Life of the Party: The GOP's inevitable demographic demise may not be so inevitable.

• Author: Mencimer, Stephanie

For two decades, elected Republicans have all but refused to govern. They've rebuffed any and all efforts by Democrats to try to solve the country's most pressing problems--often refusing to even acknowledge that those problems, like climate change, exist at all. And yet, Republicans still hold a death grip on the country's political institutions, leaving those institutions unable to respond to a changing world.

But, according to the legendary liberal pollster Stanley Greenberg, the end is near. In his new book, R.I.P G.O.P., Greenberg insists that the ugliness of today's politics, particularly the seemingly hopeless obstructionism of the Mitch McConnell-led Republican Party, is hastening a revolution. Beneath the stagnant waters of Trump's America is a rapidly moving "blue wave" of progressive politics. Greenberg predicts a "happy ending," with "a country united and finally liberated from gridlock to address the nation's most serious problems. It ends with the death of the Republican Party as we've known it."

Where have we heard that before? People have been predicting a Democratic revolution for decades now, and yet the country seems light years farther from a progressive nirvana than it did in 2002, when John Judis and Ruy Teixeira made a similar argument in their book, The Emerging Democratic Majority. Nonetheless, Greenberg is optimistic that this time is for real, and his book may be a welcome tonic for Democratic despair, even if you still suspect it's just a liberal fantasy at heart. Consider it a beach read for the resistance.

Greenberg sees change driven by demographics, as the country becomes more secular, more multicultural, more unmarried, and more urban. He sees Millennials overtaking Baby Boomers as the country's largest voting bloc and women in particular moving the country forward on issues like climate change and immigration. To make his case, he naturally draws on extensive polling data. While anti-immigrant...