Liberals Better Start Breeding…
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections
So says Arthur C. Brooks in a new editorial from the Wall Street Journal, and the numbers are compelling.
Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They’re not having enough of them, they haven’t for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That’s a “fertility gap” of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%–explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than half a percentage point per year, meaning that today’s problem is nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split 50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to 46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be 54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020–and all for no other reason than babies.
Liberal Values points out another article about this phenomenon from Phillip Longman in this month’s issue of Foreign Policy. An excerpt:
Tomorrow’s children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents’ values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.
Now here’s the thing. I think that this trend is most likely going to even out. Why? Because liberals will start attracting more and more of the devout after the abortion and gay issues fall by the wayside. And those issues will fall by the wayside. They’ve been around for too long and people are simply growing tired of them. And that means Christians will start to embrace more social justice issues. We’re seeing this in groups like the Sojourners and politicians like Kerry Horn. And as recent commenter pointed out in a post about Kerry Horn:
For so long conservative Christians have been voting based on abortion & sex = morality issues. Although we all can easily support these moral issues on biblical grounds we often wink at other very important domestic issues such as jobs, healthcare, poverty, Social Security, and our overall economic welfare in the name of being Christian. We wrap a flag around anything we perceive as moral, and generating huge profits, all the while turning a blind eye to the hardship that our own low and middle income citizens are enduring. If Jesus were physically among us and ministering to us right now, with whom would He be walking each day? The New Testament gives us a pretty good idea about that. Maybe there is something to this pastor afterall. As a Christian and fellow Texas Bapist, I pray there is.
However, for the moderates, Polimom poses an appropriate question:
Clearly those colored models of DNA strands included blues and reds for a reason, but what, then, am I to conclude about myself � a moderate independent who is the product of a liberal and a conservative.Is purple recessive, do you think? Or a mutation?
Well, if the polls are correct, isn’t moderate independent the dominant gene that has to chose between two political mutations?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 and is filed under Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 22nd, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Now Justin, you of all people, a Lover of Darwinian Monkey-Man Evolution, should have no problem figuring out the issue here: The Party of Death simply can’t perpetuate itself according to the laws of your hero.
A group of people stridently & passionately devoted to homosexual sex & abortions, just aren’t going to have as many kids as my merry band of Catholic traditionalists. We can go ahead and say its “natural selection” if you like.
I will go ahead and translate to the devout: Ultimately you will become less devout & more Marxist and then you’ll find Libs sexy hot!! Yeah, I look for this spiritual (de)awakening to happen real soon. Get ready you Mennonite Mommas cause her comes the editorial staff of the NYTime and it is time to paaarrrtyyyyy!!!
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Maybe the real reason that liberals don’t make as many kids as conservatives is that having kids turns you more conservative. Most every wild and free young couple that I ever knew (myself included) grew considerably more conservative once the family started growing.
So maybe the best way to grow a more liberal society is to encourage people to stop having kids period. Now there’s a strategy for the dems!
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Although these things are notoriously difficult to predict, I think the answer to whether liberals should breed more frequently is simply this: couldn’t hurt. And if we don’t, we could be in for some trouble.
Liberal values, and by these I mean secular enlightenment values — freedom of religon, tolerance, broad-mindedness — need to nurtured in order to thrive and it would be foolish for liberals to pass up on the opportunity to pass these values on to their children.
Liberalism needs to be more family oriented, and if we fail to breed in the requisite numbers we MAY do so at our own peril. Besides, kids are cute. If we’re responsible about it, that should be reason enough ;)
August 22nd, 2006 at 6:33 pm
I read this differently, seems to me if you have kids you are more likely to be conservative, if you don’t then you naturally lean liberal. I don’t know why this is but I think you have cause and effect backwards. I don’t believe it is a case of conservatives outbreeding liberals. Just my opinion though, no facts to back it up.
August 22nd, 2006 at 6:41 pm
While I think having children has a moderating effect on someone’s liberalism, it is unlikely to drive them to Christianism — which I think is the real worry here. I’m not so much concerned by run-of-the-mill conservatives breeding as I am by the large number of kids had by “fundies” and “Terry Schiavo” conservative catholics. Mainline protestants (or moderate/liberal Catholics) with laissez-faire leanings, I’m not so concerned about.
While I do not think increase in numbers is the driving force behind Catholic prohibitions on birth control, it certainly sweetens the pot for the Vatican.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:52 pm
Mules cannot reproduce at all, yet they have survived for thousands of years thanks to breeders. This is because mules are so useful to so many people all over the world.
Liberals should figure out a way to be more like mules, and there’d be no problem.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
I have two boys (4 and 2) and they didn’t make me any more conservative. In fact, having to explain some of the evils in the world - why some kids around here are poor, for example - has made me even more liberal. Also, conservative theories about child-rearing, and especially education, are often worthless and ineffective - even if they have backing from powerful morons. In fact, if you read through the sorts of parenting journals that most parents read, the types of parenting strategies are often quite progressive. Not fruffy laissez-faire stuff, but they heartily discourage the sort of uber sternness and authoritarianism promoted by many conservatives. In fact, I hear many comments from conservative friends to their children that make me laugh. My sister-in-law, for example, is as conservative Republican as you get. Yet she won’t let her kids play with toy guns and she calls water pistols “water squirters.” It cracks me up how PC-liberal she is without even thinking about it.
I’d imagine that teenage years make parents a bit more conservative because the kids are openly rebelling - thus placing the parent in a position of preserver of authority. But, again, all the parenting magazines and all the parents I know (including politically conservative ones) stress “love” over instilling fear and excessive punishment.
So, yes, it’s possible that more nut-job Christian extremists are having 16 kids like John Brown did. But I doubt those numbers are that common considering the cost of having so many kids these days. And, more importantly, parenting itself doesn’t really make you more conservative. If anything makes you more conservative, it’s being a homeowner and paying property taxes. That, more than becoming a parent, makes you look at government programs more skeptically.
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:37 pm
LOL Justin, you are engaging in wishful thinking. Liberalism is commiting cultural suicide because, if you’ve noticed, they have become MORE blatantly partisan in support of homosexual marriage, man-hating feminism, and abortions as of late. The more they lose ground the more adamantly they hang on to their insane ideas, and the more vitriolic and self-destructive they become. Abortion and gay marriage will NEVER fall to the wayside if the liberals continue to become more liberal, which is what is happening. Second, even if abortion and gay marriage DID somehow “go away”, the idea Christians would all of a sudden join “enlightened” (and I use that word loosly) liberal thinking is ridiculous. Liberals always preach about tolerance and broad-mindedness, but they’ll be the first people to crack jokes about southern rubes, “backwards” Christians, race-traitors, and Uncle Tom’s. At Universities if you don’t go along with the status quo beliefs of the institution, they will attempt to silence you in any way possible using “speech codes” or intimidation. The problem with liberalism is that it is secular first and “social justice” oriented second.
If eusto, what you quote are indeed liberal values, then the liberals of today aren’t following them very well and instead prefer something closer to communism: Make everyone equal by ensuring they all have nothing, and squelching the words and writing of all those who disagree that your planned totalitarian society is a utopian ideal.
The fact is, conservatives are outbreeding liberals because the liberals of today place no value on human life and are told to postpone childbirth at all costs. If you get pregnant while you are supposed to a career woman, you can just abort your problems away. Then later when it becomes clear that biology does not match the liberal ideal of “you can work untill you are 40 and then settle down and have children without issue when you are financially stable”, a good modern liberal woman realizes she may have missed the boat. Meanwhile, the so-called backwater conservative housewife not only has a wonderful family, but likely has a decent job that allows her more time to be with her family and flexibility in her schedule in abscense of a huge paycheck.
I’m sure the modern liberal woman is better off financially, but when you ask who is truly happy, the choice is clear.
As to asking WWJD, Jesus is the guy who went into a temple with a vine whip and drove out all the moneychangers. Moreover, Jesus was FOLLOWED by people, he never seeked out the world’s attention. Heck, he told a person “tell noone” after they were healed and of course the person told everyone. It always makes me laugh when anyone thinks Jesus is among their number. Jesus is God, he has more insight on humanity than adhering to a mere political ideology. However, I would take a bet that since Jesus proscribed to the old laws, support for abortion and government recognition and support of homosexual acts would not be on the list of “societal goods”.
There is good news for moderates though. As the extreme liberals fail to breed because of their warped ideology and utter contempt for human life, more rational liberals will continue to breed, thus moderating their extremism. Therein lies the irony: natural selection has chosen conservatives over liberals. Darwin strikes again.
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Brian, are you a little alone in Massachusetts? Man-hating feminism? Maybe you hang around Smith College too much.
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Brian, I thought you were banned. Why are you here? Still name calling, still sharing your bitter opinions.
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:06 am
This phenonmenon is real. but goes much deeper. look at the birthrates in Northern Europe. The indigenous populations are commiting ethnic suicide. This is true to a lesser extent throughout Europe.
In America, it is not only the Liberals that are non breeders but also the Conservative intelligencia. The old line, fiscally conservative, mid atlantic Republican faction are no longer even a factor in national politics.
This does not leave the field open to the religious fundamentalist/Red State Bubba coalition. Their birthrates are only higher in a relative sense .
The real winners in this race are the recent immigrant communities. Caribbean, West African, Middle Eastern, Asian and of course Latino newcommers to our shores already compose a sizeable pleurality within our population. Their very high birthrates ensure a short reign for the “New” right coalition. What kind of political future they will mold is anybodies guess. It is unlikely to be democratic in nature. I doubt democracy will make it safely out of the Bush Presidency.
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:12 am
Elrod: Andrea Dworkin anyone? You have entire groups of so-called feminists running the modern feminist show who have raised hatred of the opposite gender to an art form. Any woman who wants to go against the hate train is going to be ostracized for being a traitor to the sisterhood.
I will however, have to get the real deal from Smith, as one of my friends will be attending that institution in the fall. Thank you for informing me.
Meredith: Please point out where I call anyone names. No, seriously, point it out for me because I can’t find it, as I never even addressed an individual, merely a concept (conservatives out-breeding liberals). If you are referring to my opinion that Justin is engaging in wishful thinking, I believe I can have an opinion on the validity of his opinion without him being personally offended if I happen to disagree with his conclusion. As to the lift on my ban, I have no idea how or why it happened, but since my posting priviledges seem to have been reconsidered, I will continue to offer my opinion here, although I promise to prevent myself from creating any more over-the-top scenes, just to be on the safe side.
I am however, glad to see you missed me so. Lovely evening.
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:53 am
Meredith,
Actually Brian still isn’t welcome to comment here. And for those of you who are reading this and wondering why, here’s the reason.
The problem is Donklephant’s filters don’t keep Brian out. I don’t know why, but they just don’t. And deleting his comments after he’s been engaged in a discussion doesn’t make any sense because it creates a situation where other comments reference something that isn’t there. Of course, I can always contact the university he goes to and ask them to please stop letting him use their internet access to comment on this blog, but I really, REALLY hope it doesn’t get to that point.
So one last time Brian in MA, please stop commenting on this blog.
Thank you.
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:37 am
It seems to me that most of you are barking up one of two wrong trees here. Family size and political leanings have little if anything to do directly with each other, but they both are products of the underlying culture.
Now, Justin is probably right that even if culturally-conservative Christianity is indeed destined to inherit the nation via demographics, eventually a large chunk of that demographic will identify mainly with liberal political causes. But by the time that torch is passed, and the accompanying cultural shift is complete, will political liberalism mean the same thing it does now? I doubt it. Indeed, what passes as liberalism in such a social climate may well be a lot closer to today’s Republicans than to today’s Democrats. Today’s hard Left is well aware of this, and of the fact that if it happens they lose whatever shreds of relevance they now have - which is why they rail against it tooth and nail.
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:04 am
My God Justin, too much information! You’ll never shut the guy up divulging the vulnerabilities of your own filters.
I’m disappointed with your lack of cleverness and your willingness to relinquishment all leverage. First, you should have played like you let him back in for a 2nd chance, showing mercy & benevolence.
Second, you should come up with sometype of banner or mark that you can place over comments that reads — “HACK” or “HATE SPEECH” - while leaving the comment readable. This way you scorn the commenter, reinforce the theme of the blog, but do not overtly censor the commenters.
You can provide the HACK HALL OF SHAME - linking to hackish comments. If the idea of the blog is centrism and moderation, and the opposite of that is say, the comments of Brian in MA or DosPeros, why not use those comments to further the objective.
Let’s face it, the only way Brian’s university is going to be able to stop him is if they block the ENTIRE university from commenting or even seeing the site and you really don’t want that, do you? And besides, they are not going to do that and you know it.
My point is this, Justin, you have the SAME problem as AMERICAN POLITICS. You want moderation & centrism, but there is this pesky freedom out there that allows extremist to spout off and garner support. So how do you deal with it…marginalize, ostracize, ridicule, but above all…educate. Don’t be a Bush, your strategy will not work, it will cause you premature aging via extreme frustration.
Just some ideas.
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:24 am
*Stands up and aplauds DosPeros last comment*
*Stops and sits back down because co-workers are giving me funny looks*
As for this topic. I was always under the impression that family size was more directly correlated to income and also urban vs rural living. While income doesn’t necessarily correlate to politics, urban vs. rural living does.
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:46 pm
DP,
All interesting ideas, but none I’ll be adopting. Too much time and effort.
However, again, I hope he respects the fact that I don’t want him here and simply leaves.
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Some of the most liberal people I know grew up in very conservative, Christian families. Political leanings are obviously influenced by environment but they aren’t inherrited like a big nose or short legs. Liberalism will be fine if liberals can do a better job of recruitment — i.e. offer ideas that are appealing to a lot of people.
As for gay marriage, I don’t see how supporting it has anything to do with birth rates. Sure, a lot of homosexual couples don’t have children, but that’s the case whether or not they’re married to each other.
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:27 pm
A big factor in the conservative vs. liberal divide is that Catholics and Mormons (and probably Southern Baptists for all I know) want to keep their women barefoot & pregnant, and tend to have misogynistic viewpoints about women working, so women’s entire raison d’etre is often redefined as being a baby factory and cook. Of course this (plus certain shortsighted religious viewpoints) makes them less likely to use family planning or seek abortions. Liberals tend to be far more likely to have two working parents, often leaving little time for children.
I’m about as liberal as they get, yet I was brought up by a stay-at-home Lutheran (Missouri Synod) mom & a working dad. They call themselves independents but I doubt they vote anything but Republican. I would tend to suspect that on average most children end up being less conservative than their parents, hence we should be safe from the Hitler Youth for at least a few more generations.
I would argue that at least as great a factor in number of children is wealth - the wealthy have far fewer children on average than those of middle and lower income. Unfortunately, since family income is also a major factor in ones’ chances to succeed in life that doesn’t bode well for our future either.
A final point is that America in general has a negative population growth - the only reason we are growing is due to immigration, and immigrants often tend towards the liberal side of the spectrum.
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:56 pm
What about the increasing birthrate of minorities who lean a little left? Who’s to say that some of the children of the conservative parents don’t end up liberal or just end up being moderate? I mean John McCain looks like he came from a very conservative family, now he’s moderate. I’ve always thought independents had a larger birth rate anyway.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:54 pm
No More Babies (Left) To Kiss
Arthur C. Brooks, nella pagina degli editoriali del Wall Street Journal, spiega perché i Democratici - malgrado ogni sforzo per assicurarsi il voto giovanile - non riescono mai a dare vita ad un break generazionale capace di far vincere loro le elezi…
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Glen…become more like mules, eh? How about through domestic and world-wide adoption (in addition to or in place of reproducing your own children)…have one, adopt one…or adopt two. That would prove to be an invaluable resource to the world in terms of growth and natural resource issues and would help solve a huge social problem. (and this includes allowing for more homosexual, interracial, and single parent adoptions)…