The Left’s demographic winter

The one issue that Kamala Harris has left to run on, is abortion, and the “right” to it. By that, of course, she means abortion on demand, for she will accept no limit on it. This is part and parcel of a larger defining issue that, ironically, dooms the left to demographic winter. As the Total Fertility Rate remains below replacement level and continues to decline, a large proportion of “Generation Z” and Millennials not only don’t care, but seem to celebrate it. At minimum, they refuse to have children, and tell themselves they are saving the planet by their forebearance. What they call forebearance, could actually be a combination of Sloth and Lust, two of the Seven Deadly Sins. More to the point, if that truly defines the Left, then that same attitude will destroy it.

What is demographic winter?

Demographic winter refers to the decline and eventual extinction of a population from simple non-replacement of those who die. It is also the title of a 56-minute 2008 film that warned of the consequences of continued low birth rates.

The very concept of demographic winter has been controversial ever since the release of that film. Kathryn Joyce panned it scathingly for The Harvard Divinity Bulletin shortly after its release. After describing its premises in exaggeratedly skeptical terms, she comes to no real conclusion. But she leaves no doubt about her opinion: it is a racist, almost Inquisitorial screed against non-Western migrant populations that will replace and displace Westerners as they die off. Her penultimate sentence says it all:

While there is certainly room and need to work on the issues raised by demographers concerned about falling fertility, this documentary is no neutral starting point for that discussion.

Really? Then why didn’t Ms. Joyce say one word to address the economic and social consequences of falling fertility? This reviewer suggests that she dismisses those issues as no skin off her nose. As evidence, consider this paragraph:

And so research is what makes up the film, interspersing commentary with footage of decaying European ruins and dramatizations of failed modern families, and graphics ostensibly explaining those ruined buildings and marriages: charting declining fertility, projected depopulation, economic forecasts, and speculative correlational arguments about divorce’s relation to poverty, academic failure, and even environmental waste (due to increased single-parent households). The effect is an onslaught of data, some of which has been criticized by liberal organizations as misleading, often delivered without context besides the invisible rubric of the profamily agenda: that the traditional family as defined by American religious conservatives isn’t just desirable, but is necessary for the survival of the world.

Speculative? Ostensible explanations? Misleading data? Context dropping? In fact she does drop a hint to the society she prefers: Sweden as it then existed. A “welfare state that subsidizes more equitable parenthood.” Question: where does the money come from? That question, she refuses to answer. For in truth, the money will run out. As the Swedes have already figured out by now.

Why the Left faces this

But Ms. Joyce obviously did not grasp the real flaw in that film. The filmmakers seem to have assumed that declining fertility was uniform, and confined itself to the “native” Western “stock.” Happily for Western civilization – and sadly for its detractors like Ms. Joyce – it does not.

A report out Saturday (November 2) from Newsweek shows that the left still doesn’t grasp the generational danger to itself. The report concerns a poll by Newsweek and something calling itself The Independent Center, on attitudes of millennials and “Generation Z” regarding childbirth and family. Newsweek defines the millennial generation as those born from 1981 to 1996 inclusive, and Generation Z as those born from 1997 through 2012 inclusive. The sample consists of 1200 “likely voters” younger than the age of 45, which means between 18 and 44 inclusive. The results: 30 percent of their sample from those two generations do not have, nor want, children. But 62 percent do have, or want, children. The remainder of the sample are “unsure.”

The poll also tested the proposition that “having children is irresponsible [by reason of] climate change.” 23 percent agreed, but 60 percent disagreed and 17 percent were not sure.

Naturally, what that means depends on whom you ask. Amy Blackstone, Professor of Sociology at the University of Maine, has heard the “concern… about the impact of humans on our climate.” Of course she says nothing about the absurd hubris of the very idea.

Warnings against the child-free proposition

Dr. Ben Carson, founder of the American Cornerstone Institute (and Trump’s former HUD Secretary), vehemently disagrees. His opinion, which Newsweek consented to publish, is on record:

Their movement is anti-human, anti-family, and anti-life—and Americans should wholeheartedly reject this ideological denigration of the nuclear family and instead cherish the beauties of family life.

Correct – though he might not know how dire the problem is. He correctly associates the no-children movement with Bill Gates’ buying up farmland to grow sheet mushrooms as a meat replacement, or the World Economic Forum’s explicit proposal to raise various species of locust for human consumption. But he didn’t name the persons responsible for these projects – perhaps because the editors at Newsweek wouldn’t let him. So he might not know that these men hope to make themselves immortal – and make sure the rest of us die off.

But Dr. Carson is not alone in opposition to this movement for social suicide. Elon Musk said two years ago that:

A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.

Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis.

A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2022

Of course, people will scoff at that – and Musk does the honorable thing and leaves their scoffing posts on the platform he bought. But the point remains.

Fortunately, the numbers in the Newsweek poll suggest the demographic winter problem is self-correcting. Remember: 30 percent don’t want children, but twice as many do. Furthermore, communities that devote themselves to traditional family life do exist – the Old Order Amish being the most prominent example.

Demographic winter selects against its proponents

To illustrate the implications of this self-correction, consider this neurotic pronouncement by Prof. Blackstone:

I fear for the future families of millennials and Gen Z. Will they be allowed to form the families that they choose or will our government make those decisions for them?

She can cast her fears aside. The associations of millennials and Generation Z members who avoid childbirth and childrearing, shall cease to exist. Of course, honor demands that those of us who know that abortion is tantamount to murder, do all in our power to forbid it. That’s not a matter of telling people what kind of family they must make (or not make). That’s a matter of affording the unborn the same protections the born claim.

If Prof. Blackstone really wants to fear for someone, let her consider those who do want families – and face a government that does all in its power to forbid the practice, or to make it prohibitively expensive. She could have addressed any of these things on her X account. But that account is silent on those issues. In fact everything she says to herald childlessness as a choice, is really an attack on those who have or want children.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Meaning: the Professors Blackstone of America can say what they please. Insults don’t matter. But public policy does.

Public policy promoting a general demographic winter

If you want to bring about demographic winter, how do you do it? First you make children unaffordable. Some of Elon Musk’s detractors on X say he doesn’t realize that children are unaffordable, particularly the second and third. (And unless at least one woman in ten had that third child, the population will shrink. That’s even assuming a civilized world where the men aren’t suffering military, infectious, or mauling casualty before they have a chance to sire children!)

But those detractors assert that children are unaffordable, without asking themselves why – and therefore, miss the point. Children are unaffordable because government, bankers, and the elite have made them unaffordable. For thousands (not millions!) of years, children were not only affordable, but productive assets. Boys worked plow, scythe, mattock, etc., and girls practiced cooking and sewing. The Industrial Revolution, despite its benefits, caused people to forget not only the value of this division of labor but also the skill sets. Today clothes and even food are less affordable – and too many have forgotten how to make or prepare their own.

If economic stress doesn’t suffice, then try insults. Ask women whether they are willing slaves if they even think of a mutually cooperative relationship with men. And, of course, cast men as natural, irredeemable enslavers. Kamala Harris does that in politics, as Kathleen Kennedy does that in filmmaking. (And the men now begin to understand that, which explains the “gender gap” in the very Millennial and Z Generations Newsweek surveyed.)

Next, pass a law

But again, look at those Old Order Amish in America. Look at other populations that don’t infect themselves with Elon Musk’s “Woke Mind Virus.” How does a misanthropic elitist handle them?

Next, buy up all the farmland. Then either make it lie fallow forever, or grow those sheet mushrooms of which Bill Gates is so fond. (Or turn some of those plots into literal locust ranches: “You vill eat zee bugs!”) Buying up land serves another purpose. It leaves no place for anyone to live, who only wants people to leave him alone. (Which is what laissez faire means: “Leave me alone!”) Ownership? How dare you, member of The Many (Greek hoi polloi), The Great Unwashed, even think of owning anything! We, the Elite, Who Know What’s Good For You, shall own the world and everything and every one in it. Including you.

Of course, sexual passions still exist – and the Elite find them useful as distractions. But how to prevent accidental conceptions? That’s where abortion on demand comes in. But ideally, turn sexual passion toward one’s biological likenesses. That is what homo-sexual means: sex with someone like you in every respect, including gender. Make that The In Thing – and the one thing that promises women the ultimate in liberation, and makes men safe to be around. (Attorney Catherine MacKinnon, last century, actually said that all heterosexual sex is tantamount to rape.)

The Final Solution

The “pandemic lockdowns” served two purposes. First was to make the necessities of life not only unaffordable but unavailable. Second was to isolate people so they couldn’t get to know one another even if they wanted to.

And if that doesn’t work: kill everyone. Release a germ really powerful enough to bring about the meat wagons rolling down the street, with bullhorns blaring “Bring out your dead!” Promote endless wars:

We have always been at war with Eastasia! George Orwell, 1984

Beat the overpopulation drum, to excuse passing a law: one child per family, no more. (Shades of 1971’s The Last Child!) The Chinese did that – and condemned themselves to demographic winter. Four years ago their population peaked; it is now headed for collapse. Already every six men in China compete for the affections of five women. Maybe the men will start killing each other, causing the sex ratio to swing the other way.

The United States is the only Western country left with a growing population – and that is due entirely to immigration. Leftist politicians tout immigration as the economic solution – forgetting (or denying) that many of these immigrants draw direct subsidies. The real purpose of unfettered, unvetted immigration is to change the electorate – a temporary purpose only. Once the left achieves its trifecta, they plan to continue the endless-war policy Donald Trump stopped. Or they will continue the chemical-biological warfare attack of which many already suspect them. Or pass that one-child-per-family law – and turn abortion from a “fundamental right” into a mandate.

To avoid this, and win

Such are the ideology and plans of Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, Klaus Schwab, George Soros, and Bill Gates. From this comes the most important imperative to defeat them in this election. The reason you are not better off now than you were four years ago (or rather, five) is that the elites deliberately impoverished you. Did Donald Trump stand accused of wanting to stand Liz Cheney up against a wall? He didn’t. All he said do about Liz Cheney was to see how well (or poorly) she could handle herself in combat. A few people do need to stand against a wall, but thus far, Liz Cheney is not one of them.

What must happen is that Donald Trump – now with a team includes Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy – returns to power. He explicitly promised to Make America Affordable Again. Robert Kennedy pledges to Make America Healthy Again. Together this team can Make America Fruitful Again.

Don’t worry, Professor Blackstone; no one will force a woman to conceive. (The man who does, will pay the usual penalty.) Let the left consign itself to demographic winter. Then the right will, literally, inherit the earth.