Those who have wished that our national election cycles would focus on the problems facing families got what they wanted this past election, and then some. Family policy got more screen time than most would have expected heading into 2024. It tended to focus more on hot-button gotchas than substantive policy discussions – but as we head into the new year, we can be thankful for the moments of substance that did arise, and what they teach us about the politics of the family in today’s America.
It’s no surprise controversy drives clicks. Look at the way Vice Presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance was introduced on the national stage. His remarks, most of them captured before he was a candidate for higher office, went viral not because the idea of tax benefits for parents is controversial—indeed, we already have a Child Tax Credit in place, and should expand it—but because of the “very online” way he talked about women who do not have children. In his attempt to praise the hard work of parents, he put down women who didn’t have kids as “childless cat ladies,” suggesting their goal was to make the rest of America as “miserable” as they were.
Of course, as The Atlantic’s Stephanie Murray recently posted, villainizing the childless is not the same as valuing parents. University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox has argued that GOP politicians should “turn the spotlight away from the culture-war cul-de-sac framing … and toward a new, bold, and positive agenda for family renewal.” Vance’s rocky introduction should be a reminder, particularly to those on the right side of the aisle, that culture war red meat can tend to drown out even well-intentioned efforts to raise up the social status of parents and make families’ lives materially better.
It’s no mistake that Vance’s public image started to turn around with his detailed threads about public policy and his commanding performance on the debate stage in October. Admitting that the nation will likely have to spend more on child care, or pushing for a substantially bigger Child Tax Credit, is, in effect, committing light ideological plagiarism, as the left side of the aisle has long pushed for more spending on parents and children.
After all, conservatives were quick to point out that the folksy persona of Vance’s debate opponent, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, belied a track record of fairly aggressive cultural progressivism. But they had to give him credit as well—during Walz’s time in office, Minnesota passed a new state child tax credit, paid leave, universal school lunches, and free college tuition for students of low-income and middle-class families. These policies have their design flaws (work and marriage penalties in the CTC, earnings requirements that tend to leave younger parents out of the paid leave program). But they were earnest attempts from Minnesota Democrats to help families.
Yet some on the right resorted to culture war chaff, dubbing Gov. Walz “Tampon Tim” for supporting a law that required free menstrual products in public school bathrooms. Republicans took issue with the bill for permitting (though not requiring) tampons being placed in male bathrooms, attacking views on Walz’s views on gender for seemingly being outside the mainstream. Yet those attacks would have been even more effective if, beyond the cheap laugh line, conservatives had broadly acknowledged, or even championed, efforts to ensure that female students have those necessary supplies. After all, several red-leaning states, including Georgia, Ohio, Alabama, and Utah, have passed laws requiring public schools to help their female students access menstrual products if needed. Persuadable voters can tell when politicians are riling them up versus trying to solve a problem.
The same goes for efforts to boost marriage and birth rates. A Wall Street Journal piece by Rachel Wolfe and Scott Calvert showcases the degree to which positions that strike many conservatives as normal – like promoting marriage or supporting tax benefits for parents – strike many who are outside the fold as tin-eared or patriarchal. As Ross Douthat of The New York Times recently wrote, efforts to boost the birth rate often struggle for the simple fact that its loudest proponents tend to be a little—to borrow a word that was overused on the campaign trail—weird. Part of the way out of that trap is to place more emphasis what policy can do to make families’ easier, offer fewer spreadsheets and talk of fertility rates, and maybe press some hot buttons a little less vehemently. The goal should be to build a broader consensus around efforts that can nudge birth rates up, and give parents some breathing room, without coming across as social engineers.
Talking about the goodness of family life and parenthood can sometimes come across as pablum, but it will only be empty if non-gimmicky policy ideas do not back it up.
Even at the Heritage Foundation—guardian of limited government conservatism for decades—President Kevin Roberts is talking about the “need to see every issue as a family issue” and suggesting some new openness to ideas once thought forbidden. Vance himself was a rhetorical champion of pursuing a more pro-family America during his short Senate stint.
But there’s no need to reinvent the wheel; more vocal support of existing ideas would go a long way. The Child Tax Credit remains the best and simplest way of supporting families. Free school lunch programs, so long as they include private and parochial schools, shouldn’t be off the table. Giving parents more tools to protect their kids online remains wildly popular across the aisle.
Conservatives should not give up their deeply held beliefs about sexuality, gender, and identity. If the 2024 election results show us anything, they suggest that a trendy cultural progressivism is out of step with many voters, particularly those without a college degree. But mere “anti-wokeness” isn’t enough to take the place of a more substantive policy agenda. Cultural issues and economic ones work best as complements, not substitutes—a lesson today’s pro-family populists will learn if they re-orient the Right in a pro-parent direction.
Patrick T. Brown (@PTBwrites) is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. A version of this post previously ran on his weekly newsletter Family Matters.