Books reviews, current events, and other musings

In The Emerging Democratic Majority, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira claim that, according to demographic trends, the Democrats are going to regain power over the next decade. Everything boils down to a single argument: the demographic groups who tend to vote Democratic are an increasing proportion of the electorate. It's rather convincing, with ample statistics and solid reasoning supporting their claims.

The book starts with a survey of American political history, focusing on the last several decades. In the 1930's, New Deal Democrats gained control of the government. That coalition started to fall apart in the late 60's, leading to a conservative Republican majority in the 80's. Judis and Teixeira propose that the pendulum is now heading in the other direction, with improving Democratic fortunes. That picture oversimplifies the political gyrations of the last 70 years, but it's still a plausible high-level model.

The next chapter describes the growing demographic groups that tend to vote Democratic more often than not. Highly educated professionals make up 21% of the voting electorate and selected Democrat more frequently than Republican in the last four elections, 52% to 40%. Women who are single, working, and/or highly educated also support Democrats by a large margin. In the last election, Gore received 90% of the Black vote and 64% of Chinese-Americans vote, along with a significant majority of the Hispanic and Vietnamese-American ballots.

According to the book, increasing numbers of professionals, working women, and minorities will lead to future Democratic gains. A state-by-state geographic analysis underscores that point. The authors summarize and effectively rebut the counterarguments for a continuing Republican dominance.

Of course, the 2002 election, which occurred after the book was published, conflicts with its conclusions. The authors reason that terrorist concerns will subside over time as 9/11 becomes more distant, and recent Gallup poll results appear to support that reasoning.

Overall, The Emerging Democratic Majority presents a thoughtful fact-based analysis of our current and future political trends. As its main downside, the book ignored certain topics, such as campaign finance and the media, that play major roles in the American political scene. I just hope that its title ends up being prophetic.