The trump administration has identified a new “crisis” that must be addressed: Birth Rates are dropping in America. This is not just a recent issue—birth rates have been fairly steadily dropping since the 1960s, but they’ve gotten especially low over the last ten years. And so, elon and RFK Jr. and Shitler himself are setting their sights on the goal of increasing birth rates in America. To that end, the brain trust in the Oval Office is floating a brilliant idea: “Maybe we give these reluctant incubators a nice little $5000 check if they pop out a kid… That, and we can give them some ‘menstrual classes'” (as if the problem is that women have forgotten how ovulation works). Trump has dubbed it a “Baby Bonus,” as all good ideas have to have an alliterative title.
And I mean, who BETTER to figure out why women aren’t having as many babies than a room full of men, amirite? So then I figured, “Hey, *I’M* a man! I must have some important things to say about this as well!! [screams internally while not knowing whether to laugh or cry]
Okay… Okay… Just… Okay. I need to turn off the sarcasm and get serious. I did about five minutes of deep breathing with my face in my hands… quietly considering whether it’s worth it to continue writing this post… wondering how in the world we got into this situation, where a man who is quite possibly the most immoral, most broken, most incompetent person on the planet is holding the most powerful office in the nation. Okay… Deep breath.
Let’s start at the beginning: Birth rates in America have been dropping since 1960. Do you know what else happened in 1960? The FDA approved the birth control pill for women. Interestingly, scientists have had many successful attempts at making a birth control pill for men, but those pills were abandoned because of the side effects… Even though the side effects men experienced were nearly identical (and often less severe) than the side effects women experience when taking the pill. And let’s be honest—Do we really trust young men to be responsible enough to remember to faithfully take a daily birth control pill. So men are really left with two options for their own birth control: Condoms and vasectomies. Still, the pill—along with access to safe and legal abortions—gave women more control over when and if they CHOOSE to have a baby… and that was a GIANT leap forward for women’s rights. Which is one of the reasons why birth-rate-obsessed republicans and their pernicious Project 2025 have been so focused on removing those rights from women and undermining access to birth control.
Before I continue, let’s be real: Republicans are not interested in raising ALL birth rates. That’s clear to everyone, right? The “crisis” America is facing is not that birth rates are dropping… For them, the crisis is that WHITE birth rates are dropping. They’re not trying to raise the birth rates of Black & Brown families. They’re worried about America getting less white. It’s the beating, racist heart behind trump’s remarks about people from “shithole countries” (referring to Haiti and African nations) wanting to come here, while he lamented that people from Norway weren’t immigrating. He actually said this. And said and did so much worse. And 77 million Americans still voted for him. Lord have mercy. ANYway… If they were so worried about not having enough people, they could just let in some of those brown people looking for work and hungry for a better life lined up at our southern border. So we can all agree that republicans are not focused making more babies. They’re focused on making more WHITE babies. Concern about falling birthrates is almost always about eugenics and racism. Just so that’s settled…
So the pill is one of the main reasons for the START of the decline in U.S. birth rates. But I’d like to focus more on the precipitous drop in birth rates since 2015. Let’s think back… What was happening in the American zeitgeist around 2015? What fetid narcissistic monstrosity came forward like the orange, ready-to-pop head of a giant pimple that was symptomatic of the pent-up racism and white fragility buried beneath America’s unwashed back?
Stay with me for a minute or two. Imagine you have a large portion of America that’s grown accustomed to a certain amount of privilege. This privilege comes in many forms: Maybe you got used to getting hired for a job over someone who’s just as qualified as you are because you’re white or you’re a man… Maybe you got used to getting let off with a warning when you’re pulled over, when the same thing doesn’t happen for people who don’t look like you… Maybe you got used to feeling valued as a “provider” for someone whose options were severely limited by the society they live in. And THEN, you start seeing changes around you… People noticing your privilege… People calling for equality. And as you experience the growing equality around you, you interpret that equality as oppression. And you long for older times… BETTER times… A time when America was GREAT.
And it’s unthinkable that “privilege” had anything to do with you getting to where you are. So if a woman or a Black person got a promotion, it HAD to be because of unfair policies… and not because of the character-building process of having to work twice as hard to get half as much. Sure, social media exposes you to videos of Black people having interactions with law enforcement that seem very different than the ones you are used to… But it must be because they had it coming. Because if the playing field isn’t level, that means you might not have EARNED everything you have. Maybe your wife left you—or your mom left your dad—and maybe you don’t feel valued simply by virtue of you being a man—even though you bring nothing to the relationship other than anger and fragility and a need for control—and you like the sound of this Project 2025 and its plan to end no-fault divorce.
And so they’ve given you something to BLAME for your dwindling privilege. It’s not your own mediocrity… It CAN’T be. It’s that evil DEI!! (side note: I don’t think I’ll ever get over the fact that they’ve managed to get a significant portion of America to demonize DIVERSITY, EQUITY, and INCLUSION). And you’re angry! And you’re wanting to make America great again! And then a bunch of corrupt, incompetent, liars and criminals—with the help of billionaires who control the media you take in—ride your wave of working man’s anger and misplaced nostalgia to an electoral victory. God help us.
And now here we are: With a whole administration believes that we have to get “back” to “meritocracy,” while ALSO believing that the only ones with true merit are STRAIGHT WHITE MEN. Add to that the fact that any reasonable republicans have either left or been abandoned by the trump cultists in charge, so they’re only accepting applications from the kind of fiercely loyal cowards who are either drowning in the kool-aid or terrified to speak up… The sort of people who know for SURE that if they DO speak up with ideas contrary to the party line, the brain-rotted, character-lacking boy’s club in charge will replace them in an INSTANT with some other fiercely loyal, incompetent coward. Compassion is foreign to Dear Leader, and it must be foreign to his loyal lackeys as well.
And a nation of women look on in disbelief at the horrors unfolding… at their rights being whittled away… at a psychotic & growingly toxic ideology pushing a narrative that tells young men that compassion is FEMININE, and femininity is WEAKNESS. They demonize & scapegoat femininity & compassion, all while encouraging the worst, most toxic parts of masculinity to thrive. Women watch as aggrieved, fragile morons work to dismantle every social safety net and remove any bit of government support that sniffs of compassion or works to help people in any meaningful way. Housing prices skyrocket, healthcare is unaffordable, and when a competent person comes along with actual plans to help working people, both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris lose the general election … wait for it… because America isn’t really ready for a woman to lead. All of this while attacking education, sowing distrust of the vaccines that keep our kids safe from diseases, and calling climate change a “hoax.”
And into this symphony of sadness and dysfunction, they have the nerve to ask women to have more babies. I mean… Seriously.
Please read this very good post.
So just to recap: Republicans have been steadily working to remove any programs that help mothers and children, fighting tooth and nail against universal or even affordable healthcare, making the future more & more frightening and uncertain. They refuse to raise the living wage, refuse to raise taxes on billionaires, refuse to help with exploitative student debt, refuse to pay for pre-K, refuse paid parental leave, refuse to do anything about affordable housing… All while demonizing & diminishing femininity and encouraging a significant portion of American men to become infinitely more unfuckable—but they’re wondering why fewer women are deciding to have babies? Am I getting that right?
Thank you so much for reading. If you managed to read all this way, you are probably—like me—very discouraged. You might—like me—be wondering if anything you do makes any sort of difference in the face of such evil. I’m reminded of King Theoden asking, “What can men do against such reckless hate?” And Aragorn’s brave response, “Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them.” I’m so sad. And so angry. And so ready to ride out and meet them. THANK YOU to the people who support this blog. If appreciated this post, & you’d like to leave a tip, you can do that ON PAYPAL or you can Venmo me at chris-boeskool. If you’d like to become a patron, you can do that ON PATREON. Or you can follow me ON BLUESKY (elon’s twitter is for fascists) or still on Facebook (ugh, I know). Stay strong, stay hopeful, and stay active.