No longer your father’s electorate |
No longer your father’s electorate
Los Angeles Times
2012-11-08
Paul West, Washington Bureau
Obama’s reelection marks a turning point in American politics: With the growing power of minorities, women and gays, it’s the end of the world as straight white males know it.
WASHINGTON — Even more than the election that made Barack Obama the first black president, the one that returned him to office sent an unmistakable signal that the hegemony of the straight white male in America is over.
The long drive for broader social participation by all Americans reached a turning point in the 2012 election, which is likely to go down as a watershed in the nation’s social and political evolution — and not just because in some states voters approved of same-sex marriage for the first time.
On Tuesday, Obama received the votes of barely 1 in 3 white males. That too was historic. It almost certainly was an all-time low for the winner of a presidential election that did not include a major third-party candidate.
“We’re not in the ’50s any more,” said William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer. “This election makes it clear that a single focus directed at white males, or at the white population in general, is not going to do it. And it’s not going to do it when the other party is focusing on energizing everybody else.”
Read the entier article here.
Tags: Los Angeles Times, Paul West, William Frey, William H. Frey