Changing Electorate, Unchanging Ideology

            As election season approaches again, I have read several interesting articles regarding demographics and the role they will play not just in this election, but elections to come. One article was about how the Republican Party is slowly dying out, or at least the way it is in its current form. Non-white voters usually tend to vote Democrat, or for the more progressive candidates. With a population slowly becoming less white, things are beginning to change and Barack Obama’s election in 2008 may have been just the beginning of a new trend.  “Every year, the nonwhite proportion of the electorate grows by about half a percentage point—meaning that in every presidential election, the minority share of the vote increases by 2 percent, a huge amount in a closely divided country.”

            I’d don’t think Republicans will disappear anytime soon though. They’ll just have to go back to their evil lair and regroup. Hopefully the next form of Republican is a little less racist and a little less pro military. I think they’ll have to change to that, if they want to survive as a brand. I’m actually more concerned with the Democrats. The media and society as a whole views the Democratic Party as the liberal/progressive party, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The so-called “left”, instead of sticking to their ideology, have completely sold out and become more moderate over time. Anyone in the party who is still a true liberal is viewed as being “fringe” or “crazy”. Just look at how people in his own party view recently displaced Congressmen Dennis Kucinich.

            So it seems like Democrats, at least in presidential elections, seem to have the upper hand for the time being. This may not actually translate into the US becoming a truly progressive society though. When we have a majority of people who support drone bombings and torture, we have a long way to go.