After reading Josh Barro's interesting piece about the execrable Cliven Bundy, my mind drifted off to the past. The year is 1985. Two people sit in a bar: Randy and Devon. They chat about politics. (I offer no endorsement of either one of our barflies; both people in the conversation annoy me a bit, when I read it over.) Let's listen in.
Randy: Life is great! Ronald Reagan just smoked your guy. Everyone knows that big government liberalism doesn't work; all we have to do is bring out the spectre of Carter, and everything is great for us. Conservatism has won!
Devon: Oh, please. Reagan's just running up the deficit and stimulating economic growth. He's being a Keynesian, except he's just wasting money on charades like Star Wars. And it's all on the backs of the poor.
Randy: You're just ticked off because America has once and for all rejected the European path. We're self-reliant, independent, patriotic! Thank God for Margaret Thatcher. Otherwise, Europe would be a total sinkhole.
Devon: Your man is an idiot. Did you see him trying to steal "Born in the USA" for his campaign? That's a negative song about America and the treatment of veterans, not a jingoistic anthem!
Randy: Come on, now. Springsteen's politics may be liberal, but he understands us, you know?
Devon: Us?
Randy: You know, real Americans!
Devon: No, I don't.
Randy: You'll never get it.
Devon: I must say that I'm pretty optimistic, though. Let me tell you about the future.
Randy: Go ahead. It's morning in America!
Devon: Roughly 14 percent of the electorate this time around wasn't white. Eighty-five percent of those non-white voters voted for Mondale! And Mondale was a disaster of a candidate.
Randy: Yeah, so?
Devon: Well, what if the non-white share of the electorate increases? And I hear your boy Reagan is going to support an amnesty bill that gives three million illegal immigrants citizenship. Most of them aren't white.
Randy: Don't be a racist. Republicans can win non-white voters, too. They just need to see that our policies are best for everyone.
Devon: Oh sure, maybe they'll say that when times are good. But what about when things get rough again? You know they will someday. Capitalism eats its own.
Randy: Marxist.
Devon: I'm being serious! Capitalism, for all of its perks, has booms and busts. Someday we'll have another bust.
Randy: I don't know, maybe.
Devon: I expect quite a bit of immigration over the next couple of decades. Some of them will become like you, certainly: wealthy, uncaring, and boorish.
Randy: Thank you! I'm not really wealthy, though. I'm middle class.
Devon: Sure. But a lot of others are going to be struggling, and they're going to want a helping hand. Do you think Republicans are going to provide it? Your party is already incredibly white. And people get afraid of difference in bad times.
Randy: America is all about individual achievement and entrepreneurship. Anyone who comes here gets that.
Devon: Not really. They're coming here to make a better life for their families, but most aren't particularly ideological. If anything they'll be coming from countries that don't have the American cultural tradition of limited government. So certain conservative ideas might be a little... foreign, for them?
Randy: Say whatever you want to say to make yourself feel better. Limited government has won here, and that's a fact.
Devon: This is the truth: in 28 years, you're going to nominate a handsome, religious, brilliant man for the presidency. He's going to focus a big portion of his campaign on private entrepreneurship and individualism. He's going to argue about how the incumbent is fundamentally hostile to those things because of his intense promotion of the role of the federal government in virtually all spheres of economic activity. He'll mostly be right about that argument. And your guy is going to get destroyed.
Randy: Come on!
Devon: I swear to you, that is the future. I won't agree with your guy, but his critique of the incumbent will be part of an honest argument that he will lose, quite badly, on Election Day.
Randy: You're serious?
Devon: Completely.
Randy: Let's say I accept your prophesizing here. What percentage of the electorate is going to be non-white in 2012?
Devon: 28 percent.
Randy: What percentage of those will the incumbent win?
Devon: 76 percent.
Randy: Wow.
Devon: Yep.
A long pause follows.
Randy: How do Republicans stop this?
Devon: I'm not going to tell you that! The future is bright.
Randy: I guess the first thing we have to do is stop immigration, or at least slow it down! Can't let people change what makes America great.
Devon: What are you implying?
Randy: I really don't mind immigration. But they have to assimilate to our way of life! We shouldn't just let anyone in here. We should protect our borders from this sort of fundamental change in our country!
Devon: A lot of immigrants are in dire poverty and horrible conditions. We can make their lives immeasurably better just by letting them into the country!
Randy: I see your point. Our country is magnanimous and generous, after all. But I'm really worried about your story now! What would you do if you were a Republican strategist?
Devon: Screw that, I want this outcome.
Randy: Come on! Just for shits and giggles, what would you do?
Devon: OK, fine. Your party needs to make a concerted outreach to those voters now. Broaden your message. Denounce racism wherever you see it. Stop being so aggressively white all the time, and really reach out to minority communities to show that you care. Don't lecture them; listen to them. You have a guy, Jack Kemp, who focuses on the inner-cities sometimes. Listen to what he has to say about that. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is a Democrat, but a lot of what he says is useful to you, too. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans were winning a sizable chunk of black voters. Jackie Robinson was a Republican. You can get back to that, at least a little, but you have to make an effort!
A long pause follows.
Randy: Nah, I don't think so. And you're full of shit about all of this. But we should really oppose immigration, just in case.
Devon: Sigh. I guess that's a perfectly rational response to this future. But I assure you, it won't work. We will be relentlessly demonizing you as heartless for wanting to restrict immigration and break up immigrant families, and we're at least a little bit right about that.
Randy: Whatever. What really matters is that Reagan's in charge now, and the Soviets are running scared.
Devon: Get used to the Cold War; the Soviet Union isn't going away anytime soon.
Randy: You're probably right.
Silence. Another long pause.
Randy: Hey, do you watch Cheers?
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