An assertive Republican minority will probably only feel emboldened to engage in ever more obstructionist tactics.
In Erasmus's native Europe, meanwhile, assertive Muslim minorities are straining, though not so far exhausting, the capacity of democracy to deal with new social realities.
The showdown with Washington comes as Israel faces the eruption of another long-rumbling confrontation, that between the secular state and an increasingly assertive and nationalist minority of Orthodox Jews.
She was particularly assertive on affirmative action and minority employment issues, criticizing various agencies and industries for what she called their poor records of hiring minorities.
In many ways, she's still the clever kid in the class, eloquent and assertive, one of the lucky minority who can speak in fully formed sentences.
Their supporters may also worry about minorities becoming too assertive.
Not so long ago, assertive, politically aware women were an isolated minority.
While many within the church community are rooting for Mr. Romney, the minority Mormon voices are becoming more assertive, perhaps because of the strength of their growing numbers.
We observed that white males are more assertive in this regard than are women or minorities.
How could it be otherwise when she projects an increasingly assertive, single-minded, self-absorbed Germany stating economic obligations that only a minority of the Union's membership can possibly shoulder?
After independence from British rule, increasingly assertive Sinhala nationalists, resentful of what they saw as British favouritism towards minority Tamils, began to fan the flames of ethnic division.
