The Great Experiment by Yascha Mounk

Author:Yascha Mounk [Mounk, Yascha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

THE MOST DANGEROUS IDEA IN AMERICAN POLITICS

In the years after 9/11, the war on terror dominated American politics. The social mood was distinctly conservative, with a series of statewide referenda against same-sex marriage passing by wide margins. And though George W. Bush was derided by many of the country’s journalists and intellectuals—who distrusted his evangelical faith and loathed his foreign policies—he was popular among ordinary Americans. So when “Dubya” won a second presidential term in 2004, many concluded that the right enjoys a natural advantage in American politics. The future seemed to belong to Republicans.

Then a couple of contrarians made a startling claim that squarely contradicted the conventional wisdom of the day. Those parts of the American electorate that have traditionally favored Republicans, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira argued in The Emerging Democratic Majority, are rapidly shrinking. Those parts of the American electorate that have traditionally supported Democrats are rapidly growing. Soon, this seemingly right-leaning country was likely to become thoroughly progressive.

A part of Judis and Teixeira’s thesis touched on social and economic changes. Americans who have college degrees or live in urban centers, they pointed out, have more progressive social values. And because the share of urbanites and college graduates is increasing, the country is likely to move to the left.

But the most influential part of the book was about the shift in relative weight between different ethnic groups. Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans, Judis and Teixeira demonstrated, tend to favor Democrats. Because their proportion of the American population was set to grow, they would likely add millions of votes to the Democratic column. Over time, “these groups of voters will continue to support Democrats rather than Republicans, paving the way for a new majority.”

These counterintuitive predictions seemed to come true when a man by the name of Barack Hussein Obama began his remarkable ascent. Though Obama was no radical, his policies marked a decisive break with the social conservatism of the Bush years. And when he became the first black politician in the history of the country to move into the White House, his victory rested on the kind of coalition Judis and Teixeira had predicted. Obama won big among the highly educated, made significant gains in urban centers and affluent suburbs, and drew record support from minority groups.

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