Conservative pundit smug that her right-wing decendants will rule decaying Earth

The impending liberal extinction

As luck would have it, this [the American liberal] will probably end up on the endangered species list within two or three generations. Liberals, by all accounts, are suffering from a fertility gap - they aren't having children, while their conservative counterparts are being fruitful and multiplying. As time goes on, fruitful conservatives will outnumber childless liberals.

According to a 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article, "Take a randomly selected sample of 100 liberal adults and 100 conservative adults. According to an analysis of the 2004 General Social Survey - a bible of data for social scientists - the liberals would have had 147 kids, while the conservatives would have had 208. That's a fertility gap of 41 percent..."
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Nonetheless, the idea of anemic liberal birthrates gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that I can only compare to being seven years old on Christmas morning. I'm absolutely giddy, and it's as if I'm bounding down the stairs to see what Santa has left me. As I think of the future of the "progressive movement," I envision silver-haired liberals growing old somewhere in the Pioneer Valley, with nothing but their Subarus and organic vegetables to keep them company. There will be no pitter-pattering of grandchildren's feet, because they will have voluntarily removed themselves from the gene pool.

Parents have a large influence on the political preferences of their children. With some exception, liberal parents tend to raise liberal children and conservative parents tend to raise conservative children. Commenting on the political fertility gap, Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks stated: "80 percent of people that express a political party preference are voting like their folks."
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In any case, the left's power will decline in coming generations if they don't start having more children. Fortunately for me, liberals never listen to my advice and I'm not afraid that they will start now. Perhaps my great-grandchildren will inherit a world without liberals. What a glorious day that would be.

This seems akin to the mentality that drives one to buy an SUV because, although a crash is more likely to be fatal, the death will likely be in the other car. We're grabbing the zero-sum gain because we can assure ourselves it will be lopsided in our favor, instead of opting for the aggregate benefit. How do you reason making the "bad" choice in the prisoner's dilemma before ever facing said dilemma?

My reasoning is thus - the writer rejoices in the idea that her side is out-breeding the enemies, ignoring the notion that unchecked population growth will give them a lesser world to govern. Of course, this is much easier to do if you ignore the environmental effect of overpopulation and possess the kind of mentality that thinks drilling Alaska is a good idea because I want lower gas prices for my H3 now. Perhaps the ultimate downfall of the human race was that we never really evolved the capacity for delayed gratification.

And all this is assuming arguendo that political opinion is somehow genetic, or that parents can, through raising their children, control their opinions. Like the desire for children itself, political views are not directly inheritable, and the information society may indeed change how many of our views derive from our parents. But that's a topic for another day . . .

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