Pew Research Poll, US, 2005
(I'm
waiting for Jon Husband to OK my publishing of the podcast conversation
and transcript I recorded with him last week. It should be up Monday.
In the meantime, I've been meaning to get the following off my chest:)
What will the two biggest political issues of the 2010s be, worldwide?
You might guess global warming (maybe in the 2020s), or oil price
spikes or the collapse of the US dollar (they'll be old news by the
2010s), or even, as I posted yesterday, outrage over wealth and income
disparity. But you'd be wrong. My prediction? It all comes down to what touches people personally, and there are two issues that will touch us all personally in the 2010s:
- Immigration:
This is a visceral emotional issue in every affluent nation on the
planet, and it cuts surprisingly across party lines and ideologies. It
is a vital means to ease the huge population, resource scarcity and
environmental calamities arising in just about every struggling nation
in Latin America, Africa and Asia. But the affluent nations will have
none of it. Conservatives don't want it because they see terrorists in
every face that doesn't look like theirs and speak their language
(though they like the cheap labour). Labour doesn't want it because it
is perceived to threaten their jobs and wages. Environmentalists don't
want it because ecosystems can't sustain even the domestic population
much longer. Established immigrants don't want it because they don't
want the competition and fear the backlash will engulf them as well. I
don't see any party, even the socialists, talking about an open
immigration policy because they know it's a political minefield.
Parties that take a strong emotional anti-immigration stance, even one
that is overtly racist, will do astonishingly well in the 2010s for
this reason, and when they get elected they will bar the doors, create
a global pressure cooker and produce an upsurge in racist violence at
home. Opportunistic extremist politicians won't be able to resist the
temptation to fan the flames.
- The Right to Die:
The population in affluent nations is growing older at a rate perhaps
unprecedented in history. At the same time, the rate of Alzheimer's and
other mental diseases of the aged is soaring, and an increasing
proportion of the population, living ever longer, is living in constant
or near-constant pain. And to complete the trifecta, the number of
caregivers specialized in treating geriatric patients is actually
declining, because it is unprestigious and unprofitable work. So we are
going to have more and more people competing for less space and fewer
resources in institutions for the aged, and increasingly these people
will be suffering from dementias that linger for years, or be addicted
for life to narcotic painkillers. Yet those old people who choose to
end their own lives, or to assist others to do so, are and will be
vilified by religious fanatics and meddling ultraconservative
politicians. This issue is not going to go away, and it will, like
immigration, polarize the population.
It will make the abortion issue of the last half-century look
insignificant by comparison. Elections will be won and lost over it.
What
makes me believe this? It's the undercurrents in the news even now.
Like the story of the pro-immigration marches in the US last year, the
result of which was a strong increase in across-the-board support for tightening immigration laws, enforcement, amnesty programs and refugee admissions. Like the thinly-veiled xenophobic rhetoric in government pronouncements. Like the recurring stories of domestic murder-suicides that are not crimes of passion, but crimes of compassion. Like the stories of nursing homes becoming increasingly desperate and violent places, even before their coming population explosion.
Weak signals, growing stronger, and poised to overwhelm us, at least politically, in the decade to come.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
