A must-read analysis and commentary in two parts:___
...from part one,
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that by 2045, the United States will have a population of some 389 million people. And for the first time in the nation's history, the majority of people living in the U.S. will be non-white.
"This new diversity boom that we're seeing right now will be every bit as important for our country in the decades ahead as the baby boom [people born between 1946 and 1964] was in the last half of the 20th century," said demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution.
"We know that the baby boom has changed the country in lots of ways-- popular culture, changing values about all kinds of social issues, families, women's roles and politics. And I think this diversity boom is going to have just as big of an impact. We'll be a very different country and we're only just beginning to see the start of it," said Frey.
The whole of part one can be read here.
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...from part two,
"The political center of the country is driven not by ethnicity, but it's driven by benefits," said American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray, who noted that America's changing demographics will likely play a subordinate role to more general trends in national politics.
"Even people who vote Republican who are receiving Medicare and Social Security are going to be reluctant to vote for Republican candidates who threaten those programs in any way," said Murray. "That’s equally true of people who receive major benefits from Welfare and Medicaid."
"So I see the political center constantly moving leftward-- with the Republican center moving leftward along with the Democrats. Republicans don't have to sit down and have strategy meetings about that. I think political survival will just drive them that way. If I were a liberal Democrat, I would be looking with great complacency on the prospects for the next 30 or 40 years," he said.
The whole of part two can be read here.
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