As stated in other recent diaries, perhaps this nation’s demographics are such that the white, male Christian ruling class is destined to suffer the ravages of diminishing power and influence. Although this writer shares that fervent hope and allows that present conditions may portend such a monumental, seismic shift, this process will likely take far longer than we might want to imagine.
Despite the best efforts of the Reich Wingnut talking heads to encourage their minions to “get busy” and create hoards of newborn teabaggers, their relative numbers are likely to continue shrinking.
No doubt the so-called elite (aka GWB’s base) are assiduously studying the tactics applied by the Spanish conquistadors who, during their invasion and swift, easy conquest of the native populations in the Americas, demonstrated that it is possible for the few to control the many.
More recent examples of minority dominion would be exemplified by the lengthy rule of the whites in South Africa, who, at their peak in 1911, accounted for only 19-21% of the population (13.6% when apartheid was abolished in 1994) and by the extended reign of the Sunnis in Iraq, who comprised only 15 to 20 percent of the country’s entire population, yet dominated that country’s government and economy throughout the 20th century.
And, closer to home, given their considerable power, one might reasonably conclude that large numbers are represented by the National Rifle Association, even though they comprise only about 1.3% of the U. S. population.
As Aldous Huxley so presciently observed in his 1931 novel, Brave New World, in order to maintain control over the oppressed, one need only convince those at each rung of the socioeconomic ladder that theirs is by far the best lot of all.