The question on many minds today is what does it all mean?
The lengthy and contentious presidential campaign bought us
right back where we started, Dem President, Dem Senate and Repub House, despite
billions spent trying to convince us to try something new. New York Times
columnist Gail Collins wonders, “if we've moved into a
post-political-consultant America .”
“You know, the last time I was in Ohio I found the people had heard so many
ads they were numb. And they’d been called by so many people, and visited by so
many party workers, that I began to think they had transcended all the wonders
of modern election science and were just going to do whatever they would have
done if they’d been left in peace from the beginning.”
Gail and fellow columnist David Brooks coauthored this column today with their thoughts on what it all means.
David believes the “election was mostly about demographics
or more precisely about the way demographic shifts lead to cultural and
political shifts.”
“Ronald Reagan won
with an electorate that was nearly 90 percent white. Now the electorate is
around 72 percent white. And the white population is different — more educated,
more centered in college towns, more socially diverse, more likely to live in
single-person households.”
“That means they are less likely to subscribe to the cowboy
ethos of the rugged individual. It doesn't mean they want to return to the New
Deal, but it does mean that the old Republican narrative can no longer win a
majority.”
It’s a fun read, if you like this sort of stuff, even with its scary ending.
