Voice in the Wilderness

Why Ideas Matter:
Red State Baby Boom + Scots Irish cultural ethic = Democrat electoral problems
December 29, 2004

Merry Christmas, dear blog readers! I'm at my parents' house in cold, snowy northern Iowa, currently enjoying lots of hot chocolate, fireside reading, college football, warm fellowship, and my folks' high speed wireless internet connection. I'm also enjoying a little extra time to blog on some recent events.

Red State Baby Factories
The "wait a minute, what's going on here?" moment I've recently found is the striking difference between red state and blue state birth rates. Articles like "Baby Gap" by Steve Sailer and "The New Red Diaper Babies" by David Books (free subscription required to see full article) chronicle the demographic quirk that most closely correlates to voting behavior: white fertility.

Says Sailer:

"Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility (just as he did in 2000), and 25 out of the top 26..... In sharp contrast, Kerry won the 16 states at the bottom of the list, with the Democrats’ anchor states of California (1.65) and New York (1.72) having quite infertile whites."

The numbers behind California and New York above represent the number of babies per white woman. By comparison, heavily pro-bush Utah boasts a 2.45 babies/white woman ratio. (No word on whether the babies/white man ratio is dramatically larger there).

Not coincidentally, red states are growing in population verses blue states, as the 2004 reapportionment gain of red state electoral votes versus 2000 shows. In other words, where the white fertility rate is higher, the more likely the population is to be growing and voting Republican.

So what's really going on here? Sailer and Brooks both proffer theories revolving around cost and quality of life issues. Rural, exurban, and some suburban areas offer kid-oriented couples a less expensive cost of living and a increased level of perceived safety from negative influences. I would also include national security. After all, what good is a low cost of living if Islamic radicals are taking your kids hostage at school?

What is instructive is the "why" behind these developments. Why are European-Americans having more babies in red states? Why do growing families choose less populated areas to raise their progeny?

Brooks lays it on the line:

"Natalists [Brooks' term for large-family parents] resist the declining fertility trends not because of income, education or other socioeconomic characteristics. It's attitudes. People with larger families tend to attend religious services more often, and tend to have more traditional gender roles."

It's attitudes. It's worldviews. It's ideas. What people believe affects how they act and where they live. The red state baby boom versus the blue state baby bust is an all-too-predictable result of what happens when cultures embrace or reject the biblical worldview.

The secular worldview says more people are bad for the environment and a drag on resources, life is short and you just end up food for worms, so get the most pleasure you can now. If it feels good, do it. These attitudes, of course, do not lend themselves to having big families or proper parenting.

By contrast, the biblical worldview has a completely different view of children:

"Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate. "
Psalm 127:3-5

This passage sheds fresh and much needed light on the purpose of child bearing. Children are gifts from God, they are given for a purpose, they are meant to fly straight and make an impact, it is good to have lots of them, and, most poignantly, they are useful for confronting evil in society ("the gate" is a common biblical metaphor for civic life).

We must think carefully about our beliefs on children. Media barons, Hollywood moguls, and academic aristocrats routinely bombard us with subtle messages undermining the Judeo-Christian worldview on children and family. The passage above should remind us that the hassle, expense, and occasional heart break associated with child rearing come with a big payoff: a fistful of flaming arrows to shoot into this present darkness.

Many blue staters have lost this grand vision and are beginning to pay the price for their lack of foresight. As the last election showed, the demographic trends and the unrelenting electoral math are stacked against liberal Democrats. It's delectably ironic that the worldview they believe and act out now seems to be breeding them out of existence and driving blue states to slow, demographic suicide.

As Francis Schaeffer once said, "Ideas have legs." He who has ears, let him hear.

The Spirit of William Wallace Confounds Latter Day Longshanks
Further complicating the Democrats' national election strategy is the grass-roots populism permeating many red states that is rooted in a much ignored or misunderstood culture: the Scots-Irish ethnic bloc.

James Webb chronicles Scots-Irish political proclivities in "Secret GOP Weapon: The Scots-Irish Vote". Like William Wallace of "Braveheart" fame rebelling against the oppressive monarchy of King Edward "The Longshanks", the 30 million strong Scots-Irish in the US sport anti-big government, pro-military, egalitarian, and ruggedly individualistic sensibilities.

This influence paints a wide and deep Republican red streak across the electoral map. Says Webb:

"The areas with the highest Scots-Irish populations include New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, northern Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, southern Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and parts of California, particularly Bakersfield."

That lists includes 19 red states and 243 electoral votes in 2004 plus two blue states and 25 votes that narrowly went to Kerry.

This is a problem for Democrats because they have consistently ignored or maligned this large voting bloc, often with the most soul-rending, vitriolic rhetoric the brightest Ivy League minds can conjure. Thus, Democrats have willingly taken the associated electoral votes out of play and placed the Senate firmer in the Republicans' grip. Says Webb of the Dems' shift towards identify politics and ever more segmented racial/social constituencies:

"First, it hampers their efforts to carry almost any Southern state. And second, the Scots-Irish culture has strong impact outside the South. This is especially strong in many battleground states. "

In other words, the "nuanced" Euro appeasement, extreme abortion industry and gay lobby genuflections, conflicted moaning about the War on Islamic Radicalism, continual anti-Christian slurs by leftist acolytes, and patronizing southern stereotypes perpetrated by the Democrat handmaidens on CNN/ABC/etc. are not playing to well to states holding 83% of the electoral votes needed to win the White House. For some reason, this decisive bloc of voters does not want to vote for a political machine that calls them stupid, racist morons.

Again, ideas have consequences. In this case, liberal Democrats' cultural prejudice and religious bigotry have put them behind the electoral 8 ball.

Connecting the Dots

While the protracted weeping and gnashing of teeth by liberal Democrats in the last 7 weeks has been entertaining, I'm afraid most of what I've seen misses the mark when in comes to re-shaping the Democratic Party. Except for the occasional and brave liberal who suggests tough minded, security-driven reforms (See Peter Beinart's "A Fighting Faith"), left-leaning pols and pundits have only recommended draping traditional leftist themes in the shrouds of biblical rhetoric with little in the way of tough, clear national security policies and messages.

When you take in to account the growing demographic edge of the red states and the prevailing political culture (anchored by the Scots-Irish ethnicity) in those states, putting liturgical lipstick on the pacifist pig isn't going to do the trick for the Democrats in national elections.

The Democrats need a platform that at least tolerates traditional values and religious involvement in public life as well as shows that they can be trusted with national security.

Sadly, I am not optimistic that this necessary change will come about soon. The big campaign money sources (MoveOn.org, George Soros, various Hollywood bigs) are reflexively pacifist and hostile to expressions of faith in public. Furthermore, read the responses to Mr. Beinart's proposal for a stronger terrorism and national security stance for the Democrats here, here, and here. While a few are strongly for or strongly against Beinart's thesis, most are deeply conflicted and there is no clear consensus. It seems the readers know they have to be militarily strong, but to do so runs so counter to their political DNA that they are frozen in tortured ambivalence.

A Call to Discern

It may sound strange, but I do wish the Democrats would get with the program and articulate a strong national security/pro-traditional family/pro-faith platform. My concern is that the Republican Party may come to see conservative people of faith the way the Democrats see the black community: as a foregone conclusion that requires no payback in terms of favorable policies. I want a choice of parties competing to best implement policies derived from biblical principles.

But this desire should also engender a sense of caution and vigilance. Christians and others adhering to the Judeo-Christian worldview must know what the Bible says, understand the biblical worldview, carefully examine the forthcoming political marketing messages dressed in biblical robes, and carefully discern which messages are right and which just sound right.

Finally, I urge you to think carefully about the ideas you dwell upon and accept as true. The world is full of destructive, cleverly packaged lies, masquerading as truth. As the examples above show, the ideas we believe will dictate our actions, which dictate our destiny, both in this world and the next.

"Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life. "

Proverbs 4:23