s wonderful 15 minutes as a sportscaster to George Allen’s macacca comments and you really get to see the hidden undercurrents of right wing racism.

I know this is mostly anecdotal evidence from my experience and what I see from right wing talking heads, but Krugman doesn’t appear to be as far off base as you might think. Also, I’m sure there was large democratic opposition in the 60′s and especially in the south to civil rights reforms. But you should also keep in mind that was 40 years ago and a lot has changed since then. What Krugman is talking about is the GOP as it stands TODAY.

Since conservatism, by definition, resists change, it’s no surprise Republicans would be suspicious, even fearful, about the future of changing demographics. If blonds lived on the other side of our southern border, the reaction would be somewhat different.(athough not totally). A racist, theredore, would be more likely to vote Republican than Dempcratic, but he would be disappointed, these days, to find that political prejudices, not racial ones, primarily drive the Republican Party.

Liberals, on the other hand, are too often of the ‘I love humanity, bu I hate people’ mold. They are, as individuals, equally capable of racism, but they are more successful at camoiflaging it, because they embacece change on a philosophical level. They promise more than they deliver, however.

“Painting with a broad brush’ is a practice employed by everyone. At some level, it can’t even be avoided, if the discussion is about groups and their prevalent characteristics. No special dispensation should be expected. It’s more a question of a small sampling not being used to characterize the whole.

All of this, however, is just a diversion from what ails us: our broken immigration system. That crucial topic has been hijacked by extremists on both ends of the political spectrum Reality based thinkers have been left far behind, shoking on the dust of overheated rhetoric.

The law-and-order types fail to recognze that laws can;t fix every problem (see our drug laws) and that laws only work insofar as they are enforceable and just. Some laws just aren’t.

The open borders types fail to reognize that no society can function in anrchtic conditions. We need to have a coherent set of policies and enforceable laws to manage the movement of peoples. People just don’t sort things out satisfactorily without guidance and restrictions.

The debates are disheartening, to say the least.

If you are going to assert that the modern GOP exploits racist tendencies and aims for the southern bigot vote, you’re going to have to do better in the way of proof than, “that ad was obviously racist” every time the GOP dares to run any ad opposing a black democratic candidate. (for what it’s worth, I thought the ad against Ford was just dumb, really petty- but race issues had nothing to do with my opinion of it.)