Liberals brag about having won the hearts and minds of America, as if, through logic and argument, they’ve persuaded people to accept their bankrupt European socialist ideas.

Democrats haven’t changed anyone’s mind. They changed the people.

More white people voted for Mitt Romney this year than voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980. Barack Obama lost white voters by 20 points — the widest margin since 1984.

But in 1980, whites were 88 percent of the electorate. In 2012, they were 72 percent of the electorate. Not only that, but the non-white electorate is far more Democratic than it was in 1980.

If the same country that voted in 1980 had voted in 2012, Romney would have won a bigger landslide than Reagan did.

Most Americans don’t realize that, decades ago, the Democrats instituted a long-term plan to gradually turn the United States into a Third World nation. The country would become poorer and less free, but Democrats would have an unbeatable majority!

Under Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 immigration act, our immigration policy changed from one that replicated the existing ethnic population to one that strictly favored unskilled immigrants from the Third World. Since 1968, 85 percent of legal immigrants have come from what is euphemistically called “developing countries.”

We can’t admit computer scientists from Spain fleeing their failing socialist nation because we have to make room for a recent Senegalese immigrant’s brother-in-law with no skills but great needs.

Jonas Salk’s parents would be unable to immigrate to America today. But the good news is: Rich liberals and soulless businessmen have no trouble finding cheap busboys, gardeners and nannies! (Whom they underpay, requiring taxpayers to make up the difference.)

If yuppies had to compete with well-educated European immigrants, they might be a little less enlightened on the immigration question. As it is, only unskilled workers, mostly blacks and Latinos, are harmed by our immigration policies.

Because recent immigrants have no skills, they arrive in dire need of government assistance. Their desperation has been an enormous boon to the Democratic Party.

Thirty-nine percent of native households receive some form of government assistance. By contrast, 57 percent of immigrant households — legal immigrants — get government assistance. We can’t do anything about the native population, but why on Earth is America taking in immigrants who require taxpayer support?

If you come to America and immediately go on welfare, by definition, you are not a desirable immigrant. Except as a voter for the Democratic Party.

In the last 40 years, California’s non-Hispanic white population has been cut in half, from 80 percent to 40 percent. Meanwhile, the Hispanic population has exploded from less than 10 percent to nearly 40 percent — mostly poor Mexicans.

And with that change, California went from being the state that produced anti-tax initiatives, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to a state that is absolutely untouchable by Republicans (see Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina) and just enacted the highest tax rate in any state.

The same has happened, or is happening, to other states, such as Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois and New York. If Texas ever flips, Republicans will never win another presidential election. The two major political parties will be the Nancy Pelosi Democratic Party and the Chuck Schumer Democratic Party.

Republicans’ low-tax, small-government philosophy will eventually become popular with today’s struggling Hispanics, but not before America is ruined with socialist policies promoted by populist hucksters so strangely beguiling to poor people the world over.

Even when they agree with Republicans on the issues, poor immigrants tend to vote tribally. It’s perfectly possible to get the following answers from a recent immigrant:

— How do you feel about abortion?

It’s taking a life.

— What should we do about criminals?

Lock them up and throw away the key.

— Do you support raising taxes?

No, the government takes too much already.

— How do you feel about overpaid, well-pensioned government workers with no-show jobs?

It ticks me me off.

— Do you support gay marriage?

Absolutely not.

— How are you going to vote?

Democratic.

Many recent immigrants oppose abortion, gay marriage and big government. The problem is that poor, uneducated people — the Democratic base — are easily demagogued into voting “for the race.”

A white person can vote for a Republican or a Democrat without anyone saying to him, “HOW CAN YOU VOTE AGAINST YOUR RACE?” But that is exactly how poor Hispanics and blacks are pressured into voting Democratic.

Noticeably, the No. 1 issue Obama had in his favor this year was not his record of accomplishment. It was that a majority of voters agreed with the statement: Obama “cares for people like me.” That’s how Hugo Chavez got elected.

Running Hispanics won’t help Republicans. Ask Gary Franks, Lynn Swann or Michael Steele if being black won them the black vote.

Promoting amnesty won’t help — ask John McCain, who won about the same percentage of the Hispanic vote as Romney did.

Or ask California’s Hispanics, only 4 percent of whom oppose Republican immigration policies. Their main beef with the GOP is that they view Republicans as “the rich.”

The only hope is to run another appealing Republican candidate in four years — when we’re not up against an incumbent president — and return our immigration policy to one that helps America and not just the Welfare Party.

COPYRIGHT 2012 ANN COULTER

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