The Good Post Gallery

[Yelnoc]

Alabama seems on pace to lose a house seat in the next decade or two.

Yeah, I think its barely holding onto 7 districts. The upper part of the state around Huntsville is starting to grow pretty decently though.

Really?

I find that kind of surprising as I thought that the growth and regentrification seen in other Southern states like VA, NC, SC, and GA was starting to go into full force effect in Alabama?

Virginia has the benefit of DC-oriented companies doing business there because of the favorable tax/regulatory environment relative to DC and Maryland.

North Carolina has the Research Triangle, an indigenous banking industry (Wachovia, etc) that benefited from the growth of the financial sector from the 1980s to the present, an indigenous airline industry that has benefited from various mergers (Piedmont Airlines growing into US Airways), and excellent universities (UNC, Duke, Wake Forest).

South Carolina has coastal areas excellent for tourism and retirees and growth of Charlotte suburbs on their side of the state line.

Georgia has Atlanta and all that Atlanta entails. They were smart enough in the '70s to put all their "history/heritage/tradition" foolishness behind them after they realized no one invests in a state perceived to be racist and backwards.

Alabama doesn't have any major native industries, its public universities are nothing to write home about, tourism is confined to the Gulf Shores area where the beaches give you a great view of a bunch of offshore oil platforms in murky water, and their recent "Let's get rid of all the Mex'kins" legislation has only reinforced every negative perception the rest of the country has about them. The only good thing that ever came out of Alabama was the band Alabama. 

[Yelnoc]

Republicans are all too quick to think in terms of skin color. That's why - right off the bat - they begin hitting around the idea of putting a brownface on the ticket. "That'll solve everything", they seem to think. When it comes to policy, they go for the most expedient solution instantly. "Let's solve the immigration problem after we had our asses handed to us and then they'll like us", they say.

It's much deeper than that and it is something that must be corrected through substantiated policy shifts, tones and attitudes. Latinos by and large do not agree with Republican governance because the economic policies go against their values systems. Sure, you can argue that social conservatism is heavily ingrained in Latino culture, but Latinos do not vote on social issues. Those are first-world problems and until the entire Latino community is integrated fully within American society, they will not be voting as a bloc on issues like gay marriage and abortion. Even better, by the time they do, they will be Americanized enough to not fall victim to right-wing social pandering.

The other big problem is how Republicans discuss matters of race and those from other races. At the micro level, I cringe every time I hear a local conservative begin to discuss race - or even simply an event pertaining to a person of a different race. They don't even know how offensive they are being when they associate concepts such as laziness, criminality and difference with people from other races. If a born and bred whitey can identify these racist statements and be offended by them, then someone to whom it (supposedly) pertains will certainly be able to identify it even easier. Unfortunately, the trend at the upper echelons of the Republican Party hasn't been much better.

It's hard to tell an entire party and many of its supporters to simply stop being racist, but that's the issue at hand here. It may not be overt racism in all cases, but the smell of it is still strong and it's what is sending people of color fleeing in droves from the Republican Party. Fortunately for Democrats, those mouth-breeders who are the local "emissaries" for the Republican Party will continue to scare off the future demography of the United States for many years to come.