The Vig

Josh Marshall wonders aloud about the changing electoral demographics.

But it brings one point into sharp relief: though America’s racial make-up is much more complex than just black and white, in the context of blacks and whites, the Democrats are the bi-racial coalition. They win elections by winning overwhelming margins of African-American votes and keeping the margin close among whites. (Obviously this is different in individual states with larger or smaller African-American populations.) Indeed, if Democrats continue to run strong, though not overwhelmly so, among Hispanics (something that seems probable in the short term with all the recent immigrant bashing on the right) this pattern could well become more pronounced.

There’s nothing wrong with studying these percentages in terms of demography. Nor is there anything wrong with Democratic strategists recognizing that their candidates need to win this or that percentage of white voters to win. But creeping in the shadows of these conversations about how Democrats can no longer manage to win the white vote and are only saved from political oblivion by running up big margins among African-Americans is a little disguised assumption that African-American votes are somehow second-rate.

I don’t think there’s any getting around that.

Watch the talking heads on your tee vee.  They’re all over 50 and white.  They’re watching the country they once knew change around them and they’ve been powerless to stop it.  So they’re going to keep repeating this “but what about the whites?” line until they’ve pounded both the line and themselves into irrelevance.