When Politics Gets Weird
New conversations, new policies, more drama
Photo: Ballerina Farm Instagram
It’s a weird summer for politics. Sure, the candidates are weird, but that’s nothing new. We’ve always had oddballs in office. In low information democracies, weirdos catch the eye of the voters. In New York and New Jersey, we only elect weirdos — that’s our brand — who can never win a national election. This election is different, because the process is weird, too.
The Biden-Harris Swap was weird, not politics as usual in America. The result of this unexpected move has upended politics in all sorts of other ways. The last minute scrambling has resulted in poorly vetted and prepped key people. Trump’s VP pick, JD Vance, seemed safe at first, but he’s getting more headlines than Trump himself. We don’t know which Harris we’re going to get yet — prosecutor Harris or defund the police Harris. Trump is suddenly losing in the polls and needs a whole new campaign strategy. Dirt is coming out about her husband, which needs to be handled.
Poor preparation opens the door to wonderful gaffs and news headlines. I haven’t had this much fun watching politics in ages. Highly paid consultants must be less happy; they’re surely freaking out, because months of carefully tested campaign slogans and polling was just thrown out the window.
As the politicians and their consultants frantically prep for a new election, both campaigns are barreling down a hill without a driver. [Did I mention how much fun this is?] The press and armchair pundits are defining the election in their own way without speeches, ads, or debates to guide headlines. Soon, I’m sure, the campaign directors will be handing out new talking points and getting the messages back on track, but right now, it’s random.
Last week, we had a strange detour into family politics. As a mom and politics geek, I love the topic, but I’m alone on that one. Family politics has always taken the backseat in presidential elections to topics like foreign policy, the economy, culture war shit, and maybe the environment.
The press found an old clip of JD Vance, Trump’s VP nominee, saying that our country is run by miserable, childless cat ladies. He clarified this week saying that the quote was taken out of context. He really wanted to say that the Democratic Party is anti-family and anti-parent. Oh sure.
Then, Democrats overreacted and suddenly, families were somehow suspect and childfree people were true Americans.
At the same time and probably coincidentally, The Times did a hit piece on an Instagram star who bakes bread, wins beauty pageants, and has nine kids. The author of the article called Hannah from Ballerina Farms a Trad Wife — a derogatory term for women who enjoy the domestic life — and basically accuses her husband of spousal abuse. The article went viral and spawned a slew of thought pieces.
We’re in the midst of a very weird debate on the national stage. We’ve fought about family values and other culture war shit many times, but I can’t think of another time when we fought about who is a better American — parents or the childless.
Let’s go beyond the accusations, and talk facts.
America’s fertility rate has fallen, as it has world-wide, because of rising costs for child care, increasingly expensive housing and slipping optimism about the future. Raising a family is super expensive.
Democrats are more likely to never had children. About 38 percent of Democrats had never had children as of 2022, compared with 26 percent of Republicans.
A general decline in the meaning of life. People aren’t happy with their lives and don’t see the point of bringing new life into the world. I’m not sure if this is a fact, but it was an interesting essay in the Atlantic.
Parenting has gotten harder. Today’s mothers spend more time with their children than mothers did in the 1960s. Now, college grads can’t interview for a job without their parents in the room.
I’m laissez-faire on making babies. In general, it’s good for a society to have babies, because they grow up, pay taxes, and care for their parents. If a society doesn’t have kids, then they have to open their border to immigrants to replace those taxpaying, old people caretakers.
However, there are plenty of rational reasons to not have children. Kids are a lot of work, which means that one or both parents will make career sacrifices. Not every person is cut out to be a good parent, has the ability to give birth, or has found a quality spouse. There are few supports for families, whose children have high needs. Kids are expensive.
While childless people might not produce future tax payers and old people caretakers, they still pay taxes that fund schools, daycare facilities, and town recreation spaces. In general, they don’t happily pay for those things, but we get those funds anyway.
It’s weird — my favorite word of the day — to make the distinction between parents and childless people. Most parents are only parents for about twenty years, for the most part. Their kids eventually finish their education, get jobs, and move out of the home. Empty nesters — a HUGE voting block — have the same political interests as childless people. They don’t care about childcare and schools, and aren’t excited about paying for more taxes for those issues, because they don’t need them anymore.
While I’m not officially a childless person — there are two 20-year olds in my house. ugh — I’m an ally of young parents. I want strong schools, affordable housing, and affordable child care. I want parenting to be easier for all kinds of families. I want people, who want to have children, to have children. And I want our weirdo political leaders to support pro-family policies, without creating parent wars.
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In general, kids are great. Have some, if you can.
