By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
In Trumpworld, the disconnect between rhetoric and reality, verbiage and common sense is so vast, the output so voluminous, that it risks becoming background noise; even in the face of the constant cozening, as Trump and his mouthies tell us, unflinching, that down is up, dark is light.
“The greatest first hundred days of any presidency, ever,” Trump claimed, standing amidst the ashes of the economy, consumer confidence, gutted necessary government agencies, trust in America’s world leadership, but dripping with grifted coin (New York Times: tinyurl.com/moregrift) by the truckload.
Under a blinding gaslight, fingers surely crossed behind his back, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assures us that it’s “strategic uncertainty,” referring to the crashes and mini-recoveries and crashes again of markets, ignoring vacant ports and emptying shelves. Because there’s nothing business owners find more strategic than uncertainty. Consumers, too.
Even with the consistent inconsistency stumbling out of the Oval Office, this latest Trumpy thing called “pronatalism” is something special. Birth rates are dropping, is the worry. Unspoken but obvious, the concern is the end of America’s dominance by white people. Patriotic women, formerly and futurely doing business only as vessels of man’s seed, must submit to the duty knocking (up) at their door. Look at the ladies in this unsubtle posting, complete with Jesus and a bald eagle, and have your doubts removed: (X: tinyurl.com/morwhite4u).
J.D. Vance is pushing it. So, too, is the right-wing media cartel. Elon Musk is making babies faster than he’s producing Swasticars (Reddit: tinyurl.com/muskicar). To them, it’s about incubating future voters. To capitalism, it’s about buyers. To Social Security, it’s payers-in. To Earth, though, it’s about continuing destruction of life-giving biomes, depletion of resources, and, eventually, making the planet uninhabitable for mammals like us. So, whereas there are non-political arguments on both sides of the population issue, from the political right, it’s cynicism wrapped in racism tied with a red ribbon of hypocrisy.
The disconcerting disconnect is this: Even as they push for more pregnancies, they’re legislating to make life miserable or even impossible for the newly born. Especially for economically disadvantaged ones, who, for the most part, won’t become their voters. But if those children do grow up healthy enough to vote, Republicans are making sure public education won’t prepare them to think critically, making it more likely they’ll vote their way.
Pronatalism is about inciting women to become pregnant, repeatedly. Especially, if they could make it so, white women. In the U.S., birthrates among whites are significantly lower than among Blacks and Hispanics. Thus the panic: “We’re losing to… them,” (CDC: tinyurl.com/birthrates4u). And, because MAGA is MAGA, pronatalism is also about shaming women who don’t buy in. Making America great again includes returning to when making babies was womankind’s sole purpose. And, now, their duty. To Trump. Because, by his own words, he runs the world (USA Today: tinyurl.com/heruns4u).
Pronatalism shares space with the push for public funding of religious and home schooling: when the kids are ready, get them indoctrinated in far-right Christian nationalism and “conservative” values. Kill empathy in the crib. Produce children who’ve become unable to resist the idiocy, like this gob-smacker, for only one example: (Medscape: tinyurl.com/22dumb4u).
To be pronatalist ought to mean being against the anti-life measures forced by today’s Republican Party. Instead, they’re all in. The list is long, broad, and far-reaching. For example, the Department of Justice has canceled grants for gun violence and addiction prevention, darkening the future for children of all colors and beliefs. Under Trump, because it’s what he does, Health and Human Services plans to end suicide hotlines for LGBTQ+ youth, which take more than 2,000 calls a day. That’s pro-death, not pro-life. And that’s far from all. A ProPublica report makes it clear (tinyurl.com/ProPub4u):
“The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in part so that babies don’t die from extreme heat or cold, have all been fired. The federal office that oversees the enforcement of child support payments has been hollowed out. Head Start preschools, which teach toddlers their ABCs and feed them healthy meals, will likely be forced to shut down en masse, some as soon as May 1. And funding for investigating child sexual abuse and internet crimes against children; responding to reports of missing children; and preventing youth violence has been withdrawn indefinitely. The administration has laid off thousands of workers from coast to coast who had supervised education, child care, child support and child protective services systems, and it has blocked or delayed billions of dollars in funding for things like school meals and school safety.”
Pronatalism’s children will be increasingly unsafe: cuts to research on childhood cancer and other diseases. Closing of vaccination centers, ending protections for minorities, unhealthier schools (NYT: tinyurl.com/nosafeschool). Worsening climate change, uninspected food (WION: tinyurl.com/unsafe4u). Don’t worry, though, says Trump’s MAGAfied party. If you’re rich enough to protect yourselves from the consequences of our anti-life policies, go forth and multiply. Create voters for us. If not, you’re on your own. Thoughts and prayers and all that.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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