ok gonna blog, goddammit. watching 'up with chris hayes' (guest-hosted by ezra klein). they're talking in total puzzlement about the republicans' shift to the right, and they're saying that it's suicide: they are alienating latinos, women etc (indeed, they've declared 'war' on women). they're going to get their asses kicked; they're on the wrong side of demographic history etc.
now i think this response has something to do with where the members of the panel live. here in rural pa, you'd be surprised how conservative the women are: sexual mores far stricter than the men, e.g. i live in a town called york springs, which is in the middle of tens of thousands of acres of apple orchards, and which these days is dominatedly latino, believe it or not. now i was talking to a guy at the only viable biz (lua's mexican shop) the other day, and he was going all reactionary on all kinds of things, even immigration. for that matter, the 'up' folk might underestimate how conservative the black population is, and i've been saying for years that it would not take much to break off part of religious black america for the republicans. it's just that they don't seem to have any idea how. (but even opposition to gay marriage would play well.)
we're still fighting the sex war of the sixties, and i think that that's the heart of the current contraception debate etc etc. let's just say that raising teenagers, for example, or teaching college, might make you think twice about indiscriminate promiscuity as a road to liberation, though many many women and men have tried. i actually think that a more puritanical sexuality is liable to have a long future, and to be expressed indirectly in our politics for the forseeable future. actually the extent to which a lot of our political discourse is indirectly about sex is immense.
in other words, i don't think there is a demographic inevitability to a left turn, though that's the kind of argument that 'progressives' have been making for a couple of centuries: we are the future. well, we'll see.
