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Until the last election, it remained possible that a Republican Party supported almost exclusively by conservative white people could win one last time and could then proceed to dismiss the social-welfare system so thoroughly over the next four or eight years that it would take years to rebuild it again.

But Americans didn’t let it happen. The president won with a very inclusive message that the Democrats have ever offered. He did it by assembling the most diverse political coalition in the nation’s history—huge majorities of young people, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, women, gay communities, union members and highly educated whites.

This is the coalition of the future. It is also a coalition that is far and away more liberal, in terms of both economic and social views, yet they still blend together to give the most diverse support to any Democratic president in the history of United States. Franklin Roosevelt depended on conservative whites from the South for his victories; so did Truman, Kennedy, and, to a lesser extent, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton. Obama did not. Going forward, future Democratic presidents will not either.

The white right can no longer carry national elections. Democrats no longer need to appeal to that sector of the population to win. This was perhaps the important outcome revealed during the last election. Romney made his appeal to the white right, he ignored everyone else. However everyone else defeated him. Republicans most find a new way to crack the diverse support that the democrats are getting.

The right will not surrender in response to the message this election has delivered. The conservative opinion that took hold of America with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 is over. The idea that government is the bad guy no longer exists. Obama may not have created a new liberal movement. But the emerging liberal majority can.

A.M.