In “The Way We’ll Be,” the man whose organization has been uncommonly accurate in its predictions does not press his luck with political fortune-telling. Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are mentioned only three times each, since this book aspires to predicting more than short-term election trends. Mr. [John] Zogby instead concentrates on what he sees as tectonic shifts in American attitudes and argues that the importance of these changes has not been adequately understood.
The truly prescient political or marketing team, he argues, would be paying more attention to granular micro-precincts (i.e. “sports fans, pet owners, international travelers, early risers”); shopping destinations (Wal-Mart vs. Target); and secular spiritual attitudes than to the categories that mattered in the past. The historian charting the evolution of American values would pay more attention to Hurricane Katrina than to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
If the bad news is that Americans have lost faith in institutions they once trusted, like the government that so grievously failed Katrina victims, Mr. Zogby sees good news in the resilience of the young. He suggests that tomorrow’s American majority will be less materialistic, less tolerant of baloney, more practical and more closely linked to the rest of the world. “At long last, cynicism bottoms out,” he predicts in one wildly optimistic moment.
I think Mr. Zogby is over-interpreting.
“[T]he coalition of angry Christians “?
That could mean anything. And no doubt from bogus categories ike that one can prove anything.