Links to Consider

Ian Leslie on the political age/gender divide; John Cochrane on Trump supporters; Alice Evans on the fertility drop; Asymmetric insights about the border crisis

Ian Leslie writes,

Much of modern society, including our endlessly fragmented media, protects us from having to truly engage with those who don’t share our politics.

That’s why the development of a political rift between the genders is so promising. What’s the most compelling common project of all? Sex - sex and love. Short of a mass conversion to homosexuality, many or most of these people are still going to hook up together and form partnerships and families, caveats about declining birth rates aside. Conservative-leaning young men who only seek out conservative-leaning young women will be fishing in a small pool; liberal women will only diminish the size of their pool if they stick to men who are as liberal as they are. Both sides therefore have a powerful incentive to forge relationships with people who hold political views different to their own. They can then infect each other with their different ideas, generating new syntheses, and moving us all along.

I pass along his optimism, even though I do not share it.

John Cochrane writes,

What motivates Trump supporters? Simple: They want their country back.

…They’ll back an America that fights to win, but they don’t want their sons and daughters to die for America only to lose slowly.

…In 2020 Covid hit. Trump supporters initially went along, trusting institutions. But the pandemic soon exposed the politicized incompetence of the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the scientific establishment.

He implies that elites would garner support if they were more competent.

What should Nikki Haley do? Show that she understands this deep frustration. Explain how she will fix the country’s institutions and why Mr. Trump won’t or can’t. What should Mr. Trump do? Understand that this election isn’t about him. He is but the vessel for these voters’ hopes for their country. His personal vendettas will keep him from office.

I think that “fix the country’s institutions” is what conservative intellectuals like John and me would like to see. But I don’t think that is what MAGA means to Mr. Trump’s support base. My intuition is that they are looking for a more emotional experience of cultural pride.

John would have Mr. Trump “Understand that this election isn’t about him.” I would, too, but then he wouldn’t be Trump. Mr. Trump’s bitterness over the last election may be helping to energize his supporters. But if he keeps it up all the way to election day, I would not be surprised if he gets a chance to reprise it afterward. Swing voters will have grown tired of his crybaby loser act.

Alice Evans writes,

My answer is two-fold. First, cultural liberalisation means that we live in a world of endless opportunities for entertainment, status and advancement. Kids can be hugely fulfilling but this expensive project now faces stiff competition. Only 26% of Americans say that having children is important for a fulfilling life.

Second, parenting now comes with heavy expectations. In ultra competitive East Asia, parents invest heavily in their children’s schooling. This ‘educational arms race’ is so incredibly stressful that one child is increasingly seen as enough.

Indeed. The perception of children has changed during my lifetime. Having children (plural) used to be just part of the normal life cycle, not a choice that you thought about. Now people think about it, and they think about it as a burden.

In my opinion, people are thinking about children wrong. They ought to think: We are going to really appreciate having grandchildren, so let’s take the necessary intermediate step.

Nobody used to think that way, either. Couples had children because similar couples were having children.

Glenn Reynolds writes,

The federal government is – deliberately – failing to enforce immigration laws, and it’s doing so for political purposes that are, in fact, a threat to “our democracy,” to use a term that the Democrats like to employ. 

His claim is that the Democrats are willing to take a short-term hit in order to bring about a demographic change that in the long run will help them win elections.

That is an asymmetric insight. It attributes to the other side a motive that they themselves do not acknowledge.

I generally disapprove of pundits trying the tactic of asymmetric insights. But my own asymmetric insight is that the Democrats are motivated in part by their hatred of Donald Trump. if Trump wants to close the border and put up a wall, then we must want the opposite.¹

I think that the most charitable reading of the progressive position is that they genuinely sympathize with the illegal immigrants. Along the oppressor-oppressed axis, progressives see the would-be immigrants as oppressed and those who wish to keep them out as oppressors.

It’s not that progressives have gone full Bryan Caplan. They are not open-borders libertarians. If the illegal immigrants were wealthy anglos, progressives would cheerfully deport them.

Also, on the topic of immigration—as on just about any other topic—Bret Weinstein has a conspiracy theory. Listener teases the story. Spoiler alert: Bret insinuates that China is sending military-aged men up through Latin America. And that high-level American officials have been paid to look the other way.

substacks referenced above:

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The Darien Gap

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Biden and the Border

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Why has Fertility Plummeted? Insights from Hong Kong

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Opposites Attract

1. And note that Mr. Trump does not want Congressional Republicans to do anything about border security this year, presumably because he wants to run on the issue rather than have it appear to be resolved.