Racism

Update: Go read Ari Melber's take over at The Nation.
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Yesterday I mentioned that Nas, Color of Change, and MoveOn were holding a rally outside Fox News to protest the network's racism. Fox ignored them, but Colbert made them the feature of his program last night. Here's the whole thing. Watch it.

A few weeks ago I posted about a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll (pdf) which found that the only youth demographic in which the Republicans still held a slim advantage over the Democrats was among white youth. That poll also got picked up in other places around the blogosphere, notably by David Frum who used it to go on a nativist rant about the failures of our immigration policy and the decline of white power.

Well, GQR released a memo (pdf) yesterday that in part clarifies the Republican "edge" among young white voters. Here's what they had to say (emphasis mine):

• The Democrats are getting landslide margins with voters under 30; they are even winning whites under 30 by 14 points.
• Instead of losing younger white non-college men by 19 points as in 2004, the Democratic Presidential candidate now is losing them by only 2.
• One of the key blocs of ‘base’ voters for Democrats is unmarried women – who could comprise a quarter of the electorate. The Democrats are winning them by two to one; they are winning white unmarried women by over 20 points.

Yeah, winning whites under 30 by 14 points coupled (probably in part fueled by) a massive, 17 point swing among non-college men and a huge advantage among single (and probably young) women. Rearrange the deck-chairs all they want, deport all the undocumented workers they want, there is nothing that can save Republicans from this demographic shift except for Democratic incompetence. (So don't screw it up).

I am slightly confused as the two GQR memos seem in part to contradict each other. In the first poll report, GQR notes that Democrats are losing among "white" youth by 2 points. The most recent memo seems to indicate that the 2 point deficit is purely among non-college males, but the poll didn't make that distinction. It could be that the 2 point deficit in both memos are coincidence. The poll is measuring support in a presidential trial heat, and yesterday's memo may just measure overall party support. If anyone can help clarify, I'd appreciate it.

In either case, you really can't argue with the 14 point lead Democrats hold among all whites under 30. Here's some more interesting findings in the memo:

Earlier this week I posted about a new Democracy Corps report showing that the Republican brand had crashed among Millennials. Well the conservatives are starting to respond, and the racism is flying like mad:

Read the report in full, however, and you come across an interesting nugget on page 6: White young people continue to favor Republicans by a thin but real margin of 2 points. The Democrats owe their advantage among youth to a huge lead among young African-Americans (78 points) - and a very large lead (43 points) among Hispanics.

In the past, Republicans could win elections despite their unpopularity among ethnic minorities. But with the huge surge of immigration since 1980 - and especially since 2000 - the voting map of the United States has been redrawn in ways inherently deeply unfavorable to the GOP. If Republicans face an inhospitable future after 2008, we will hear much of the dreadful legacy of George W. Bush on social issues, the war, the environment, etc. But Greenberg's own work makes clear that these issues matter relatively little.

(Only 28% of young voters would respond positively to an anti-religious-right message, for example: see page 11.)

No, the legacy that will damage his party is the legacy of immigration non-enforcement. This has imported a large new community of people who are both economically struggling (and thus open to Democratic arguments) but who lack deep attachment to the American nation (and who are thus immune to the most potent of Republican appeals). It is these voters who will sway elections in future. And thanks to this president's immigration policies, there are going to be a lot more of them than there might otherwise have been.

Awesome idea. Kick those anti-American wetbacks (read: naturalized citizens and first generation Americans who vote Democratic) out so the white man can rule supreme one more.

Great strategy. Let me know if that pans out for ya.

Update: Rick Perlstein tears Frum apart on similar grounds.