The 2024 election results launched a thousand think pieces. At Capita, we have also taken time to reflect and explore the implications for children and families. Our conclusion: this moment marks the beginning of a new era in family policy. But the shape of this new era is not yet clear. Capita has been preparing since its inception to be a bridge and sense-maker during such a liminal period—and we are ready to shape this future with you.
It’s tempting to think of this new chapter in partisan terms: perhaps the Republican Party has assembled a generational coalition, and the Democratic Party has been cast into the wilderness. But that’s not how we see it. By most metrics, Trump’s victory was relatively narrow, and this election continued a 21st-century trend of regular swings in power. Yet whichever party wins control of the White House in 2028 or 2032, there has been a clear shift in the electorate – and both political parties – away from a dominant neoliberal paradigm.
With its stress on low-regulation free markets, financialization, and globalization over the needs of families and communities, neoliberalism has underpinned both parties for decades. Yet it is clear now that the George W. Bush-era Republican and Obama-era Democratic coalitions no longer hold sway. This turn away from neoliberalism is not exclusive to the U.S. – we are seeing it play out worldwide. The question is, What Comes Next?
For many years, Capita has explored new approaches to better nourish and support families and communities. For instance, in 2018, our first white paper, Tomorrow is Now: New Directions for Children’s Philanthropy, noted that critiques of liberalism, especially neoliberalism, were moving from the margins to the mainstream. Our 2019 workshop, Post-Liberal Futures: Implications for Children, Families, and Flourishing, explored ways we might prepare for a post-neoliberal future.
Today, that future is no longer speculative. It is here. What comes next?
The New Right and Uncharted Waters
The next four years, and particularly the next two given the Republican federal trifecta, will be largely shaped by what is known as the New Right. As Emma Green recently reported in The New Yorker, this wing of the Republican Party has been “workshopping a new playbook” on family policy, which represents a “tectonic shift” due to its acceptance that government has an active role to play in bolstering families. Leaders like Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Sen. Josh Hawley have proposed paid family leave, expanded child care options, and economic policies prioritizing families and communities over business interests—policies diverging from traditional Republican orthodoxy. While there is much to debate about the merits of these proposals—and much to be wary about when it comes to proposed cuts to the social safety net and actions that may target historically marginalized groups—their very existence illuminates the uncharted waters into which we are sailing.
Capita’s Response
Capita has plans to meet this moment. We will build on our existing work and conduct analyses, convenings, and campaigns that put families and their communities at the center.
We know the road ahead will be challenging. Political polarization and competing priorities will test our resolve.
There may be moments when we will need to defend children’s and families’ basic health, safety, and dignity. We will not hesitate to speak out when our voice is required.
We’ll also draw on the cross-partisan relationships that come via our collaborations. For instance, we brought together our own Ivana Greco and Elliot Haspel–one leaning conservative, the other progressive–on the issue of stay-at-home parents. Externally, our colleague Ian Marcus Corbin participated in an effort with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) to restore the common good. We know both the New Right and the progressive movement, and we know how to bring them together.
In the spring of 2024, we leaned further into the cross-partisan, interdisciplinary opportunities before us, developing a new five-year strategy informed by the shifting social, political, economic, technological, and environmental contexts.
Building on this foundation, we will ground our response to this new era in three guiding principles:
- Breaking down silos and taking a much broader approach to family life
Family well-being is not constructed out of separate blocks. The lack of good early child care cannot be separated from the exhaustion of parents working low-paying jobs where their every move is timed and tracked, or from the loneliness and depression of caregivers, or from their stress over the lack of summer care options for their elementary schoolers. So, too, for the benefits: child care can do far more than merely help a parent clock in on time. Yet we chop up our conversations, focusing on funding mechanisms or governing agencies: paid family leave, job quality, wages, housing, early child care, and school-age child care, all artificially pulled apart until we lose the family entirely–and then families lose each other. We must reknit a comprehensive policy approach to reknit our atomized society.
- Prioritizing people and places over programs
Strong families are rooted in strong communities. We therefore must invest in local institutions—civic organizations, schools and child care providers, houses of worship—that form the bedrock of America, the social infrastructure. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote, “Families are only one institution among many. They are a part of a neighborhood, one element in several types of communities—schools, churches, cultural, and political. If these communities are weak, the family can’t be strong.” In other words, to strengthen families, we must strengthen the places they call home. Programs and services play a role but are more appropriately seen as buttresses than the foundation. This approach requires supporting institutions even when their values–progressive or conservative–don’t align perfectly with partisan agendas. Such support fosters the sense of belonging and purpose that many Americans feel they’ve lost: what eminent sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls their “deep story.” - Championing the diverse preferences and dreams of families
Families are far from monolithic, and policy must reflect Americans’ exceptionally diverse realities and preferences. We should ask families questions that include, yet go beyond, services: what is their vision of the good life, and what is holding them back from achieving it? In doing so, we must not lose sight of historic inequities and structural barriers. And, we must also realize that preferences, needs, and aspirations vary wildly among all communities. Therefore, family policy should champion pluralism by ensuring a broad spectrum of policy options and program funding to meet Americans’ desires and needs. Doing so suggests steps ranging from building a child care system that simultaneously supports licensed programs, family, friend, and neighbor care, and parents who choose to stay home, to crafting inclusive tax policies that put more money in parents’ pockets to pay for what young and growing families decide they need most.
If we do it well, this work will help forge a positive path into What Comes Next, finding cross-partisan opportunities to define a future where all families and their communities can flourish.
This is not a time for despair or retrenchment. If the old solutions have failed to meet the needs of families, the answer is not to double down on outdated strategies or retreat to milquetoast incrementalism. The answer is to imagine What Comes Next and build a new path toward it.
We cannot hew that path alone. Capita has always relied on collaboration—with families, communities, and organizations across the ideological spectrum—generous enough to share their experiences and insights. We invite your thoughts and look forward to walking alongside you into the mist.
Joe Waters is Capita’s Co-Founder + CEO.
Caroline Cassidy is Capita’s Chief Strategy Officer.
Elliot Haspel is a Senior Fellow at Capita.