 |
| Source:Salon Magazine- Colorado Governor David Hickenlooper. |
“As Colorado goes, so goes the nation. With the culture and demographics of the Intermountain West so rapidly changing, this motto about my home state has become conventional wisdom in national electoral politics, and for good reason. After all, the square state is the capital of the so-called Rocky Mountain Empire, a region that is fast becoming the political equivalent of a test market for the whole country. And if it is true that the way Colorado goes is the way the nation as a whole goes, then America better get ready for some extremely large changes.
Part of Colorado’s story of change comes from the statehouse where Democrats control both the governor’s office and both chambers of the Legislature. But as much of the story comes from outside the Capitol, where organic grass-roots uprisings are obliterating old political assumptions.
For decades, this was a state whose electoral topography was reliable Republican and whose politics was dominated by an unholy coalition of cultural conservatives and oil and gas interests. In the 1980s and 1990s, it became the national conservative movement in a microcosmic petri dish, passing socially conservative constitutional amendments and a so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights aimed at pulverizing the public sector.”
From Salon Magazine
I have this wild notion that David Sirota’s notion of what liberal and liberalism are, is a lot different than what mine are. Perhaps that’s because he writes for Salon Magazine, which is made of up New-Left columnists, people who are closeted Socialists, but in some cases are self-described Democratic Socialists. So maybe what I should talk about here is how to turn a state Democratic, especially Center-Left Democratic and make it more progressive, not socialist.
It’s changing demographics, not just ethnically and racially, but culturally and regionally, that’s reshaping the Democratic and Republican parties in America. The country, especially the West like Colorado, is becoming more urban and suburban. While you have a Republican Party that’s becoming more rural, Anglo-Saxon, more Protestant, especially fundamentalist Protestant, older, more male, more blue-collar.
While the Democratic Party has been reaching out to Latino-Americans since the 1990s, at least, you have a Republican Party with a strong faction in it calling those Americans Un-American and invaders. So we’re seeing more Latinos move to the Democratic Party, from the Republican Party, because they feel more welcome in the Democratic Party.
I’m not sure the country is changing so much ideologically, even though we’re seeing a higher percentage of Americans support more personal freedom as it relates to same-sex-marriage, marijuana, gambling, the right to privacy in general, as well as free speech.
I think the real changes have to do with racial, ethnic, and regional demographics, with one party meaning the Democratic Party embracing the New America, while the Republican Party is still trying to take us back to the 1950s culturally, racially, and ethnically.
You can also see this post on WordPress.
