Actually, in many ways things haven't changed that much. For example, Romney won whites by nearly the same margin as Reagan did. But whites were 88% of voters in 1980 and now they're 72%. So in a sense Romney was like Reagan. He only ran with the wrong electorate.
88% just 30 years ago? Ewwwww... I really would've hated living in the 80s. As if the environment wasn't conservative enough, politicians had to pander to THAT electorate? I understand they constituted 83% of the overall pop., so it's not terribly unrepresentative... but I sleep quite better at night knowing they are not the only people our leaders have to worry about.
I probably should cool it a bit when it comes to my fellow white folks, I've spent the better part of this election cycle insulting them, but even after two Obama victories, I just don't think a lot of them "get it".
"Get" what, exactly?
That people who vote for Democrats, typically minorities, are not doing so for a handout, they're doing so because they feel they will at least be given a shot; that there will be SOME attempt to rectify the natural economic inequalities inherent in the U.S. free market economy. Not to mention a very prevailing view that a few bad eggs (people who coast by on welfare checks, actively try to not work, what have you...) are representative of an overall population that does receive government assistance, and therefore requires a dismantling of the social safety nets we have in place, which is of course completely contradictory to reality. And those are just two examples. A lot of people in America just don't really know what it's like to struggle and don't understand how good they have it.
Somehow, this election in many people's minds turned into socialism v. capitalism like no election we've had before, quite ironic considering Barack Obama is very, very far from a socialist.
I said a lot of them, not all. If you take this as me saying that no white person has ever struggled then you missed the point.
EDIT: and I didn't even touch on the utter disdain some have for unions, and attitude that I can't even believe came to be prevalent in America... a country that was founded on people fighting for their rights. That is another thing many rich, white GOPers "don't get".
