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Single Mothers and Conservatism
I would like to pose two questions to my follow Ricochet members: What should be the conservative answer be to unwed single mothers? How should the GOP/Conservatives support existing single mothers (to include widows, separated, divorced, unwed)?
I think we have a tendency to focus on the origins of the issue of single mothers — such as the rise of the welfare state and the sexual revolution — without addressing how we would support those single mothers that need help today. Social Conservatives are pro-life, pro-motherhood, and pro-marriage. However, the Left perpetuates the stereotype that Conservatives are not supportive of single mothers, and it works for them politically. In the 2012 presidential election 75% of single mothers voted for the Democratic ticket.
So what say you, Ricochet? Should we cede that portion of the electorate to the Democrats and to likely dependence on the state? I believe we can do better than that.
Published in Culture, Marriage, Politics
People! Enough with the cranky sex talk—this is exactly the problem the OP is talking about: say the words “single mother” and immediately conservatives start accusing women of not keeping their legs together at the appropriate moment, and criticizing child support and bemoaning the End of Virginity As We Knew It…these are not going to win over the single mothers in question (or any other Undecideds either).
Don’t forget there’s the big, fat target we paint on ourselves whenever we make a lot of what sound like moralizing generalizations about other people’s sex lives. (Two words suffice in Liberal-ville: Bristol Palin).
I’m not getting nearly enough answers to the question posed in the OP. What should the GOP candidate actually say that would convince a single mother that voting for a Republican instead of a Democrat was in her best interests (assuming that everyone here believes that it would be)?
Kate’s got a great handle on this comment thread.
It’s already been said several times that targeting single mothers as “single mothers” is a political loser. But as citizens they will benefit from a strong economy and strong foreign policy. We need a leader who will take the government’s foot off the economy’s neck, and has the military’s confidence.
Kate, you don’t like all the “moralizing about other people’s sex lives”? I believe you’re one of those who should preach what she practices.
I love moralizing about other people’s sex lives! It just doesn’t seem like the answer to the question in the OP.
How would you pitch “strong economy and strong foreign policy” in a way that might counteract the impression single mothers have (according to the OP) that conservatives are insensitive and judgmental about single mothers, and aren’t interested in helping them with their problems?
I admit it— I would be so happy if a GOP candidate pitched an idea for a Guaranteed Basic Income as a replacement for welfare…(#137) and then made Hillary Clinton explain why poor and/or African American women couldn’t be trusted to make their own decisions about their lives without direction from social workers and bureaucrats!
Ricochet means never having to answer the question in the OP if you don’t want to.
Oh that’s so great.
I know—and usually I’m one of the ones dragging us off the point!
I like the idea of a guaranteed basic income for a couple of reasons.
But I would think the cost of the program would be paid for by consumers.
Certainly, we are paying the same money now through taxes. This change would mean that we would be paying lower taxes, theoretically, but higher prices for goods and services.
Higher prices for consumers hurt the poor too.
I’m not an economist, so I can’t imagine which would be better for the people we are trying to help.
If we called the negative income tax the positive income tax, could we sell that?
I’m already positive I pay income tax.
I’m not sure I follow. Are we paying more for goods and services because we’re bidding up the price of them with our extra money?
I don’t think it works that way. If there’s less money being taken up by government spending, there is more room for the private economy to be bigger. The benefits practically everyone, even if the prices get bumped around some.
Any change will produce losers. If we could ever sell the negative income tax as a replacement for the welfare state, it would be an incredible thing. Stopping the earmarking of transfer payments would be a huge benefit for the poor simply in the increase in liberty, but I would even have trouble selling it to my conservative father.
We want to ensure you get at least as much money as you do now. We want to change it so you get more direct assistance and the government doesn’t force you to take it earmarked for things like food or health care. These are both very important things, but we respect your decision making far more that the Democrats and know you will choose to do what’s best for your family with these payments.
We know how difficult life is for single mothers and the last thing you need is the government dictating how you may spend the money you need to get by.
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Full stop. No moralizing. No taking the opportunity to try and prevent future single mothers. The party that low information voters tend to vote for is the party that they believe respects them the most. Respect takes a long time to develop, and it will require making incomplete statements that seem to go against key tenets, but if you want any hope of flipping a voting block you must appeal to a group in terms of respect and play the long game because that trust takes quite a while to develop.
And I know the first thing people will say is the Democrats will just “outbid” us, but that’s why we can’t make it about the bidding. It’s about the respect. Part of that is promising at least not to take away their funding, but to make the form it takes better.
For instance, you can show how much it costs per family for their collective services and ask if they would rather have that amount in cash or keep their pathetic services and food stamps.
If thorough evaluation of a negative income tax/direct assistance/whatever shows it to be a good idea (it has promising elements) then I would like to see Republican candidates promote it as Mike H. suggests. But don’t expect it to be a political winner, because even if single mothers like it bureaucrats won’t- and they vote.
Any candidate who is able to think for himself, face the issues honestly, and appears to be telling us the truth is likely to win. Everybody is sick of being lied to.
Candidates should not disrespect the people they hope to represent, though it seemed to work all right for Obama. But single mothers by choice should be disrespected by somebody, because they are hurting their children and usually themselves, their children’s fathers, and taxpayers as well. Anyone can make a mistake, but it’s still a mistake. I am fond of the young woman I wrote about earlier in this thread and extremely pained at the turn her life has taken because she was misled by surrounding society and popular culture about what her choices meant.
I very much disagree with this quote from that link:
I used to blithely nod along to statements like this, but after all of the SSM debate here on Ricochet I’ve concluded that sacramental marriage is distinct from civil marriage – they just happen to have coincided and complemented each other for much of western history. Otherwise states have been instituting civil marriages in some form or another since man first emerged from the primordial forests and started forming communities, sometimes with no god and sometimes under the aegis of very different gods from my God. I believe that while the state rightly has nothing whatsoever to do with the sacrament of marriage, the Church rightly has nothing to do with civil marriage. Distinct statuses conferred by distinct entities/authorities.
If Oklahoma doesn’t want to be involved in marriage, as Representative Johnson suggests, then the proper thing to do would be to repeal any reference to marriage in state law rather than to only recognize marriage licenses issued by a church. I agree that this is a rather stupid, and wrong, attempt to stop SSM. Representative John son should have the courage to advocate for his position forthrightly and openly.
I thought we have been answering it the whole time!
And that’s a negative, IMO.
Paints rather a one-dimensional portrait of single moms, doesn’t it? This approach doesn’t appeal to single moms as such, but to single moms who identify primarily as single moms — who use not logic, but single mom logic, and who have no interests but single mom interests.
Except that I do think the morals important. I don’t know that they will choose what’s best for their family. I don’t have a lot of respect for their decision making.
I think respect should be earned rather than bid out, and it is they who should be seeking our respect rather than us trying to sell ours for political gain. Even if we could convey a superior level of respect, as nice as that is my experience is that money wins out over satisfaction most of the time. Respect won’t buy milk, dinner, or a TV.
And since I’m the one paying, I should have a say. If they don’t like it then they should pay their own way.
Of course, I also have sympathy and empathy for these people and their plight and pain on a personal level. I want to help them. I care about them. It’s also been my experience, though, much like education, that it has to be a two way street with most of the traffic coming from the recipient’s direction. Sure, don’t judge, and lend a hand instead. But that only works when the sinner acknowledges the sin and does his darned best to go and sin no more. Otherwise it ends up being the “helpers” subsidizing sin rather than actually helping someone trying to overcome their past.
As we’ve discussed, prevention is the best medicine here. Is that moralizing? Yes! We need more of it too. People bridle at that? Too bad. Take care of your own business if you don’t like it. Then again, it’s also not moralizing at all – it’s utilitarian calculation.
Politically, do we have to lead with the indignation? No, of course not. Why not the modest proposals we’ve already discussed? Like decredentializing and and removing roadblocks from professions that are accessible and naturally complementary to single mothers. As good as these ideas are, I still doubt they’d have an electoral impact because these aren’t easily summarized and because even if they work it only promises to make a hard life a little less hard; on the other side, direct monetary benefits are easy to understand and easier to receive than babysitting, hairdressing, or home baking careers.
Businesses charge consumers more for their products and services to compensate for the higher amounts the businesses pay their employees to meet the requirement of the guaranteed income.
Agreed. That said, it’s not clear if the opinions of people running for or already in office is going to have much preventative influence. It might be much more important for people other than those who run for office to disapprove of the moral choices you’re about to make. It’s not like politicians are exactly known for their plausibility when they decide to opine on the importance of sexual morality, anyhow :-)
And for what it’s worth, I’ve found that when people approach me for moral advice (which happens from time to time, for some reason), I tend to give different advice depending on whether the deed that’s troubling them is still just a possible choice in their future, or whether they’ve already done it. Maybe that’s not hypocritical, but just sensible.
Look, I agree with you, but if you want to look at it from a consequentialist perspective of how you get these people to vote for you, and by extension how to actually shrink the size of government, and make the parts that exist more effective, then this is probably the only way to do it.
Oh! You were talking about guaranteed income. I was talking about transfer payments in the form of a negative income tax. A guaranteed income that was the responsibility of the employers would be a disaster!
I understand, and I see how my post comes of with a sharp edge. I don’t mean it that way. I suppose I’m arguing that political success with these people is only possible when there’s a change in them; that change won’t come from government; if the change occurs I think they’ll be more receptive to our policy proposals anyway without having to be too radical.
I’m also arguing that to meet them half way (I believe in reality that we’d have to meet them 3/4’s to all the way) would mean we’d have top get into the muck. I think we should avoid the muck. I suppose that translates to thinking that we’d only end up in a bidding war with the left who has nothing whatsoever to lose from going all-in.
So, I’m for the modest proposals already discussed because they would be genuine help not only for single mothers but for low-skill and desperate people in general. I doubt that will be popular among the people it’s intended to help, not as popular as direct financial aid, anyway.
Question, what keeps the left from going all-in right now?
The middle class. Barely.
Yes, I was trying to return to the OP and the earlier comments. :)
I’m going to be the hard-hearted conservative here. If I follow the gist of the conversation correctly, it seems that the consensus is that, no matter how bad the decision making by an individual, it’s my responsibility to see that they don’t suffer for it. Is that about right? I’m against that. Bad decision-making with no consequences leads to more bad decision-making.
It is impossible to rid the world of suffering, no matter how much government and community intervention is involved (something that Liberals don’t ever learn). The consequences of having a child out of wedlock are such that no government policy will ever be able to mitigate them completely. The best we can do at the government level is create, through Conservative initiatives, the best economic environment for people to help themselves, and even then it is up to the individual. School choice for the children is essential as well. Civil society is needed to help at a more personal level.