Ruy Teixeira, from the Centre for American Progress, has been arguing for years that due to changes in demography, geography and attitudes the USA is heading towards a progressive majority. His latest report can be found here.
It would appear that the years between 2000 and 2008 were a refutation of his theories, but on the other hand the election of Barack Obama could indicate that these changes are finally having an impact on voting patterns! The issue however is that certain political values are likely to be more contingent than what Ruy and others have said. In the past there has been a similar discussion around post-materialism and the work of sociologists who claimed that there was a direct correlation between cultural values and economic development. The critics argued that cultural values are unstable and subject to changes in political and economic context and threfore cannot be directly correlated with development.
The interesting point nonetheless is that several polls have indeed shown that the majority of Americans believe in progressive ideas, but then classify themselves as either conservatives or moderates. This says a lot about the effectiveness of conservative propaganda but also about the failure of liberals to promote their political project. This is odd, because people already believe in progressive ideas, but are reluctant to vote for progressinve parties unless they shift to the right.
Unfortunately Economic Geographers have in my opinion been all too happy to engage in lenghty abstract discussions that say very little about how to develop a viable alternative. Deconstruction of everything and everyone certainly won't produce it. And the constant turns and twists towards new paradigms before the 'old' ones are stabilized won't either. It is probably time for a careful analysis and discussion about how our theories and models can inform a different type of policy making.
As an excellent example about how to move this reflection forward, take this article by Ron Martin on Geography and Public Policy.
