The Black Republican

America's leading political demographer, Michael Barone, is looking at even more pronounced population shifts from Blue areas to Red ones than we previously knew. But though the title of the column is "The Realignment of America," Barone does not clearly state what the political implications are of these transitions. If the Democrats are leaving and take their politics with them, they will dilute the strength of the Republican base. If the ones leaving are conservatives fed up with their minority status in these areas, they will reinforce the Red-Blue divide which has been favoring Republicans of late. But even moreso: the stagnation of the Democratic birth rate and the boom in Republican families will only make things worse for the Dems. And none of this is directly relevant to the fortunes of political tides, such as the current winds of war.

As Barone says, "Demography is destiny." But it remains to be seen what destiny our demography is leading us into.