In this time of aging nations, demographic shifts along ideological lines could make one think that our nation will go red eventually. Unfortunately not.
A poll by the American Enterprise Institute shows that counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 have a 25% lower birthrate average than counties that voted for Donald Trump. This is due to stronger convictions most Republicans have about wanting children and opposing abortion and contraceptives, as opposed to Democrats.
Thanks to declining trends among both Democrats and Republicans overall, however, the U.S. is still very much involved in the gradual depopulation process that most countries around the world are also undergoing. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that America will fall to a birthrate of almost 0.2 by 2050.
Despite general decline rates on all sides, because the decline is smaller for Republicans, one might assume that this is strong evidence for the idea that America will eventually become overwhelmingly red. This is a false assumption. It fails to account for what the majority of children born to Republican parents will likely decide once they are old enough to vote.
Young people are increasingly more eager to vote in each election cycle, and in higher numbers each time. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that 50% of people ages 18-29 voted in 2020, a significant increase from the 39% who voted in 2016.
Lamentably, young people also vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Sixty-one percent of that same age range voted for Biden in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. Of course, Democratic politicians have learned to cater to this lucrative demographic, but given the fact that most young people no longer bother to self-educate and therefore find politics boring, what external factors are actually getting them riled up enough to vote Democratic?
The first major factor is the constant and addictive daily cycle of absorbing social media. Young people spend far too much time online to the point that it causes incredible mental damage to them in the long run. Most Big Tech oligarchs are also actively in bed with the Democratic Party, suppressing right-wing media to promote radical leftist propaganda instead. Such efforts have placed the already far-left popular culture into the headlights of young people.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The second major factor is the dominant influence of the universities. A study in 2020 by the National Association of Scholars found that the ratio of registered Democrats to registered Republicans among university staff is 8.5-to-1, meaning that the latter are barely represented on campus. Universities have been activist hotbeds for leftists for nearly the past century, so its level of influence on the students comes as no surprise.
If Republicans were getting their hopes up for America’s demographic future due to the significant birthrate gap, rest assured that their own children are statistically more likely to turn the country even more blue.
Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner winter fellow.