The Poor Man is one of my favorite blogs, but I rarely get a chance to link there, since they rarely discuss green issues.
But this post offers an ingenious (albeit largely wishful thinking) argument. It begins with this delightful ‘graph:
OK, so, I’m not saying that this country won’t devolve into a fascistic hellscape of race warriors and man-eating rats, disintegrating beneath the weight of its own reactionary isolationism. But even through the first six years of "WPE: The Quickening," I’ve been able to remain relatively sanguine about our long term prospects for one reason: if you’re a Republican, demographics are against you.
("WPE," as PM fans know, is Worst President Ever.)
The argument goes like this:
- Rising energy prices will force America to "densify."
- People in dense urban areas are less able to maintain the wacky biases, hatreds, and conspiracy theories that fuel the far-right base.
- Progressive majorities await!
OK, one more quote:
Once you reach a certain level of density and heterogeneity, pioneer-style laissez-faire capitalism, not to mention insular, homogeneous religiosity, simply stop working as first principles of social organization. Whatever other iconically American qualities you might look for, this nation is first and foremost the home of Pragmatism, and red-blooded, capitalist Americans stick to principles exactly until the point that they negatively impact their ability to provide a good life for themselves and their families. So, sure, it looks dark now, and the crazies are definitely in charge, but we’ll see how crazy they stay when they have to sell the rural dirigible hangars and move back into town with the unwashed.
