The Democratic base region in 50 years

[後援会]

I actually think our politics will be very stable.

The dominant issue of the 2050's will be demographics. And I don't mean race. I mean demographics as in our birth rate and marriage rates are going down the drain. As is quite normal for developed countries.

The fertility rate in the USA is less than 1.8 now, which actually puts it behind Ireland/France/UK. And if you take out Hispanic-Americans (who I believe are at 2.4 now), it's even lower. And Hispanic-American birth rates are collapsing the fastest.

Obviously, an aging population has severe consequences. It's what makes our entitlements insolvent. Unfortunately, most projections for our birth rate have us shooting up to a 2.3 as economic prosperity returns, but I think it's more likely we're in a new normal. So yeah, an extension of Tyler Cowen's Great Stagnation thesis. So our aging problem/entitlement problem is probably worse than many people, even Paul Ryan, think.

In a mixed blessing, China is screwed considerably worse (due to the world's worst demographics). So a lot of our China-derived growth is going to go away, but at the same time, that's an international threat averted.

Obviously, income inequality is another important issue. But I'm not sure a lot of people are quite sure on how income is cleaving. California is really the future in this class. In that we're probably going to have a relatively large liberal gentry tied to information industries and institutions of higher learning. If any party becomes more populist, it will be the Republicans considering that the Obama coalition has essentially unified every upwardly-mobile demographic group in society.

The America of 2050 will probably be economically stagnant, aging quickly, and drawing back on its participation in international affairs. Even though some kind of entitlement reform will be in place, the finances will still probably be terrible because it wasn't done early enough. This probably will give an edge to the Republicans who will have a lot more to complain about. The world will probably be slightly hotter, but it's nothing that farm subsidies and infrastructure projects won't counteract.

I don't actually think the parties will look that different. They'll just pull even farther apart with a few differences. The South will urbanize and liberalize a little, but the Republicans literally can't do any worse among black voters. So I don't really see the South fleeing back into the Democrats.

The Hispanic tide won't emerge. White Hispanics will follow the path of other White Ethnics and trend Republican somewhat. Non-White Hispanics will continue voting Democrat. The Hispanic population remains strongly Democratic-leaning (especially as Republican-leaning White Hispanics stop identifying primarily as Hispanics), but it grows less quickly than many expect. But still grows enough to put CO/NV out of play, throw AZ into lean-blue, and make Texas a lot more precarious.

Contrary to popular opinion, the GOP still does much better among upper-class whites than the Democrats, and the Democrats do somewhat better among lower-class whites than the Republicans. So although it seems cliched to say the GOP will do well among working-class whites, that'd actually represent a huge shift.

If anything, I believe the Democrats will become more libertarian-leaning. Although they'll have a strong enough anti-anthropic, anti-energy streak to chase away the energy sector, as well as many energy-producing states (which will probably have the only good economies in America), into the Republican column.

Considering that the GOP coalition is essentially going to be Southerners, White Ethnics, Catholics, and downwardly-mobile whites, we're actually looking like a coalition that looks a lot like the New Deal coalition.

Pennslyvania becomes the most important swing state in the nation.

[Person Man]

I'd go with that, actually. Basically the Republicans will at least on the surface look like some sort of Welfare State party where the state has been replaced by the energy companies...basically a form of energy fuedalism. Then again, Republicans are now saying that the Democrats have become a feudal bloc based on the IT industry.

...and again, your future might not be as dark demographically as you think because there might be a technological solution to a demography problem. I guess the most draconian solution would be that the Government starts forcing people to have kids (which is basically the current Republican solution) or the Government goes Brave New World and just starts cloning and raising millions of people that aren't getting born but need to be born.

Another thing that could happen is that nothing gets done. R and D spending and Government regulation and austerity totally kills any chance of having a timely or any technological solution to the problem and we just age to the point where our population is about half what is today and it becomes cheap to have kids again in the year 2200ish. Basically a 14th century solution to infertility. This seems just as likely as forcing people to be born somehow.

and yet another thing that could happen is that through medicine on smaller and more pervasive scale, aided by regenerative and genetic medicine, we can drastically reduce the death rate, drastically increase the "natural" retirement age and make sure that those who are being born are as productive as possible. I wonder what the numbers on spending would look like if someone could work another 25 years and live another 20 years after that. Perhaps this could increase the fertility rate if people had the time and energy to save money before having kids.

[後援会]

I'd go with that, actually. Basically the Republicans will at least on the surface look like some sort of Welfare State party where the state has been replaced by the energy companies...basically a form of energy fuedalism. Then again, Republicans are now saying that the Democrats have become a feudal bloc based on the IT industry.

...and again, your future might not be as dark demographically as you think because there might be a technological solution to a demography problem. I guess the most draconian solution would be that the Government starts forcing people to have kids (which is basically the current Republican solution) or the Government goes Brave New World and just starts cloning and raising millions of people that aren't getting born but need to be born.

Another thing that could happen is that nothing gets done. R and D spending and Government regulation and austerity totally kills any chance of having a timely or any technological solution to the problem and we just age to the point where our population is about half what is today and it becomes cheap to have kids again in the year 2200ish. Basically a 14th century solution to infertility. This seems just as likely as forcing people to be born somehow.

and yet another thing that could happen is that through medicine on smaller and more pervasive scale, aided by regenerative and genetic medicine, we can drastically reduce the death rate, drastically increase the "natural" retirement age and make sure that those who are being born are as productive as possible. I wonder what the numbers on spending would look like if someone could work another 25 years and live another 20 years after that. Perhaps this could increase the fertility rate if people had the time and energy to save money before having kids.

I would be cautious on that first part for one reason - energy companies create a lot of jobs. And most of them are fairly well-paying. The new tech startups, especially the internet-based ones, (I'm not talking about core manufacturing and R&D industries like semiconductors) create a lot for wealth for a relatively small group of people. Which is why income inequality is so high in the Bay Area.

Honestly, the idea of our fertility rate recovering is not that strange. After a few generations, people will catch on that there aren't that many kids anymore. Which is a perfect time to have kids. After all, they have less competition and all of that. The birth rate in Japan is actually recovering now, for example.

The problem is that even if we do recover, we'll still be aging a lot. Which is a problem.

I don't put much faith in the super-technological solutions (end aging!). Of course, I know a lot of people who work in tech and really have all those ideas. But discovering a technology and actually being able to pay for it are very different things. We already have enough difficulty paying for our current medical innovations.

[Person Man]

What would cost more? Trillions of dollars to prolong the workforce's life or trillions of dollars to retire them? That's actually a very good question. Up there with what to do about Global Warming.

So, do you think that Japan might start growing before its totally depopulated without some huge Communist-style antiabortion and perhaps anticondom program ala Stalist Soviet Union or Bulgaria?

[後援会]

What would cost more? Trillions of dollars to prolong the workforce's life or trillions of dollars to retire them? That's actually a very good question. Up there with what to do about Global Warming.

So, do you think that Japan might start growing before its totally depopulated without some huge Communist-style antiabortion and perhaps anticondom program ala Stalist Soviet Union or Bulgaria?

Well, the thing is, if that innovation is prohibitively expensive, retirement may actually be cheaper. Or even more scarily, it may allow people to live much longer but they will also want to still retire at 65ish. That's what we've seen today - with life spans being much longer than they were in the past, but the retirement age not budging much.

Don't you mean Romania? Anyways, the Japanese birth rate has recovered from 1.1 to 1.4 and is actually trending upwards. They'll be population decline for now, but it's not implausible that they could recover in the future.

[Person Man]

Could this mean that they still could have more kids?
Could this mean that there could be politcal will to raise the retirement age substantially while maintaining benefits?
How long did it take for Japan to have that change in birthrates and what has caused it?

[TNF]

[後援会]

Could this mean that they still could have more kids?
Could this mean that there could be politcal will to raise the retirement age substantially while maintaining benefits?
How long did it take for Japan to have that change in birthrates and what has caused it?

Whoops. Missed this.

I think the birth rate in Japan will continue to increase. Increase to replacement fertility? Probably not. But it should increase.

I mean, how common is that? It's tough everywhere. Just look at Hollande dropping the retirement age back to 60.

Well, the Japanese birth rate spiked after World War II (kind of like the US rate) and then continued dropping throughout the late 50's, maybe hitting like 1.1 in the late 90's. Over the last ten years, it's recovered to around 1.4.

[Person Man]

So, maybe in another 20 or 30 years it could recover?  I wonder how much of Japan's problems are based on low fertility and how low fertility is based on the high inflation in Japan?

...and what would be the consequences of lengthening the average life span by 15 or 20 years?  We could do it by just drastically reducing incidence of death not directly caused by natural causes (cancer, obesity-related or drug-related organ failure,  accidents...all the jazz..you know stuff that you die from in your 60s,70s and 80s). That would basically excaserbate our current problems...that's basically what's already happening Japan as their life expancy is already approaching the high 80s. 
...but what would happen if the aging process was slowed by a good 20 years? What would happen then? Would it be the same?

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

[Sol]

Looks interesting, but if Illinois stays D-leaning because of Chicago, New York would stay D as well. I don't see trends in NYC that would make it R, and the city can outvote the rest of the state.

[後援会]

So, maybe in another 20 or 30 years it could recover?  I wonder how much of Japan's problems are based on low fertility and how low fertility is based on the high inflation in Japan?

...and what would be the consequences of lengthening the average life span by 15 or 20 years?  We could do it by just drastically reducing incidence of death not directly caused by natural causes (cancer, obesity-related or drug-related organ failure,  accidents...all the jazz..you know stuff that you die from in your 60s,70s and 80s). That would basically excaserbate our current problems...that's basically what's already happening Japan as their life expancy is already approaching the high 80s. 
...but what would happen if the aging process was slowed by a good 20 years? What would happen then? Would it be the same?

Japan doesn't have much inflation. In fact, the BOJ has been trying to inflate (enyasu lololol) their currency for two decades. After all, the BOJ pioneered quantitative easing when lowering interest rates in 0% didn't even work.

Projecting fertility rates is a very inexact science. Historically, people have been way off. After all, very few people predicted the Chinese birthrate dropping from 6.2 to 1.2 even with the one-child policy. And predictions that African birthrates would collapse have not come true...yet. And some places have huge upswings or downswings in birthrates for more localized reasons (the Quiet Revolution annihilating Quebecoise birth rates or Orthodox Jews driving up the Israeli birth rate).

I remember reading a UN population fund report that had several estimates of world population in 2300, ranging from 2 billion to 36 billion. That being said, the median sees most developing nations cratering and plateauing. So the Japanese birth rate recovering in 30 years is...plausible, but you know, it's really hard to know.

Assuming we somehow made American eating habits and exercise habits perfect (which I personally think is impossible due to deep-seated culture reasons), a life expectancy in the high 80's isn't implausible. Keep in mind that people in Japan don't necessarily have a super healthy lifestyle. Japan has extremely high levels of cigarette consumption, alcohol consumption, and relatively low sleep hours.

That being said, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm not particularly optimistic about something that instantly expand lifespans, even if it expanded someones effective working ages. A lot of problems with our public health systems is not simply aging but also the fact that the growth in our ability to invent new medical procedures, devices, and drugs has outstripped the growth of our ability to actually afford them. I don't see human lifespans significantly expanding unless human productivity expands, something that I find very difficult and slow since I'm a proponent of "Great Stagnation" theory.

If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if life expectancies in America dropped.

[Indy Texas]

I'll go out on a limb and say they regain the Great Plains by becoming more Populist.

So basically 1896 all over again?

We already have Republicans making a fetish out of the gold standard.

[Person Man]

So, maybe in another 20 or 30 years it could recover?  I wonder how much of Japan's problems are based on low fertility and how low fertility is based on the high inflation in Japan?

...and what would be the consequences of lengthening the average life span by 15 or 20 years?  We could do it by just drastically reducing incidence of death not directly caused by natural causes (cancer, obesity-related or drug-related organ failure,  accidents...all the jazz..you know stuff that you die from in your 60s,70s and 80s). That would basically excaserbate our current problems...that's basically what's already happening Japan as their life expancy is already approaching the high 80s.  
...but what would happen if the aging process was slowed by a good 20 years? What would happen then? Would it be the same?

Japan doesn't have much inflation. In fact, the BOJ has been trying to inflate (enyasu lololol) their currency for two decades. After all, the BOJ pioneered quantitative easing when lowering interest rates in 0% didn't even work.

Projecting fertility rates is a very inexact science. Historically, people have been way off. After all, very few people predicted the Chinese birthrate dropping from 6.2 to 1.2 even with the one-child policy. And predictions that African birthrates would collapse have not come true...yet. And some places have huge upswings or downswings in birthrates for more localized reasons (the Quiet Revolution annihilating Quebecoise birth rates or Orthodox Jews driving up the Israeli birth rate).

I remember reading a UN population fund report that had several estimates of world population in 2300, ranging from 2 billion to 36 billion. That being said, the median sees most developing nations cratering and plateauing. So the Japanese birth rate recovering in 30 years is...plausible, but you know, it's really hard to know.

Assuming we somehow made American eating habits and exercise habits perfect (which I personally think is impossible due to deep-seated culture reasons), a life expectancy in the high 80's isn't implausible. Keep in mind that people in Japan don't necessarily have a super healthy lifestyle. Japan has extremely high levels of cigarette consumption, alcohol consumption, and relatively low sleep hours.

That being said, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm not particularly optimistic about something that instantly expand lifespans, even if it expanded someones effective working ages. A lot of problems with our public health systems is not simply aging but also the fact that the growth in our ability to invent new medical procedures, devices, and drugs has outstripped the growth of our ability to actually afford them. I don't see human lifespans significantly expanding unless human productivity expands, something that I find very difficult and slow since I'm a proponent of "Great Stagnation" theory.

If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if life expectancies in America dropped.

Well, The Great Stagnation does seem to make sense as any new truly novel breakthrough in transportation, exploration, health care and the like...or possibly even computer science and information technology after 2020 may be conditioned on a new understanding of Relativistic Physics that simply does not have the political or capital support it would go in a world without subsidies to the pure science.

For example, technologies such as Thermonuclear Energy, competent self programming computers and appliances, Relativistic Speed space travel, affordable and safe regenerative medicine and mass produced food stuffs and inexpensive and well performing alternative fuel vehicles may simply be beyond our basic level of science that lacks a unified theory of Physics

Long story short- We might be where we thought we were in 1900, nothing truly novel left to invent. So there is historical precedence to this. The difference was that in the Early 1900s, we developed novel concepts of the physical world that gave us access to nuclear power, computers and novel medical technologies such as chemotherapy. And at this point in time, there are a few strong candidates for understandings that could provide that change.

[後援会]

Public opinion is also an issue. Luddites were crushed in industrial Britain. But in today's world, agricultural innovations get lambasted by the "Things White People Like" crowd. Advances in nuclear power are dead for the same reason.

I actually think we can make advances in alternative and renewable fuels. At the same time, I don't think that actually will enhance our living standards. It will just prevent them from falling. We have to run in order to keep still.

But yeah, I mostly agree with what you say. Though I'm not sure how much "capital" we're going to be having. The whole thing with a rapidly aging society.

[Beet]

There is no evidence that Japan's birth rate is recovering. At most, it bottomed out in 2005 at 1.2-1.4, and has been bouncing in that range since then. Even lower are Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Compared to them the Japanese are Mormons.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Looks interesting, but if Illinois stays D-leaning because of Chicago, New York would stay D as well. I don't see trends in NYC that would make it R, and the city can outvote the rest of the state.

My scenario has downstate IL (like IN, KY, MO) being relatively weakly Republican and upstate NY (like NH, ME) being more strongly Republican.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

There are so many tossups because the map's been caught in the midst of a realignment; the Democrats have secured the Appalachians and are creeping south while holding parts of the Northeast and Midwest, while Republicans have put states like Illinois and California into play. The issue is that so-called "latte liberals" are currently without a party, and are beginning to form an economically moderate, socially liberal/reformist Progressive Party. This, combined with the number of close states, may soon mean the death of the electoral college.

[Person Man]

Public opinion is also an issue. Luddites were crushed in industrial Britain. But in today's world, agricultural innovations get lambasted by the "Things White People Like" crowd. Advances in nuclear power are dead for the same reason.

I actually think we can make advances in alternative and renewable fuels. At the same time, I don't think that actually will enhance our living standards. It will just prevent them from falling. We have to run in order to keep still.

But yeah, I mostly agree with what you say. Though I'm not sure how much "capital" we're going to be having. The whole thing with a rapidly aging society.

Well, by "capital", I mean that novel advances in science that could lead to sustained and rapid progress are simply not the important in a neo-liberal world where dollar signs are immediately jumped after. The entire delayed gratification and shared sacrifice thing is just not profitable.