Adios

Michael Barone's latest column is about the decline in immigration from Mexico to the USA. Barone cites research from Pew that puts the net migration over the period of 2007-2011 inclusive at just 20,000. And that 20,000 is a net migration from the USA to Mexico. In other words, since the economic disaster that began in 2008, Mexicans are no longer coming to the United States. Instead, they are using, in Romney's words, self-deportation. Barone offers up his view as to why this has happened, and, as usual, he makes a great deal of sense. One thing that Barone does not discuss, however, is the impact of this change on all those political "geniuses" who have told us that demography is destiny. In other words, all those political scientists who have predicted the perpetual supremacy of the Democrats due to rising Hispanic immigration have a big problem with their theories: there is no Hispanic immigration over the last five years. Indeed, if the outmigration back to Latin America gains traction, we may soon want to ask these same gurus if they now predict the long term supremacy of the GOP.

My point is not that the Republicans will be triumphant based upon demography. No one knows that. No, the point is that all those academics who confidently predict the future really do no more than project the past forward. But no man knows the future. Yesterday's certainties become tomorrow's old fashioned ideas. Trends that seem unstoppable actually stop and sometimes reverse. Nothing is for certain.