On Sunday at breakfast I told my wife, “We may be living in the last 48 hours of our lives with a Republican President.”  I know, I know.  That sounds like the Armageddon-type pronouncements burying the losing party that follow many elections.  And often, those results are reversed in four years, or eight.  But sometimes, like in 1932, they’re not reversed for a long time.

  If someone was in his or her sixties, as I am, when FDR ousted Herbert Hoover, statistics say they probably didn’t live to see Republicans re-take the White House with Eisenhower in 1952.  Will that happen again?  Obviously it’s too soon to tell.  But voters were really angry this year, as the huge turn-out made obvious, and that anger was targeted towards the Republicans.  And if you look at demographic trends, almost every growing group is Democratic and becoming more so.  Young people.  Singles.  Hispanics.  Non-Hispanic immigrants.  This is not a formula for success.  Karl Rove’s strategy of getting a strong turn-out from the Republican base and not worrying about attracting Democrats or independents will become less viable as that base shrinks as a percentage of the U.S. population.

  Republicans have been sometimes a plurality, but never a majority, for decades.  They’re a large homogenous plurality, big enough to win when they can peel off segments of the larger, more fractious Democratic coalition.  Sometimes they can put together a series of wins that way, as they did by winning five of seven elections from Reagan to Bush II.  But if Barack Obama can consolidate his support with a successful Presidency, it’s hard to see Republicans making an argument that will win over enough voters from the Democrats to win for some time.