OPINION:
Elections can have a major impact on the economy, foreign policy and public safety, as President-elect Donald Trump’s historic victory surely will.
But many of our most intractable problems are impervious to a political solution.
In the United States, the idea that government is a cure-all originated with the New Deal. Before then, it was generally acknowledged that political power has its limits. Even Democrats were constitutionalists.
Today, government plays such a large role in our lives that elections take on the aspects of a cataclysmal event. Activists on both sides insist the country won’t survive four years of governance by the other.
At best, politics can play a minor role in addressing the crises that afflict our society.
Church attendance, family formation and fertility are declining. Addiction, suicide and loneliness are on the rise. Government is incapable of dealing with any of this except in small ways.
The United States has had a below-replacement fertility rate since the early 1970s. The fertility rate is the number of children the average woman has in her lifetime. A total fertility rate of 2.1 is needed just to replace current population. In 2023, our rate was 1.62, the lowest ever recorded.
Sometime in the next 20 years, we’ll begin losing people. With an aging population, how will we pay for Social Security and other tax-funded programs? Where will we find the workers of tomorrow?
European nations have tried various incentives to boost their birthrate, including generous maternity leave and subsidized child care. None have had more than a temporary effect. Government can’t make people want to have children.
Demographic winter follows the decline of the family. In 1978, 59% of 18- to-29-year-olds, those in their prime childbearing years, were married. Today, only 20% of those in this age group are.
Government can make it easier to marry — for example, by ending the marriage tax penalty. But it can’t make young people want to get married. The young are abandoning marriage for casual relationships at an alarming rate.
Religion once helped give direction to our lives. It aided us in understanding God’s plan for humanity, including marriage and children. But religion is another victim of modernity.
According to Gallup, 20 years ago, 42% of adults attended religious services weekly. Today, it’s 30% and falling. Far from encouraging religion, the culture portrays the religious as hypocrites, frauds and superstitious bigots.
Government is far more interested in protecting abortion clinics than houses of worship.
As faith and purpose in life decline, addiction rises. Deaths from alcoholism, drugs and suicide went from 74,003 in 2002 to 207,827 in 2022.
Stopping fentanyl at the border would help. But there are enough drugs already in the country to keep everyone high for the rest of the century. Government used to tell people to just say no. Drug legalization is now a cool cause with politicians clamoring aboard the bandwagon.
Pornography is another drug that is on the rise.
It’s estimated that 12% of all websites are devoted to pornography. In 2023, they generated $1.1 billion in revenue and were viewed by 69% of men and 40% of American women. An estimated 5% to 11% of adults view porn daily.
Regular exposure to pornography leads to dissatisfaction in marriage and increased sexual violence. Government does little to curb exposure to sexually explicit material.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calls loneliness a public health epidemic. This may be due to the decline of the family, neighborhoods and churches, and social media addiction. According to a survey by the American Psychiatric Association, 30% of Americans 18 to 34 say they feel lonely every day or several times a week.
What can government do: send Hallmark cards — thinking of you — to the vulnerable?
These concerns are problems of the heart that government is not equipped to handle.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t try to do something about drug and alcohol abuse, the decline of faith and family and pervasive loneliness. But is government action a practical approach? If Alcoholics Anonymous were run by the government, it would be happy hour 24/7.
Perhaps an obsessive focus on government keeps us from developing private solutions. The human heart is susceptible to change, but not to state authority.
We need to come home to faith, family and a sense of personal responsibility. Politics won’t lead us there.
What Lincoln called the better angels of our nature will.
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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