The collective white part of the American electorate has always had priority over others and, at some points in history, even codified the denial of others’ political participation into law. Think Jim Crow. Think voter suppression. Generations have fought and died to push us toward a more equitable future where traditionally marginalized voices can be heard, but it’s only now in modern history that their electoral power has been able to be wielded in truly substantial and significant numbers.
With that in mind, in the 2020 Democratic primary, the topic of reparations became a central part of the conversation. Reparations are, essentially, compensation for the living descendants of enslaved Americans. My ancestors – who built this country and who have never been systematically compensated by the government, which gained its wealth and power by exploiting our labor – may now finally have the numbers to make reparations happen.
By 2045, a majority of the US population will be people of color, which will change the electoral makeup and enable people of color to have a transformative political impact. This will be a seismic shift in our political priorities as we’ve known them because America is designed to let the majority elect those who represent and speak to their interests. If the majority of the country is people of color, then that refocuses the political conversation away from the one perspective we’ve historically legislated from.
It doesn’t mean that white Americans will be left out, but they won’t be the only ones with a seat at the table. People of color will be able to effect change because the sheer increase in numbers demands that elected officials listen to what we have to say. This is a new thing. And it’s a new strategy for Democrats to build upon a foundation of people of color, one so many of them are still uncomfortable with. A December 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that 46% of white Americans said having a majority nonwhite nation in 2050 would “weaken American customs and values”, compared with 18% of black Americans and 25% of Latinx.
Asked whether having a majority nonwhite population would strengthen American customs and values, 42% of Democrats said it would, while only 13% of Republicans agreed. The discomfort with this idea is clear, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Republicans realize it’s happening. That’s why they make explicit attempts to suppress the votes in communities of color. Those same communities that will outnumber them in votes in the near future. They are motivated by the math.
Simultaneously, women are also taking over as the most dominant voting gender. Yet as noted, in 2019, even though women made up over 50% of the population, they only accounted for 25% of the Senate and 23% of the House. That’s despite huge shifts in population, which have contributed to a number of “firsts” in states like Texas, which sent its first ever Latinx representatives to Congress where this demographic makes up the majority of eligible voters for the first time ever. Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, nearly 3 million people have registered to vote in the state of Texas, and nearly 2 million of those voters are people of color and/or are under the age of 25. That is the kind of uptick in diversity in the electorate that changes legislative chambers. As a result of this shift, America has the potential to become a much more progressive country.
That’s only if these voters are able to access the ballot. The tactics of Republicans with an eye on this future and demographic shift away from their regressive worldview are currently impacting elections throughout the nation, particularly since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. That shift allowed states reacting to demographic realities to target black and brown voters with arduous hurdles and poll closings that put massive voting populations into single precincts with very few or malfunctioning voting machines. That’s no accident.
Republicans know that the numbers are not in their favor, not now, nor in the near future and they are desperately trying to preserve the majority white status quo that is disintegrating before our very eyes.
Adapted from The End of White Politics: How to Heal the Liberal Divide by Zerlina Maxwell. Copyright © 2020. Available from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.