SAY WHAT?….Here’s the latest from Robert Salladay, the LA Times’ new political blogger:
Some good news for pessimists today: California is headed toward a political system dominated by a white minority which votes and sets public policy at the ballot box, while Latinos and other ethnic groups that make up the majority of California’s population sit on the sidelines.
….White people are expected to be only one-third of the state’s adults in 2040, the report said. But their power at the ballot box will remain strong ? still representing a majority of voters in 25 years.
Salladay’s blog is only three days old, and I know that sometimes sloppy wording can creep in inadvertantly when you don’t have four layers of editors watching everything you write. Still, can someone please tell me how a “political system dominated by a white minority” can be considered “good news for pessimists”? Or is pessimist what we call racists and xenophobes these days?
UPDATE: Salladay clarifies:
Let me explain the “good news for pessimists” intro. It was not meant to be taken in a racial context or suggest in any way that the PPIC’s pessimistic assessment of the future is “good.”
The state’s voter system is dividing along many lines: race, income, age, etc. The pessimism concerns the state’s political system devolving into fewer and fewer people taking control of their own destiny through the ballot box.
