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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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This seems like a very good policy and it's nice to see Republicans actually do something for families for once. Republicans really could do a lot more now that concern for birthrate is on their radar. The fact that it's Democrats who talk about free school lunch and paid maternal leave seems very counterintuitive.

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.

This is really hard to do on a policy level compared to directly supporting STAHPs though. I'm not sure what policy levers that could be pulled here outside of banning DEI and more gender blind civil rights law enforcement.

I'm not sure what policy levers that could be pulled here outside of banning DEI and more gender blind civil rights law enforcement.

Increase military pay and conditions?

Military pay has only kept up with the fake inflation rate, and my understanding (albeit from biased Reddit) is that the provided food and barracks are widely criticized. More women could join the military, but I doubt they will.

Thé provided food is disliked, but that just incentivizes soldiers to marry(and in the army, there is someone who wants to marry you).

The anecdotes I read imply soldiers get married a lot, but cheated and divorced a lot during deployments.