Do liberals need to make more babies?

August 22, 2006

I’m not quite sure what to make of this, and I certainly wouldn’t begin to know how to prescribe a remedy, but the notion of a “[tag]fertility gap[/tag]” is interesting.

Arthur Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs, believes that [tag]liberals[/tag] 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 [tag]children[/tag]. If you picked 100 [tag]conservatives[/tag], 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.

I haven’t dug into the available data at all, but Brooks’ argument seems fairly compelling. [tag]Republicans[/tag] are having more kids, and statistically speaking, those kids are likely to share a party affiliation with their parents.

Brooks concedes that, as a predictive measurement, this is far from exact — about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference may end up embracing their parents’ preference, but a) some households may have parents who disagree on politics; and b) a growing percentage of the public doesn’t have an identifiable party preference.

Still, it’s an interesting, though somewhat unsettling, trend. It’s a good thing we have a grand conspiracy in place to use the public schools to inculcate a liberal/secular-humanist worldview in the minds of America’s youth. Oops, I’ve said too much….

My guess is that the more dangerous section of the Republicant party is responsible for a higher proportion of the children too–the fundamental evangelical christian section. Which makes it even tougher to crack as these folks are homeschooling more and then creating more colleges for their kids to attend, so they never see alternative thought until they are well set in their ways. But I guess maybe that is why having A George W. Bush as president could be a correcting factor–once some of these folks have to live through such an incompetent regime they might actually question their worldview and seek out the alternate party.

  • I have recently heard this argument about other things as well – if we want [undesirable group] to not take over [thing] then [group I like] should start having more babies. I’m pretty sure I heard it about Christian/Muslim, and possibly Hispanic/Caucasian.

    People have been using similar “missing babies” arguments for things like showing that when abortions became illegal the crime rate dropped 15 years later because kids who WOULD have been criminals at a certain age were aborted instead. Or saying that if all the kids who had been aborted had been born instead, and joined the military, we’d have no problems with staffing levels in the military. But we know those arguments are unprovable nonsense. If they had been born, doesn’t the first guy say they would have all become criminals instead of joining the military?

  • The fundies do breed like rabbits compared to liberals. Do the math.

    But I think the internet is going to do more to help spread liberalism amongst the little fundies than anything we’ve seen in the past. The whole charade falls apart as soon as the information can’t be controlled. All the liberals need to do is expose the protofacsists to the basic questions pertaining to conservatism and turn the ones with functioning reasoning centers. Ignore the ones who can’t reason.

    Liberals do need to have more kids, but the fundies will find it harder and harder to raise little robots.

  • It’s a good thing we have a grand conspiracy in place to use the public schools to inculcate a liberal/secular-humanist worldview in the minds of America’s youth. Oops, I’ve said too much….

    It’s a good thing you didn’t say anything about the radical homosexual agenda. (snark) Turning these Republican kids gay is the only defense we have against the return of wholesome family values. (/snark)

  • It’s a good thing we have a grand conspiracy in place to use the public schools to inculcate a liberal/secular-humanist worldview in the minds of America’s youth. Oops, I’ve said too much….

    🙂 Or as Bush would say, “Shhh…”

    Liberals make love, not babies.

    Remember when over-population was a big issue. I think it is still THE problem behind most other problems. But it doesn’t get discussed so much anymore, partly because various groups have equated population control with subtle genocide. It’s not that Liberals should make more babies, it is that Conservatives should “keep it in their pants”.

  • and I certainly wouldn’t begin to know how to prescribe a remedy …

    Um … there’s a really, really tasteless joke there somewhere. 😉

    Quite frankly, it’s not a “fertility” issue — it’s an issue of some people just not wanting to have kids, or not wanting to have more than one (like The Mrs. and me).

    That, and the fact that most liberals don’t hold the belief that “every sperm is sacred.”

  • It’s not that Liberals should make more babies, it is that Conservatives should “keep it in their pants”.

    No, that they should have access to Plan B.

  • I don’t think I’m the only boomer raised Republican to switch sides, and I think the evangelical-fueled baby boomlet will prove just as contrary. Raising kids on the 700 Club won’t accomplish their goals, it’ll just make for some owly liberals twenty years later.

  • *ponders*

    I wonder if this includes all the new data saying that security moms and nascar dads are turning into democrats…

  • Liberals do in fact have a plan to build a majority despite their declining birthrates. It’s called education.

  • As Beep52 said, liberalism is not a matter of genetics but education. All babies are born republican (me, me, me, mine, mine, gimme, gimme, plus a love of fairy tales and simplistic answers, and large doses of fear regarding the unknown and unfamiliar). Becoming compassionate and tolerant happens later, if ever.

  • Not to mention the innate ignorance and superstition of infants, and the degree to which they are comforted by parental omnipotence and authoritarianism.

  • Considering conservatives tend to be more rural and liberalism prospers in densely populated areas, I see the conservatives setting up their own doom by churning out the babies. When you live with a million people in close proximity, it’s harder to believe that “the every man for themselves” dictates of conservatives is the way things should work.

    Brooks curiously fails to take into account independents in his study. I wonder where they come from. Nor does he take into account the Bush effect, where stupid policies and a belief system that says government doesn’t and shouldn’t work is causing his own party members to change sides. We’ll see how all these babies want to vote when they are forced to pay off Bush’s gifts to his rich friends and his horribly expensive adventure into Iraq for generations. When kids learn that conservatives allowed China to overcome the U.S. as an economic superpower and the world dislikes them because of our conservative policies, we’ll see how they align themselves politically.

  • According to that theory, in 70 years the country should all love GWB or at least his policies. I don’t buy it. I think the country as a whole remains relatively the same politically. Sure we are in a right dip, but then it goes too far, people get tired of it, switch parties, and we spring into a left dip.

    It’s a tug and war that no one ever wins and it’s what makes this country so great. When a party is in charge, they always manage to screw it up and the other makes their move, and eventually screws it up as well.

    History always has a way of evening out the score.

  • I think this is a bunch of nonesense and I doubt that this survey was conducted in a very scientific way. What about the huge block of Hispanic voters who have been dissed by the conservatives in congress? Some of the parents may not be able to vote, but those kids will be turning 18 before we know it if they haven’t already. The republi-thugs do not have a very strong pro-family agenda and their behavior has demonstrated that fact. From blocking increases in the minimum wage to the bankruptcy bill and the huge increases in credit card interest charges, these thugs have shown their true agenda. We don’t need to make babies, we need to play fair. If we do that, we will have recruits.

  • Liberals have one more secret weapon–one of “mass procreation”–Hispanic immigrants and native-born Hispanic-Americans. Thanks to right-wingers, like Pat Buchanan who loudly rant about immigration (read “brown-skinned people”), and the failure of Karl Rove to convince political rednecks to “go with the flow” of the “brown wave”–or be drowned and lose power, the Republicans may face minority party status in the near future and for decades after that.

    Pat Buchanan was on NBC’s Today show–just this morning–pushing his new book: “State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2006). For a review by fellow right-wing pundit Tony Blankley, see link here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/pat_buchanans_state_of_emergen.html

    I don’t understand Spanish, and I won’t touch that damn-spicy Mexican foods, but I welcome all people who are Democratic voters.

  • The fertility gap?! What a croc. If liberal Democrats wanted to build a lasting electoral legacy, then they should try to inspire the 1/3 of eligible voters who are fed up with politics as usual. Progressive voting initiatives, like ending gerrymandering, enacting Instant Runoff voting, and shortening the campaign season (to reduce campaign contribution dependency), would be orders of magnitude more effective at bringing people to the Democratic ballot for years to come.

    Makin’ babies? Give me a break.

  • Rather than making babies, we need more Dems in the rural areas. Right now, the GOP rural “line” is that rural folks are carrying an unbalanced share of the load by supporting liberal urbania. The best way to counter that is to start shifting part of the Democratic faithful into rural areas. Considering that land is far cheaper in rural portions of the country than it is in either urban or ‘burb regions, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Rural utility cooperatives result in electricity and natural gas being more affordable. Rural school districts have outperformed their urban counterparts for decades—and some of them are beginning to outpace the suburban schools as well. Rural acreage, when compared to a tiny sliver of dirt in the ‘burbs or a cramped box in a highrise, also allows for one to produce their own food.

    Or, just move all the Democrats out into the countryside. We’ll buy all the farms—and starve the Republikanner beast into submission….

  • Steve,
    You have forgotten about two “cities”: Houston and Detroit. Specifically, the industries identified with those cities–oil and automobiles. The internet may all make closer, but the price of fuel can make everything–except land–in the hinterlands more expensive.

  • I am an example of one who broke from my Republican parents’ party. Though my dad has expressed a bit of independence in the past, having voted for John Anderson for president, for example.

    While all of my (3) sisters are registered Repubs, one of them is more of an independent and works in a field that would possibly benefit from stem cell research, so she is for that. One of my nieces, daughter of the most conservative of my sisters, has just gone off to college and I hope that will open her eyes. While the college is affiliated with a major protestant denomination, it is the liberal branch of this denomination. My niece is pretty sharp and I hope she’ll be able to figure out what is wrong with her parents’ politics.

    BTW, my siblings and I had two kids each. Since we’re counting… (and the two belonging to my more indy sister both agree with the Dems – as do mine!).

  • Wow, you folks are so not cynical enough for me! To me this is old news. Dumb people have more babies than smart people.

    The question is: have we reached a critical mass of dumb people in this country so that we can no longer remain a democracy? The results of the 2004 elections indicate that we are close to the tipping point. The results of the 2006 and 2008 elections will reveal whether we were momentarily deranged by extraordinary events (i.e. 9/11) or if we’ve gone over the brink and are irreversibly headed toward authoritarianism.

  • #2 got it right. The demography-is-destiny claptrap has been around for eons & applied to every subject under the sun.

    Politics is about issues. If the Ds get it right, the Ds will win. Right now, except for some of the netroots candidates, the Ds are too dumb to live–Darwin awards all around.

  • “I doubt that the parties and the issues will be the same a generation from now as they are today.” – KCinDC

    Surely not. But the question is, will the political methods still be the same? Will Republican’ts still accuse anyone who disagrees with them with being un-American while at the same time not being able to competently manage a country?

  • I was going to say something cheap and nasty till I got down to the box with the caret and read doubtful at 5:43. It seems.. ? I don’t know what it seems. Like: what a shame to spoil a perfect ending.

    So what do I do with this thing that seemed so neat a few pages up and now seems flat and second rate? Do I just carry it around like a timid fart? A good, well-rounded, mature, carefully timed, expertly released, positive and purposefully explosive fart is a work of art (as we fail, IIMS, to mention further up), not to be disparaged.

    Like the unmentionable some of the fecunder types refer to by a word (capitalized often, misguiedly) shared by a small, otherwise innocent, leafy product of evolution suitable for hiding behind, said: “I am not trying to chase a poll.” (or pole, or post). B U T ..

    ..when the sperm get the vote then we’ll know who’s wearing the trousers around this democracy.

  • P.S. I mean, seriously, being as what I am Population Ecology graduated, I have it as my beholden duty to point out that population size is a function not only of birth rate but also of death rate, not to mention factors of emigration and imigration. So half of the required information is missing from Professor Brooks’ calculations.

    He does, however, make incidental allusion to the other side of the equation when he quotes “..a liberal columnist in a major paper [who] graphically put it..” (my emphasis):

    “Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation.”

    That factor of environmental destruction alone will account, eventually, for a dramatic — actually catastrophic — shift in the dynamical balance resulting in some form of population crash. The exact shape this may take is extremely difficult to predict since, like with climate change, there are just so many variables.

    Because of this I have to say I think the usefulness of Professor Brooks’ thesis is marginal though entertaining.

  • My dad was a raving John Bircher and look how well I turned out. Basically smart kids grow up to be liberals or moderates and dumb kids grow up to be knuckleheads and after a point, you can’t blame your parents anymore.

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