Much of the world, including our formidable adversaries China and Russia, is in the middle of a population implosion. Niskanen Center’s Brink Lindsey perceptively calls it “The Global Fertility Collapse.”
China, currently with a population of 1.4 billion, will likely see its population fall by more than half, to 525 million by the end of the century, encountering great economic, social and political distress in the process.
The Russian Federation, population of a mere 141 million, is projected to drop to 121 million by 2050 … and become 30% to (possibly) 50% Muslim in only 15 years.
The prospect of Russia as a rising Islamic Republic provides food for thought. I’m an Islamophile and expect the mufties to be a wonderfully civilizing influence on our old WWII ally for whom secular authoritarianism isn’t working out really well.
These probably irreversible population trends are almost certain to diminish the stature of our rivals. This process will work to exalt America as sanctions, tariffs, even a resurgence of dread neoconservatism would not.
America has a fertility rate of 1.6 children per family. We grow thanks to immigration. Our growth rate, while good, is not great.
Demand great!
We have a precious opportunity to achieve dominance through demography, ensuring America’s (benevolent!) primacy for centuries. The great philosopher of science Auguste Comte is said to have said (in French): “Demography is destiny.”
Meaning, per Michael Gonchar at the New York Times, “population trends and distributions determine the future of a country, region or even the entire world.” Precisely!
Our future greatness hangs, tantalizingly, before us. “Make America Great Again” — MAGA — has become a defining slogan for a tiny but wonderfully enthusiastic faction of America’s population. What’s it mean in practice?
As Michael Schein, possibly the greatest living teacher of persuasion technique since Edward Bernays left the building, states in his definitive The Hype Handbook: 12 Indispensable Success Secrets From the World’s Greatest Propagandists, Self-promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary Breakers :
“… when you are developing a slogan designed to give people guidance on how to act, keep it vague. … How exactly are people making America great again? Who knows? It’s better that way. Let the members of your audience fill in their own meanings. This way, they will inevitably attribute any positive changes they make to you but won’t be able to hold you responsible for any missteps.”
Donald Trump, the greatest master of hype in all human history and throughout the known universe, has outdone himself. But, practically speaking … how to secure America’s greatness?
In my pursuit of American greatness — rather than shrewdly building a fanatical and lucrative following — I now recklessly ignore Schein’s Law and Trump’s shining example.
First, I contend that America already is great. We are the greatest nation in history and, despite our several woes, the greatest show on Earth.
We don’t need to be “made” great “again.”
Second, how to keep America the greatest country in the world … assuredly without raising taxes, increasing government spending, cutting Social Security, or going to war, all of which diminish our fair republic?
Hello “Handmaid’s Tale” theocons and “neo-imperialist” neocons, both of whom consider classical liberal republicanism less than great. Get over it!
America is the greatest. How to keep America the greatest?
Authorize a lot more immigration. Pave a path to citizenship for those who were willing to risk their lives to come here, abjure crime, work hard, pay taxes, worship, and raise families in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
Why? America now is growing by a paltry million souls a year:
“Over the next decade, immigration accounts for about three-quarters of the overall increase in the size of the population, and the greater number of births than deaths accounts for the remaining one-quarter. After 2033, population growth is increasingly driven by net immigration, which accounts for all population growth beginning in 2042.”
Growth by a million people a year?
Good. Not great.
We demand great.
Heed the words of the New Colossus:
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Fellow Conservatives?
Do not Make America Great Again.
Keep America the Greatest.
How?
Lift our lamp beside the golden door!
Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of the 200,000+ follower "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $104T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.