Jett Steiger

There is a somewhat strange tension in Republican messaging: On the one hand, luxury trad wife, pro-natalist ideals sit at its core — have more kids, return to family values. At the same time, its leaders insist that the United States cannot afford childcare, healthcare, paid leave, or other forms of material support for those same families. We are broke. You must live with austerity. The data, meanwhile, is not especially controversial: the primary constraint on whether young couples start families is financial. So the combined message is something like: you should have more children, but also the system will not meaningfully de-risk that decision for you. Which is honestly a pretty un-American pitch. This is the wealthiest country in history — a place where the cultural identity is that everything is supposed to be bigger, better, more ambitious. And yet the governing posture being offered is scarcity. There’s an obvious political opportunity here, which is to just reject that premise entirely and say: You are an American. You live in the richest country on earth. You should be treated like it. You should have freer healthcare than the French. You should have better paid leave than the Swedes. You should have more affordable childcare than the Germans. You should have better-funded schools than the Singaporeans. You should be able to raise a family on a more livable wage than anywhere in the world. Not as some aspirational program — as the baseline. A pro-family agenda is not telling people to have kids. It is making it economically viable to do so — and aligning the standard of living with the actual wealth of the country. And I don’t mean the next Democratic candidate should say this once in a debate. I think this should be the foundation of the entire platform — in the midterms, and more importantly, in the next presidential election. Because right now, the public perception is something like this: Democrats are neoliberal managers who capitulate to corporations, obsess over process, and confuse caution for virtue. Republicans are willing to break rules, make Democrats look like pussies, tell them to go fuck themselves (which, to be clear, polls), and “get things done” — even when what they’re actually getting done is austerity for everyone below the oligarch class. The only path forward is to reverse that polarity. Democrats need to make the case that Republican austerity is not strength. It is weakness. It is asking the richest country in the world to behave like it’s broke. Which is honestly more pussy than being a rule-following neoliberal. The actually bold position is simple: The richest country in the world should deliver the highest standard of family life in the world — and then govern accordingly.