It's simple math that dictates the GOP's eventual date with the destiny of irrelevance. According to the U.S. Census Bureau minorities accounted for 85 percent of the population growth over the last decade and that's bad news for the GOP, a party with an 87 percent white majority. Children of the GOP younger than 3 will be growing up in a country with a white minority. But the bad news for Republicans doesn't stop there.
No minority population is monolithic and, particularly here in Florida, you'll find a core of GOP support among Hispanics, mainly in the Cuban community. I should point out that many in the Hispanic community don't claim Cuban Americans as Hispanic, even though they speak a common language. It's a complicated relationship and doesn't change the fact that the Hispanic community overall is 62 percent Democrat, wider than the gender gap.
Here in Florida Hispanics account for 39.4 percent of the population, a constant and growing headwind for the GOP. The problem is even bigger in Texas, as all things are, where 50.3 percent of the population is Hispanic. If Texas and Florida go blue, the GOP can forget about ever seeing the White House again. The math is devastatingly simple: California, Texas and Florida voting for a Democrat spots them a lead of 122 electoral votes, an impossible margin in political math.
With it's current demographic the loss of the GOP is virtually guaranteed and nothing can change that. All the gerrymandering, voter ID laws and Koch money on the planet can't change the outcome anymore than they can stop the tide. Republicans are losing and, while pained to admit it, they know it. Their strategists definitely know it and, in unguarded moments, will admit as much. Even Karl Rove, who famously fought Fox News calling Ohio for the president in 2012, admits that time is not on their side.
It's not a stretch to suspect that the fact the GOP is losing is what's behind the current streak of extremism and it's only going to get worse from here. If the GOP is this fruity when they still think they can win, imagine what they're going to be like when it finally sinks in they have no possibility of winning ever again. This is the party that thinks if they lose it's because they're not conservative enough. Like a gambler who doesn't know when to quit, the GOP continues to double down on losing strategies and blame others when the odds and common sense take their toll.
The most dangerous people in the world are those with nothing to lose and we have yet to see the end game extremism, but we're closer to that day now than we ever have been.
That's why it's critically important for Democrats to vote in every single election; federal, state and local. To not let any elected office, no matter how trivial, go unchallenged. That's how Republicans have managed to have an oversized influence relative to their numbers. If it was raining fire on election day, Republicans would don their fire-resistant survival gear and go vote.
If Democrats make up their collective mind to vote with the nearly insane dedication the GOP faithful exhibit, then all the voter ID laws and gerrymandering they can throw up will still fall to the tide of demographic reality.
The closer the margin, the more it will fan the flames of extremists. The only way to avoid conflict is if Democrats aligned with moderates win sudden and overwhelming victories at the polls. If the crazies think they have a wide base of support, even as a minority party, the continual escalation of crazy can only end one way. So, get out there and vote, lives may actually depend on it.
