The grownups in charge of the Democratic Party have made their share of errors and canoodled with extremists on all sorts of matters. However, in one regard, they’ve been pretty successful in keeping their party kind of normal: speaking about marriage and family as if they are good things.
This has taken some effort by the party establishment. Out in the Left’s fever swamps, marriage is a cage, the nuclear family is a system of oppression in need of dismantling, and bringing a baby into the world is the moral equivalent of arson.
Marxist writers such as Sophie Lewis advocate family abolition in the pages of The Nation, while pro-divorce, anti-baby op-eds regularly grace the opinion pages of prestigious liberal institutions.
The second-string Democrats also sound the same anti-family notes.
In Summer 2023, then-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced through a New York Times reporter that he and his wife were splitting, but not divorcing, but dating other people, but living together — that is, an open marriage. “Avoid attachments” was his motto. That is, avoid marriage, avoid family, and avoid anything that might encroach on your autonomy.
A follow-up article praising this arrangement cited the approval of left-wing sex writer Dan Savage: “He practices a type of hierarchical polyamory, in which he and his husband of nearly 30 years each have a long-term boyfriend, while keeping their marriage bond primary.”
This extreme wing seemed to always be kept in line by a party run by proud grandparents, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and former President Joe Biden, and a proud matchmaker in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
However, as the boomer Democrats lost their grip on the party in 2024, the anti-family stuff started leaking through.
The Harris team spent its campaign hammering away at the theme that women might be coerced by their husbands into voting for Trump. The main effect (maybe purpose) here was to terrify single women about the prospect of marriage (and motivate them to vote for their oppressed sisters in wedlock).
In the end, it worked, in a way. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris won 61% to 28% among unmarried women. This was the portion of the electorate most antagonistic to connection and family formation.
“The politics and the personal preferences of single young women are increasingly defined by fear,” explained pollster Dan Cox of the Survey Center on American Life.
Now, Democrats have started to hand the keys to the fearful, self-absorbed, anti-family forces. The new vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee is David Hogg. He summed up his view on family on X, formerly Twitter, a few years back.
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“I’m never planning on having kids. I would much rather own a Porsche and have a Portuguese water dog and golden doodle. Long term it’s cheaper, better for the environment and will never tell you that it hates you or ask you to pay for college,” he wrote.
That’s pretty far from Hope & Change.