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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 19, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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For now, the latter. Black voters punch above their demographic weight thanks to being the largest and oldest minority in most swing states and black politicians/party officials perform similarly thanks to gerontocracy bias within the Democratic Party. Joe Biden in particular ran a very "on or east of the Mississippi" campaign that emphasized the black vote.

For the future, I am less certain. For one, what is "white"? Is it a (broadly speaking) married, high school educated, male Gen Xer who owns a car dealership (along with the self-styled "independent" mechanic who works for him), or is it an unmarried, college educated, female Gen Xer with a white collar job working for a large corporation, government, or a non-profit? The first group might outnumber the second, but if the latter is better educated, richer, and exercises a near-monopoly on the votes of educated immigrants the first group is in serious trouble.

If we just simplify things by remembering that the GOP wins the white vote outright in most places, we're left with everyone else. The GOP hasn't been competitive with educated, legal immigrants (not just Asians, but, as a shorthand, Asians) since Bill Clinton was in office, but they tend to cluster in already blue cities in already blue states, so they're not a major electoral force. Legal, educated immigration remains a major boon to the Democrats in terms of House seats, human capital, and powering the economy of blue-leaning America, however. The GOP couldn't offer black politicians and voters the sort of representation they have within the Democratic Party even if they wanted to, and educated black Americans aren't conservative by and large, so moving the needle there is difficult. The GOP/Conservative Inc. have long been desperate to diversify, but have found few takers, hence the massive disparity in minority candidate quality the two parties have to represent them. Democrats have some dummies in their minority caucus, but broadly speaking they don't have to resort to the likes of Larry Elder/Herman Cain/Ben Carson or worse (Herschel Walker/Mark Robinson) because they have better options. Things haven't looked much better for the GOP in terms of finding high quality Asian or Hispanic candidates either. Maybe they're just unlucky that Marco Rubio was/is more comparable to Cory Booker in terms of charisma than Barack Obama.

This leads us to the problem of Milton Friedman's idea that immigration is best if it's illegal. Was Trump being competitive with Hispanic voters in 2024 a realignment or a mirage? Even in the best case scenario in which the GOP keeps Floridian Cubans in their column and in which Hispanic voters start to look a lot like "independent" whites, they're left with the problem that the same education polarization that pushes them away from the Democrats makes them less reliable partisans and less valuable in terms of building competent institutions. In their worst case scenario in which 2024 looks like an '04 style mirage aggravated by the Harris campaign being poor at Hispanic outreach they're...screwed for now. Can the Texas GOP win the Hispanic vote with a candidate slate that's as white if not whiter than an SEC frat house?

Racial politics within the Democratic Party could look interesting. Jim Clyburn isn't going to live forever and if SCOTUS were to curtail the Voting Rights Act the Congressional Black Caucus would face some attrition. There's also the old white problem. Are Gen X whites going to stay loyal to the GOP as they age out of their prime taxpaying years and into their prime healthcare spending years, especially if the GOP tries to revert back to some variety of fiscal hawkishness? It's entirely possible that oldmaxxing is the easiest electoral strategy for the Democrats in the near future, especially if they can promise most of the Dream Hoarders that they'll tax someone richer than them to pay for it (see: the SALT deduction), in which case any racial argument gets kicked down the road.

At least at the moment, democrats are moving away from advocating for top end tax increases.