The Politics of Demographics

 

By Michael Bargo Jr.
AmericanThinker.com

At first glance one might think that politicians get elected by studying the concerns of voters through focus groups and polls; then addressing those concerns with the goal of getting a plurality of votes. But since FDR, the government has been not just studying the concerns of voters, but has very aggressively shaped and built up the demographic characteristics of cities in order to build up their electorate.

The most important demographic fact to politicians is the reality that about 75% of American voters live in urban areas. This may seem a benign observation, but when a forensic study of the demographic politics of urban areas is done it yields some fascinating and critically important information regarding how Democrats have built up their national party and continue to win national elections.

In the late 19th century large American cities grew rapidly only because European immigrants settled in them. Cities were the first destinations since they offered the best chance of employment and housing. While legislation such as the Homestead Act encouraged Americans to move out west and settle into rural areas, most of those settlers were already living in the U.S.

European immigration took place in two great waves. The second ended in 1930. That year was a benchmark year for other reasons as well: it was the start of the Great Depression and it was the start of the decade of the great expansion of New Deal programs designed to ameliorate poverty.

Chicago provides an excellent example: in 1916 hundreds of thousands of Chicago men left the city to enlist in WWI. This labor shortage prompted Chicago employers to look to the South. The Great Migration of blacks to the northern cities started. However, once the Great Depression hit in 1930 and unemployment rose, the New Deal programs provided support for those blacks moving north.

The growth of the black population in Chicago can be seen from these facts: in 1910 only 2% of Chicago was black but by 1970, 33% of it was. This rapid growth was soon seen as a way to maintain the population of the city. After 1950, as city dwellers began to move to suburbs and other parts of the country, the big cities of the Midwest and Northeast solidified their hold on their black populations through more Federal programs: Johnson's Great Society initiative of 1965 expanded housing and many other entitlement programs.

Chicago is located in Illinois and President Lincoln, the Republican president who freed the slaves, was from Illinois. When blacks first moved north many voted Republican out of respect for the memory of Lincoln. However, their party preference was quickly changed by Democrats, who ran both Chicago and the relief programs.

Unfortunately, as blacks moved to Chicago, they were confined to highly segregated black neighborhoods. Remarkably, these areas are the same today as in 1920. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was so shocked by the racist attitudes that promoted segregation he said "I have never seen -- even in Mississippi and Alabama -- mobs as hostile and hate-filled as I've seen in Chicago." (American Pharoah: Mayor Richard J. Daley, his battle for Chicago and the nation, Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor) These prejudices were newly taught to Chicagoans: Chicago never had slavery.

The city of Chicago slowly lost population but increased its Federal programs: while Chicago's population dropped 8% from 1960 to 1970 the proportion of its population that lived in low income housing rose from 10% to 20%. The Model Cities housing program was started by Mayor Daley I in this decade.

However, as the city continued to lose population, another demographic group had to be found. The city's response was to embark on a program of promoting illegal immigration. Mayor Harold Washington issued Executive Order 85-1 in 1985 declaring that all benefits, services and employment opportunities were to be given to "residents" regardless of citizenship status. Of course Mayor Washington had no legal authority to issue such an Executive Order: EOs are restricted to city departments controlled by the mayor, and immigration is a Federal issue. In fact, this statement itself, by promoting illegal behavior, is illegal.

But no one complained -- the newspapers remained silent, and Chicago was able to preserve most of its public sector union jobs found in the Chicago Public Schools, Cook County, and other government units. Other cities without a Sanctuary Policy lost many residents: Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Cleveland are now half the population they were in 1930. Between 1900 and 2000 19 of the largest 100 U.S. cities would have lost population if not for Hispanic gains.

The media in these cities carefully hide these facts since media, like politicians, earn their incomes based on the number of people in the area they serve. No local TV station wants to tell their advertisers that they lost one percent of their audience in the last year. City politicians and major media outlets share one goal in common: the growth of their city. Most government units are local: teacher unions cannot pack up to move to another state. The only way they can keep their jobs is to keep the schools full of students through demographic manipulation.

Ancient civilizations would conquer neighbors, demand annual payments of tribute, and capture slaves for inexpensive labor. This tactic is no longer acceptable, so Democrats have carefully developed a new strategy: to bring people into their cities, fund them with Federal program dollars, and use their numbers to get reelected. There is no other explanation for the fact that Illinois and Cook County, where Chicago is located, have worked together to enable illegal immigrants to vote.

Here's how it was done: the state of Illinois passed a law legalizing the matricula consular card as valid in Illinois as an official state ID. Then, the Finance Committee of Cook County said that any foreign country with a consulate in Illinois can issue a matricula consular card.

So foreign nationals who have no documentation can vote in Illinois to reelect the very Democrats who passed the laws allowing them to vote. And these consular cards are so phony that no major bank in Mexico City will accept one to open up a simple savings account, and two-thirds of the states of Mexico do not accept the Mexican consular card.

These trends point to the demographic strategy Democrats have pursued in the past eighty years of creating voters out of "residents" in the largest cities under their control. This enables them to keep and maintain political power. And, it is all financed by taxpayers, T-bonds, and quantitative easing.

Blacks and Hispanics are now 25% of the U.S. population. Their votes put Barack Obama into office. In the final analysis, the reason President Obama is so resistant to real spending cuts is that he sees Federal spending as crucial to financing the demographic foundation of his party's electoral security.