The browning of Gringolandia

TEHRAN,Nov.11(MNA)--Gringolandia is getting pretty brown, there’s a Black man in the White House, and he even got reelected. Yes, the demography is certainly changing in Gringolandia, which is the word that Frida Kahlo used to describe the United States. And this demographic change certainly helped Barack Obama win the U.S. presidential election on November 6, 2012. The new demography could also relegate the Republican Party to the status of a regional party, as the electoral map shows that Mitt Romney was mostly only able to win in states in the South, the Midwest, and the Mountain Far West, with Kentucky, Oklahoma, and West Virginia being the only states outside of those regions that he won. Obama won all of the states in the Northeast, West Coast, and Great Lakes regions except for Indiana. And these are the regions where the six biggest metropolitan areas, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, and Boston, are located. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the demography of the United States by race and ethnicity at that time was white American 72.4 percent, Black American 12.6 percent, Asian 4.8 percent, American Indian and Alaska Native 0.9 percent, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander 0.2 percent, other race 6.2 percent, two or more races 2.9 percent, and Hispanic/Latino (of any race) 16.3 percent. Most projections show that the non-whites will be a majority and the European Americans will be a minority sometime between 2040 and 2050, although some demographers say this could happen sooner. Obama won 93 percent of the Black vote, 71 percent of the Hispanic vote, and 73 percent of the Asian vote. Although the figures for the votes of the other non-European ethnic groups are not clear, it seems that the majority of them also voted for Obama. According to exit polling, 55 percent of women voted for Obama. In 2008, Obama got 56 percent of the women’s vote. Clearly, the gender gap is going to be a problem for the Republicans in the future. Obama also won the Generation X and Millennial Generation vote. The GenXers know that Obama is one of them and thus shares their world view. The Millennials are more closely aligned with the GenXers than with the Baby Boom Generation, so most of them were more inclined to vote for Obama than for Romney. The 2012 U.S. presidential election could be described as a contest between the GenXer Obama and the Boomer Romney. And Obama’s two election victories, and especially the most recent one, signaled the arrival of the GenXers into the corridors of power and the waning of the Boomer influence. Strangely, although they are such a large generation, the Boomers were only able to elect two U.S. presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. And with the ascendancy of the GenXers and the fact that the Millennials are waiting in the wings, ready to make their voices heard, it is not likely that there will be another Boomer president. The fact that the World War II Generation, which is also known as the GI Generation, stayed in power for so long is one of the reasons why there have been so few Boomer presidents. Former presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush were all members of the GI Generation. And Bob Dole, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 1996, was also a member of that generation. In light of the new demography, the Republican Party is in serious trouble and will have a hard time winning a presidential election in the future. The base of the party has turned farther to the right, especially due to the Tea Party phenomenon, and this has added to the Republicans’ woes and made it more difficult for them to select a moderate presidential candidate with national appeal during the primary election process. Some political analysts say that all this may lead to the breakup of the Republican Party. According to this view, the more right-wing types would form one party, perhaps retaining the Republican Party name, and the more moderate elements would form another party, perhaps with a name like the Lincoln Republican Party. The new demography, and especially the ascendancy of the GenXers and the Millennials, could also lead to a rise in votes for the Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, and other progressive parties. However, white separatists may try to set up a breakaway republic due to the fact that they are losing power. And this could inspire other separatists, such as the Mexican Americans who want to establish a country called Aztlan in the Southwest and the African Americans who want to establish a country called New Afrika in the South. But whatever happens, it’s definitely a whole new ball game in the USA. (By Hamid Golpira)