We keep getting told that demographics favor the Democrats and look bad for the Republicans, as America becomes more ethnically diverse, a phenomenon particularly evident in the growing Hispanic vote. But Josh Gelertner gives us a history lesson putting all of this into context.
He points out that ever since the machine politics of Boss Tweed in the 1850s, Democrats have pandered to immigrants fresh off the boat in exchange for their votes. Thus the Irish became an important part of the Democratic base. The same thing happened with the next wave of immigrants, the Italians. But after awhile, each of these groups assimilated into American culture, whereupon they stopped voting exclusively for the Democrats.
He then argues that the same thing will happen to Hispanics–indeed, that it has already started to happen. Today, no one talks about the Irish or the Italian vote, though they used to. The same thing, Gelertner says, will happen with all immigrant groups. The American melting pot keeps working.
Read his argument after the jump, including how anti-Hispanic sentiment today is similar to the anti-Irish and anti-Italian sentiment of the past. Does he have a point, or is he too sanguine about immigration?
He seems to assume that cultural assimilation happens naturally. In the past, America worked hard to “Americanize” its immigrants. This was a major task for schools. As late as my day, we had lots of American history (in which Americans were portrayed as good guys), required Civics classes (teaching the Constitution and the workings of Democracy), and even lessons in “Americanism” (Cold War anti-communism, including the superiority of individualism over collectivism, free market economics over socialism, and freedom over regimentation). Instead, schools today teach multiculturalism. Cultural assimilation is impossible if there is no particular culture to assimilate to.
From Josh Gelertner, Why Demographics Don’t Favor the Democrats, National Review:
Democrats, and journalists, talk a great deal about how demographic changes are inexorably shifting the American electorate to the left. But they’re wrong.
The Democrats have founded their political fortunes on special-interest groups for more than 150 years — since at least the late 1850s, when Tammany Hall (the Democrats’ New York City political machine) was taken over by Boss Tweed, who began to use its political influence to support (and pander to) Irish immigrants (in particular), in exchange for votes. The Irish were the largest immigrant group in the country, and an increasingly powerful voting block. Thanks to Tweed and company, they became a voting block that invariably voted Democratic. The Irish continued to constitute the largest or second-largest immigrant group each year until the end of the 19th century, and you would have been forgiven for predicting that they would help deliver a permanent electoral advantage for the Democrats.
Starting with the 20th century, Irish immigration was eclipsed by Italian. Italian immigrants quickly began receiving Democratic patronage, and became a new core of the Democratic electorate. Italians continued to be the largest or second-largest immigrant group each year until the Second World War. Throughout that period, you could rely on Italians to vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
But then, in the 1960s, Italian-Americans started splitting their votes evenly between Republicans and Democrats. These days, the Irish-American vote is a reliable 50-50 split too. Why? Because the Irish and the Italians stopped being special-interest groups. After their initial isolation, the Italians and the Irish stopped being easily divisible from the average American. They didn’t want custom-tailored treatment, they just wanted the same shot at the American dream that everyone else had. They’d been assimilated. They stopped being primarily Irish or Italian and became, first and foremost, American. And that meant that Democratic pandering didn’t work anymore. There was no more distinct group to pander to.
When was the last time someone talked seriously about courting the Italian vote, or the Irish, in a national election? Kennedy–Nixon in 1960? “Italian” and “Irish” are no longer considered in pollsters’ demography. They melted into a pre-existing electoral block, ineptly called “white voters.” Pollsters talk a lot about the “white vote” — but what they really mean is the Italian-Irish-Polish-Hungarian-Romanian-Jewish-Russian-Swedish-Norwegian-French-Dutch-Scottish-Welsh-English vote. That’s the nature of the American melting pot.
And before too long, that ethnically indistinct pot will include Latin-Americans too — Latin-Americans being the immigrant group that, after WW2, supplanted Italians as the largest.
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