The base of the Texas GOP

Obama the leader of the American Nazi party. Democrats flew the planes on 9/11. A steady diet of FEAR! addles the brains of cowards.

America the Liberal will not be friendly toward a GOP Texas. I doubt that GOP can keep their majority status in Texas for long.

If the unionized industrial workers were the vanguard of the New Deal majority, the professionals are the vanguard of the new progressive majority. Their sensibility is reflected in the Democratic platform and increasingly in the country as a whole. It has sometimes been described as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but that doesn't really get at it. They are socially liberal on civil rights and women's rights; committed to science and to the separation of church and state; internationalist on trade and immigration; skeptical, but not necessarily opposed to, large government spending programs, particularly on healthcare; and gung-ho about government regulation of business, including K Street lobbyists.

The Pew poll from March 2007 found that the percentage of Americans who believe that school boards should have the right to fire homosexual teachers has fallen from 51 percent in 1987 to 28 percent in 2007. Those who want to make it "more difficult" for a women to obtain an abortion has dropped from 47 to 35 percent. The percentage of those who think that "it's all right for blacks and whites to date each other" has risen from 48 to 83 percent--and as much as 94 percent of Generation Y-ers born between 1981 and 1988. The poll also found that 62 percent--83 percent among college graduates--disagreed that "science is going too far and hurting society."

Americans held some of these opinions well before this year's election; in fact, these opinions had become prevalent in the 1990s. But September 11 and the fear of an imminent terrorist attack temporarily revived the conservatism of the '80s, especially on social issues, and eclipsed concerns about government regulation and the economy. These liberal views have re-emerged, however, with a vengeance, and can be expected to shift further leftward--especially on economic questions--in the face of coming recession. That recession will represent a stiff challenge to the Obama administration, but also an opportunity to solidify and harden the realignment that took place in this election.

Democrats should read the full Pew Report on political trends. The Texas GOP is starting to condemn itself to be a generational minority party by being on the wrong side of history and demographics.

Tags: political trends, GOPbase