Conventional wisdom sees this cementing a permanent Democratic majority. I reject this, and not simply because I dislike left-wing government. Nor is it merely because I’m repelled by Democrats’ belief that skin color determines which way people vote. Perhaps the most repugnant assumption of the election was in Joe Biden’s challenge to an African American host: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
The reason I reject the orthodox analysis is that minorities, who’ve mostly voted blue since the 1960s, realize increasingly that Democrats keep them down rather than lift them up with egalitarian programs. The flip side is an understanding that freedom, not coerced equality, offers a real chance to everyone to thrive. Republicans, with lower taxes, school choice, and deregulation, have policies that deliver freedom and widespread prosperity. They’re terrible at explaining it, but they’re on the side of the little guy.
Terrible, that is, until now. President Trump, whose critics call him a racist, won a higher proportion of black and Hispanic votes than Republican presidential candidates have for a long time. He lost ground among his “deplorable” white base but grew Republican support in every other ethnic group. As the Washington Examiner’s Joseph Simonson wrote, “President Trump may not earn four more years in the White House, but he gave the Republican Party perhaps something far more valuable: lessons on how to win elections for decades to come.”
