The emerging Democratic majority has emerged! Or so John Judis told us in 2008, explaining that his 2002 prediction that the future belonged to the Democrats had been merely delayed by September 11. His party, fueled by blocs of nonwhites, women, and hipper young people, would soon turn the whole country blue.

“This realignment is predicated on a change in political demography and geography,” he assured us. “Underlying these changes has been a shift in the nation’s ‘fundamentals’ — in the structure of society and industry, and the way Americans think.”