John Judis on his theory about the Emerging Republican Advantage and the Rise of Right-wing/Left-wing Populism

By Rob Lorei

You may have heard the theory that in the future,because of the changing demographics of the country, that Democrats will have a lock on presidential elections.One of the best books on the topic came out in 2002 was called The Emerging Democratic Majority. In that book the authors predicted that with the country’s changing demographics and the alienation of some groups from Republican Party beliefs that the Democratic Party would soon become the majority party. Among the groups said to be trending Democratic: women, college educated people, African Americans and Latinos. But since that book was published one of its co-authors has been warning for the past 2 years that the idea of an enduring Democratic majority was wrong and that Republicans now have an electoral advantage.

Our guest on Radioactivity Thursday was John Judis, a longtime political journalist, who has written for many publications including In These Times, The National Journal, The New Republic and now he’s now Editor at Large for Talking Points memo. He’s the author of the highly acclaimed new book “The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics.”