Defeat, Not Demographics, Is GOP Destiny

Not to hear Michael Barone tell it, at least implicitly:

Twenty years ago political analysts grasped the implications of the vast movement from Rust Belt to Sun Belt, a tilting of the table on balance toward Republicans; but with California leaning heavily to Democrats, that paradigm seems obsolete. What's now in store is a shifting of political weight from a small Rust Belt which leans Democratic and from the much larger Coastal Megalopolises, where both secular top earners and immigrant low earners vote heavily Democratic, toward the Interior Megalopolises, where most voters are private-sector religious Republicans but where significant immigrant populations lean to the Democrats. House seats and electoral votes will shift from New York, New Jersey and Illinois to Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada; within California, House seats will shift from the Democratic coast to the Republican Inland Empire and Central Valley.

Many in the starboard side of the blogosphere have seized upon Barone's observation of demographic trends as a continuance of Repubican political manifest destiny, the realignment that will diminish the Democrats' national foundation to irrelevance and entrench the GOP in a position too commanding for even them to screw up.

Leave it to Brother Meringoff, one of our most dependable pissers-in-the-optimists'-punchbowl, to point out the obvious flaw in that souffle of hope:

Michael shows that the latest migration of Americans, from Coastal Megalopolises to Interior Megalopolises, like the last great movement from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt, means that Democratic strongholds are losing population to Republican ones. It also means, however, that the Democrats will have new opportunities in Republican strongholds, since the newcomers will be more likely than the long time residents to vote Democratic. Meanwhile the Democratic strongholds will likely remain where they are politically because the immigrants who replace the folks who leave will be reliable Democratic voters.

In other words, the outflow from "blue" territories won't make them any less "blue," but stands a much greater chance of turning "red" interior states "purple." In political terms, the piecemeal invasion and dilution of "Jesusland."

Mark Tapscott applies the finisher: the GOP can't count on demographics to carry them back to power. To borrow John Houseman's legendary catch-phrase, they'll have to "earrrrrrrn it." Guess that explains why some Vichyite conservatives are willing to whore themselves into Hillary's Eunuch Corps.

Oh, ye of little faith. I understand your doubts, and largely share them. But I'd prefer to take my unearned medicine with my honor and dignity intact. It's the one thing Mrs. Clinton and her Menshevik minions won't be able to confiscate, much less have fall into their over-padded collective lap.