My two sense on not having kids: Women are bright, intelligent and want to make a contribution and want to use their university degree. I remember as a young guy in the early 00s, looking to date, but even back then male female priorities were not aligned. My mother had two Bachelors degrees, but chose to spend 10+ years out of the work force raising us. I didn’t find young women who were interested in that life. They wanted to use their education. And why not, the stupid paper cost $100,000! It was also considered deeply impolite to talk about wanting to have kids, even at a Christian college. That was taken as a dog whistle indicating you wanted keep women barefoot pregnant and at home. So smart women got PhDs and MDs and guys stayed single.
I also wonder about how the 'religious' / 'post-religious' divide within the right maps onto the very fraught relationship between the GOP elite and the GOP base. At least as far back as the 1994 elections, observers were noticing the differences between the Catholic/Jewish elite and the evangelical base. More recently Tanner Greer noted the challenge of postliberal elites trying to lead 'backcountry folk libertarians.' I suspect that postliberal elites are turning to Nietzsche, and the postliberal base is becoming 'barstool' or 'South Park' conservatives.
I hadn't read that Tanner Greer piece, but it's very insightful. Though it sounds like you mean to say the base is postreligious, but not postliberal; it doesn't know how to be anything BUT folk liberal/libertarian.
While it's easy to start despairing over the future for our liberties, the fact on the ground is that liberties in this country are still on a strong footing. It's hard for politicians to make anything happen; the system is on autopilot. I'm reminded here of the way Douthat used to speak of decadence. For good or ill, our liberties are protected by the fact that no one has their act together well enough to constrain them. Elites talk about big ideas, but hoi polloi don't want them, and this acts as an inertial force on the entire system. This has never been more manifest than in the current election, where the Democrats evidently have no policy agenda aside from blocking the big ideas in the Republicans' agenda, epitomized by the Project 2025 bogeyman but also anything and everything Vance has said about the family.
My two sense on not having kids: Women are bright, intelligent and want to make a contribution and want to use their university degree. I remember as a young guy in the early 00s, looking to date, but even back then male female priorities were not aligned. My mother had two Bachelors degrees, but chose to spend 10+ years out of the work force raising us. I didn’t find young women who were interested in that life. They wanted to use their education. And why not, the stupid paper cost $100,000! It was also considered deeply impolite to talk about wanting to have kids, even at a Christian college. That was taken as a dog whistle indicating you wanted keep women barefoot pregnant and at home. So smart women got PhDs and MDs and guys stayed single.
I also wonder about how the 'religious' / 'post-religious' divide within the right maps onto the very fraught relationship between the GOP elite and the GOP base. At least as far back as the 1994 elections, observers were noticing the differences between the Catholic/Jewish elite and the evangelical base. More recently Tanner Greer noted the challenge of postliberal elites trying to lead 'backcountry folk libertarians.' I suspect that postliberal elites are turning to Nietzsche, and the postliberal base is becoming 'barstool' or 'South Park' conservatives.
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/12/magazine/the-counter-counterculture.html
https://scholars-stage.org/the-problem-of-the-new-right/
I hadn't read that Tanner Greer piece, but it's very insightful. Though it sounds like you mean to say the base is postreligious, but not postliberal; it doesn't know how to be anything BUT folk liberal/libertarian.
While it's easy to start despairing over the future for our liberties, the fact on the ground is that liberties in this country are still on a strong footing. It's hard for politicians to make anything happen; the system is on autopilot. I'm reminded here of the way Douthat used to speak of decadence. For good or ill, our liberties are protected by the fact that no one has their act together well enough to constrain them. Elites talk about big ideas, but hoi polloi don't want them, and this acts as an inertial force on the entire system. This has never been more manifest than in the current election, where the Democrats evidently have no policy agenda aside from blocking the big ideas in the Republicans' agenda, epitomized by the Project 2025 bogeyman but also anything and everything Vance has said about the family.