Two hours before Donald Trump was set to take the stage at Madison Square Garden in New York City, right-wing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe warmed up the crowd with a shockingly racist performance.
“Where are my proud Latinos at tonight?” Hinchcliffe asked the packed arena, eliciting scattered loud cheers. “You guys see what I mean? [The border’s] wide open. There’s so many of them.”
“These Latinos, they love making babies, too,” he added. “There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside just like they did to our country.”
The crowd groaned and cheered as Hinchcliffe continued, saying, “Republicans are the party with a good sense of humor.”
This is the other thing that’s fueling MAGA conservatives. Birth rates. It’s a topic that keeps coming up in organic conversation.
The talk there isn’t so much about lower birth rates and such. It’s emphasizing how much brown and black people are still having “tons of babies” which everyone else (read: white people) are not.
This should scare you and not so much for the embedded racist sludge that goes with it, but how it speaks to driving motivation. And what MAGA may choose to do about white people not having babies, and how supportive their supporters will be of that choice.
This comedian speaking about that topic under the guise of comedy is simply there to stir that pot. It’s still a political speech of sorts.
I read that the drop in birth rates is almost 100% attributable to solving teen pregnancy.
There’s a worldwide phenomenon of falling birth rates. I doubt it’s even mostly attributable to teen birth rates.
there are lots of reasons that vary country to country but fewer teen pregnancies is a major contributor in the US. linking to this video because the original article has a paywall.
so teen pregnancies are a major factor, but the 20-29 age groups are falling a ton as well.
There’s also the well documented effect that more educated people just have less kids in general, and it seems to hold for every country.
I imagine the difference is a between “why” and “why not”.
A generally educated couple might encounter the question of “Is there I reason why I should have kids?”, decide “yes, because I’d like to”, and have 1-3 kids. More poorly educated couples encounter the question “is there a reason why I should not have kids?”, decide “no”, and have 2-3 more.
this video covers falling birthrates globally. the specific timestamp has a handy graph of birthrates per age group. linking the video because the original article has a paywall.
so basically teen pregnancies are a major factor, but the 20-29 age groups are falling a ton as well.
The more women have equal rights the lower the birthrate
The more accessible contraception is the lower the birthrate
The more educated people are the lower the birthrate
The more accessible abortion is the lower the birthrate
See a pattern here between that and conservative policies? People, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, who talk about the need to increase birthrate need to realize that these things are what they’re wishing to see being gone. No matter how easy you make it to have babies, people don’t want enough of them if they have access to education and preventive measures, social democracies with very wide safety nets and social programs and long parental leaves don’t have a birthrate any higher than the one in the USA (in fact, in some cases it’s some of the lowest in the whole world!).
Part of it is just money. The trickle up economics of the last 10 yrs has squeezed the possibility out of the working class.
That’s a problem because not only does it lower the “domestic supply of infants”, it also lowers the number of desperately poor kids who enlist in the military right out of high school to escape poverty and get that “free” education.
The cycle of poor is also one of not golden handcuffs, but nickel ones that turn your skin green. It’s a complacent work force. People who don’t engage political activism, join unions (thinking they can’t afford the monthly fees), and keep their heads down for the sake of feeding their kids.
And most working class people doing better than poverty, with kids, turn their main focus on them, on their households. Again with the complacency and keeping your head down, because you have more to lose.
