By mid-century the U.S. will become a nation teeming with crotchety old white people with sore feet, and young, overtaxed Latinos, this according to new data from the Census Bureau. Analysts have known for decades that the country is headed toward a demographic shift of seismic proportions — of a kind not seen since Europeans overtook the American Indians as majority landowners. The surprising news is how soon that shift will take place.
The report’s bombshell was news of how soon whites will lose their majority status. In a mere two decades non-Hispanic whites will be well on their way if not to extinction, then at least a spot on the endangered species waiting list. Sociologists call this the Shaker Syndrome. The Shakers, you may recall, were a weird religious sect that didn’t believe in procreating, or drinking, or much of anything except praying and making what are today very fashionable chairs, and who eventually went extinct from boredom. Evidently the entire white race has similar plans — not out of a religious duty, but rather because kids interfere with our careers and weekend golf plans. Only an age-group as narcissistic as the Me Generation could seek to live forever as individuals, while simultaneously and collectively signing a suicide pact.
The report will be great news for those who have always despised and sought to eliminate the white power structure, i.e., white liberals. However, some minority special interest groups will not take these new projections well. Where pray tell will the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton find a bully pulpit when the minority groups they represent are no longer a minority? It’s not like they have actual parishioners to preach to. That mournful mooing sound you’re hearing is their milch cow drying up.
The news was even more dire for the Earth savers. The Census Bureau predicts that over the next four decades increased immigration along with extended lifespans will lead to an increase in population the equivalent of 3.5 Californias or an overall population of 439 million people. Arguably America could sustain 3.5 Maines or Vermonts, maybe even 4 Idahos, but even one more California will likely do us in. These estimates will no doubt concern environmentalists who love diversity but hate people. That is, they hate what people do to the planet just by living on it. “If you are concerned about congestion, pollution, sprawl or preservation of open space…if you drive on the roads of California, this is really bad news,” Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies told the San Jose Mercury News.
TO ME THE MOST disturbing news is with the first baby boomers slated to turn 100 in 2047, the population of centenarians will grow 660 percent by 2050. Apparently history’s most hypocritical generation will simply refuse to die, which is not all that surprising. Wasn’t it the Me Generation who in “My Generation” sang, “Hope I die before I get old”? It seems they really meant, “Hope I don’t lie in my own excrement when I’m old.” I would have thought all those drugs and wild sexcapades would have taken their toll, but these same love children are now bicycling and gorging themselves on high fiber foods and sipping Sonoma red wines in an attempt to prance around the stage as long as possible, which is really annoying if they happen to be in the car ahead of you in a no-passing zone.
The Census report raises genuine concerns, such as who is going to support all these old fogies? Certainly not their kids. The notion that adult children are responsible for their aged parents’ upkeep disappeared in the 1960s along with other quaint traditions like modesty, shame and rural-themed sitcoms. Meanwhile Social Security is expected to go bust in 2042, the only hope for the system’s survival is to follow Europe’s lead, which is import lots of “permanent” guest workers from south of the border. So if we don’t want to find ourselves celebrating our 90th birthday in a cardboard box next to the recycling bin, we’d better start tearing down those fences along the Rio Grande.
The report also dumped cold water on the idea put forth by multiracial advocates that Americans have begun blending into one happy mocha-colored race through intermarriage. Instead the forecast finds the multiracial population will still be less than 5 percent of the population in 2050. Apparently whites will react to the increasing number of immigrants the same way Spanish bluebloods reacted to Islamic rule — by becoming less willing to interbreed with other races and hiding out in their chalets the Pyrenees.
The Census Bureau report will also be a wake-up call for those conspiracy theorists who think Latino immigration is just a Mexican government plot to re-annex California. A plot hatched by the Freemasons and the aliens in Area 51, no doubt. Latinos are fleeing Mexico because they prefer to live in homes with running water and no goats. Re-annexing the southwestern states would only mean Latino immigrants would have to travel farther to find landscaping jobs, and what would be the point of that?
If I’m still around in 2050, I’ll be 87. If you think I’m crotchety now, just wait till I’m a minority in an over-crowded country. My feet hurt just thinking about it.
