Good luck with that. :laughing:

From what I gather they're down for social conservatism. I have no major problem with immigration, but know what you're buying. Prop 22 didn't pass in California because of college liberals in Berkeley, California. So yeah, you're not replacing *******s with non-*******s. Just more *******s.

They will be until they realize that ultimately they're just putting money into the pockets of the white liberal elite who tend to be beholden to Wall-Street as opposed to the principles of their European liberal forefathers. Then they'll shift back toward conservatism and become Libertarian like me. :laughing:

And my point is that the working poor -- be they brown, white, black, or purple -- only vote democrat because of economic issues, not social ones. If the Republican party ever significantly changes its attitudes and tactics regarding minorities and the poor (which I imagine it will have to) then don't be surprised if many of them start voting red. You're allies atm, but that doesn't mean they believe the same things you do.

White conservative elite >>>>>> White liberal elite

Duh. Doesn't matter. The poor don't vote your way because they give a **** about socialism. Take away their distrust of the Republican party and you get more Republicans. Or at least you get a fighting chance of them choosing social issues over economic ones.

I think you just didn't know what I said. The poor choose economic issues now, but agree with the Republicans on social ones. Clear?

Conservatism isn't going to die just because the Republican party is currently losing the culture wars. Give it a generation and the party will have changed out of necessity. I suspect it will be less about white vs. everyone else, and more about the elite vs. the 99%. All it will take is reframing the argument along class culture lines rather than race culture. I suppose the Democrats could change back to supporting the working class rather than the liberal intellectuals, but it would probably easier for the Republicans to start supporting the poor rather than the Democrats to go back on their moral values and leave behind their social liberalism.

This is all conjecture of course, but the political lines have to bend sooner or later.

The political demographics shifted decades ago, with Democrats switching from racist stances to socially liberal ones. So don't think that the current political demographics are static. The Democratic party is poised to take the lead in the near future if the current racial demographic continues to shift as it has, and so they don't really need to change too much, whereas the Republicans will be forced to drastically change their approach or die. And they will. The tipping point likely being when Texas flips due to rising Latino population.

If the Repubs drop the sneaky racial politics, boost their minority leadership numbers to include more Latinos, and start trying to relate to them on a personal/cultural level (i.e. "These liberals aren't your people since they care about gay marriage and abortion and feminism and atheism and whatnot, and not actually anything that you care about") then it's only a matter of time until they start gaining ground.

And white Southerners aren't all of a sudden going to flip Democrat just because their leaders are courting brown people, so the Republicans will have very little to lose and everything to gain by going this route.

I think you may be right, but it's still a gamble. The ideological shift between the parties you mentioned happened for just this reason - the Democrats elected a progressive Catholic in the 60s, so they freaked out and ran to the Republicans. Don't underestimate how self righteous and single minded the extremist bases of these parties can be.

They also shifted because of unprecedented social reforms that ended segregation in an era when white Southerners were willing to support something like segregation. That's quite a bit more extreme than simply trying to make nice with Latinos. It is a gamble, but much less of one than in the past.