Read this.
It's common knowledge that the popularity or success of the person who is President when one turns 18 has a strong bearing on what political party one affiliates with throughout life. The fact is that while historically this has been true in The United States, it is currently becoming more true. More importantly, as this article shows, Americans don't change political affiliation much once they get settled in.
For the generation of Americans who came of age during the 8 years under Clinton, they identify as Democrat-over-Republican by a margin of about 10 percentage points. For the generation who came of age during the 8 years of G.W. Bush, they identify as Democrat-over-Republican by a margin of about 16 percentage points. That is a 16-year segment of the American population that is much more strongly Democrat than Republican. That's quite significant.
Now, assume that President Obama gets his 8 years and does no worse than Bill Clinton. That will create a 24-year segment of the American population that is much more Democrat than Republican. That's extremely significant.
Imagine if after that, Hillary comes along as President? Assuming she also does no better or worse than Bill Clinton, that will probably create a 28–32 year span of our population... and a period of time that is actually double that — 60 years, until a putative equivalent 30-year gain by Republicans can offset the Democrat advantage... in the year 2054 — that Democrats will have a huge voter advantage over Republicans.
But the truth is that once you've reached that point: where a significant span of the population (half: aged 18 to 50 in the year 2024) identifies significantly (by 16-plus percentage points) as Democrat, then all other things being equal, the likelihood that a Republican can get elected to the White House beyond the year 2020 or 2024 becomes very slim. Then each subsequent batch of 18-year-olds will be coming of age under a Democrat president.
And that is indeed just assuming all other things are equal... which they sure as hell aren't: Currently, it's much worse for Republicans than just not having the White House. They have a terribly tainted and collapsing message and are hemorrhaging registered voters.
Republicans talked about a "permanent majority" once a few years back. I didn't believe it then. Now though — assuming the Obama administration manages to at least muddle through, and Clinton (or someone else) after — the birth of a "permanent majority" may be exactly what America is witnessing.
The only way that this future Democrat hegemony could be avoided now is for liberalism to crash and burn in both message and in practice, and in a manner more severe and more lengthy than conservatism is currently doing. And, to be honest: The damage to the country that such a crash would cause would be so extreme, that anybody who places the health of America over the health of the Republican party better hope and pray that it does not happen.
I suppose that the rise of libertarianism could stop the dominance of liberalism. Right now, libertarians are voting anti-Republican (which of course means voting Democrat). If libertarian candidates can start presenting an attractive-enough platform to lure the 60% of Americans who would vote anti-Democrat, then the permanent Democrat majority could be avoided... and that is probably what will happen eventually, but (unless, as stated above, disaster falls) that won't be happening anytime soon.
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I've been keeping an eye on the doomer, libertarian, and patriot bloggers as of late, and a number of them are looking toward a trend forcaster by the name of Gerald Celente, who recently published a paper talking about the 'Stimulus Bubble' and that when that bubble pops its going to be worse than any other sort of bubble we have seen. Plunging the economy into a long harsh winter sort of depression. Now I don't hope for this but if it were to happen it might actually shake things up. Granted if such a thing happens one might actually want a dem or socialist sort of system to make sure people don't simply starve in the streets by the hundreds if not thousands. But people might associate this sort of crash, with the Democrats and think to themselves, thats NOT what I want to foster. Not to say its all the Democrats fault as we know Bush did his own stimulus before he left office, but still people are associating it with Obama and the Democrats, if it pops as badly as Celente says... its not going to be pretty for them.
I really know nothing about this whole area, but I think I'm right in saying that a lot of the stimulus is in the form of investments... not sound investments, but investments nonetheless: The money isn't "spent" so much as it is "tied up". (Like I said: Whether or not those investments are sound enough to break even, lose a little money, or lose a lot of money is quite debatable, I'm sure.)
I'm confident that there is going to be a major deflation coming to the world in the next 5 years. I think that this stimulus slowed the deflation process, and probably gave the world time to adjust to what is coming. What would have happened over a period of 4 months will now happen over a period of 4 years.
If that is indeed what happens, I think it is probably for the best that we spent the "stimulus" money on a "controlled crash" instead of on the "survival measures" that would be needed after an "uncontrolled crash".
I'm reading a book right now called "The World Is Flat" by Thomas Friedman, and he talks about the upcoming adjustments to the world economy. He isn't all doom and gloom (he talks about burgeoning industries that will provide economical support to countries like America) but he does say that the world will need to readjust to new realities, and that the time for that is now at hand.
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