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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7907 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Trumps proposing to pay families with SAHP $9,000.

Dana Loesch, former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, called the program an example of the "new socialist right." Conservative personality Tomi Lahren likened it to the money that was sent out during the COVID-19 pandemic that "destroyed our workforce and supply chain" and raised the possibility that it could create a "giant fraud boondoggle."

Am I the only one who thinks the proposal is excellent, and that it is an inherent good to support families (even if its limited to more traditional ones)? Its probably better for us to support some families than not? The payment is certainly not ideal, perhaps an argument could be made for support working parents as well. But I think this is at least on the right track. We hear people complain about the cost of raising children all the time, (though I suspect this isnt a genuine complaint for most - many who are saying this probably wouldn't have children even if the cost were $0) but I think this may encourage the few who do actually think like this to go through and continue with more.

My only other complaint here is if Trump and JD Vance are primarily concerned with boosting the overall birth rate alongside helping working families, targeting male income and raising it should be paramount.

What’s to stop, uh, let’s call them ‘people who don’t vote Republican’ just getting married for the free $10k? Even if you say ‘you must have been legally married for five years’ there’s no central registry unlike European countries, meaning it’s ripe for fraud plus plenty of anti-Republican underclass groups like Somalis actually have high rates of marriage.

One idea I've seen mooted is that people with children get a $50k tax deduction or something. Completely useless to fraudsters. Extremely useful to the high performing people who we want to be having children.

Ideally the policy would be to promote marriage and family formation and not just give Republican voters gibs. I don't actually see the problem here do you view reduced Black single parenthood as a bad thing? Having on SAHP requires more than just a marriage it requires coordination between parents and I imagine the amount of people who would abuse it would be less than you think.

So what if it benefits Somalis? Even in a totally cynical realpolitik way there are not that many of them and Minnesota was going Blue anyway. But more realistically making sure a Somali never gets a dime is such a bad policy priority. I thought we wanted to encourage marriage and families?

So what if it benefits Somalis?

I don't want somalis in my country, and I don't want their anchor babies given citizenship in my country, and I don't want them voting in my country.

I'd like it to benefit Americans, not Somalis.

Ok great but there are Somalis here and they have US passports so you have to deal with them. I personally think it's a horrible idea to make policy based on a tiny minority.

Oh I want them dealt with, believe you me. Start with taking away their passports.

It's a good idea when necessary and a bad idea when not. It depends on the minority, the law, and what the law is intended to stop.

This is the Boomer school of conservative thought, most famously represented by George W. Bush.

Somalians - they're just like us! Good family people, really. Once planted on the magic soil of America they will soon be starting businesses, waving flags, and maybe, gosh darned it, even voting Republican.

And it's just entirely discredited. There is little assimilation. Somalians are a massive drain on the economy, on schools, on the justice system, on the benefits system, on social trust, the list goes on. And its not just in the US. This has been observed in countries like Denmark too, where Somalians remain net negative to the state economy throughout their entire lives, even men, even during the peak earnings years of 40-50 when almost everyone else is hugely positive.

Any policy that encourages the creation of more Somalians in the US is a terrible policy. And why they are a small minority now, its unequally distributed. The places where they concentrate are rapidly enshittifying. The phase change between "they're a tiny minority, to small to care about" to "you need Somalian votes to win an election" happens rapidly. Look at Minneapolis.

So, yeah, I am personally in favor of gibs to Republicans. If we can't take away the blue gibs, then all sides must have gibs!

There are 169,000 Somalians according to Wikipedia. Basically all of them live in Blue Areas the vast majority in Minnesota. Opposing a policy that would help a ton of Republican families encourage the birthrate and family formation. Because it would help the 0.0005% of America that is Somali is just cutting your nose off to spite you face. I never said we should have more of them or that they'd be net taxpayers or that integration hasn't failed. Just opposing a policy that's great for tens of millions of conservatives because it might help the Somalis is just asinine.

So, yeah, I am personally in favor of gibs to Republicans. If we can't take away the blue gibs, then all sides must have gibs!

You'll never get gibs for Republicans if you can't pass any because the Somalis might get some. And also them being married and having families is better than them not doing that. Marriage has a civilizing influence on young me.

Somalians - they're just like us! Good family people, really. Once planted on the magic soil of America they will soon be starting businesses, waving flags, and maybe, gosh darned it, even voting Republican.

Bush got a majority of Muslim votes the first time. Family values and all.

As of 2024 census numbers (American Community Survey 1 year estimates) there are 259,694 people in the US who identified as Somalians, already a 60% jump from your outdated number. This is 0.076%, not 0.0005%.

So even though only roughly one in 1300 people in the United States is Somalia, they've already done a lot of damage in Minnesota. Extremely toxic groups are like that.

Bush got a majority of Muslim votes the first time. Family values and all.

Too good to check, and likely untrue, but let's assume it is. The problem is that, bizarrely, after September 11 we opened up the floodgates to Islamic immigration. The Muslim population has roughly tripled since then. And they are consistently one of the furthest left groups.

At only 2% of the U.S. population, they're still too small to care about right? Except that the call to prayer is being blasted from mosques in Dearborn and the Democratic Party is now nominating Senate candidates who think the U.S. deserved 9/11.

The time to stop these problems is when they're still "too small to care about" and before they transition to "too big to stop".

Side note: Wikipedia quality has really plummeted over the last decade. I recommend just skipping it and going right to AI which can pull data directly from the original sources.

SAHP is not just marriage, it’s a parent forgoing income to raise their children. This imposes a cost, and depending on the career path possibly a significant one.

Yeah but the poorer you are the less of a cost and a bunch of groups that are more likely to adopt the arrangement and/or work under the table in cash are Democrat bastions

Do you want to promote marriage and families or do you just want to hurt Democrats?

If all you do is pay the least productive ends of society for something they were going to do anyways, you're probably not accomplishing much.

Well a lot of them weren't going to get married so that's a plus and on the working class side it really does make it easier to have a stay home wife. I really do see it as a benefit for the working class not just the underclass and I actually dont think much of the underclass will actually do it.

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