Travis and Taylor

The cost of college and the cost of healthcare are the only two things that give me any anxiety when it comes to personal finances.
But instead of helping American families with these things (that in turn would help America), all the braindead GOP has to offer is, “wives, submit to your husbands!”
What a crock of weirdos.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
Based on conversations I have had with young couples I know who are choosing to not have kids, the economy and cost of living is the number one reason. Put bluntly, they don't give a shit if celebrity couples aren't having kids and that's not an influence, they're not having kids because the cost of childcare is prohibitive, the cost of living for many young couples has become prohibitive, and it's a matter of money. Buying a home is now out of reach for many young couples, and might always be, and rent is insanely high as well, as is the cost of college. I know couples where the wife got pregnant and they had to give up jobs they liked and move back to be close to their parents because they couldn't afford daycare for the kids and so the parents agreed to do it. And - I know this horrifies conservatives - but we now live in a society in which it is acceptable to make your own choices about whether to have kids. My wife and I don't have children, and we didn't choose to do so because some celebrity didn't, it was simply our choice. I have spoken to older conservative relatives and people I know back home who have looked at us with shock and horror when we say that we don't have children; it is simply unfathomable to them.
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Great post. It really is like the funniest thing in the world that conservatives 100% seriously believe that the key to turning around the declining birth rate is for Taylor friggin Swift and Travis Kelce to pump out a bunch of kids, instead of…..gee, I don’t know….helping to make it more affordable for more young people to have children. It’s most funny because they are dead serious- it’s not trolling and it’s not tongue in cheek. Conservatives always have the absolute dumbest and most asinine proposed solutions to every single problem, because they either lack the abstract thinking ability required to problem solve, or they outright lack the desire to *actually* solve the problem.

Nobody with a functioning brain cell believes that young people are or aren’t having children based on what their favorite celebrity is or isn’t doing. It’s very clear that there are all sorts of structural problems and financial problems in society that are causing people to not have children. But it’s a lot easier for conservatives to latch on to the dumbest, most asinine “solutions” instead of having to sift through the nuance and critical thinking required to solve difficult problems.
 
Ramrouser said:
LEGAL immigration - not let the third world bum rush the southern border - which was Biden’s immigration policy.
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I will believe that conservatives actually support legal immigration when they actually propound and seek to pass proposals to streamline and simplify the legal immigration system such that more people can legally immigrate to the United States. Many Republicans like to hide behind the convenient fiction that they support people immigrating to the US, they just want them to do it the "right way" and not "jump in line" ahead of the people doing it the "right way." But the reality is that there is no realistic "right way" for most people to immigrate to the US, and that the "line" people have to wait in can be decades long and full of all sorts of pointless bottlenecks and roadblocks.

The Trump admin clearly is not interested in expanding legal immigration - they are intentionally trying to reduce the immigrant population in favor of native-born Americans, largely based on white nationalist nonsense about the "dilution" of Western culture by outsiders. Which of course is just going to be self-defeating. because the native-born birth rate is so low that cutting off the flow of mostly younger immigrants, many of whom have large families, is going to ultimately cause our population pyramid to fully invert and create some real problems. The constant influx of immigrants from all over the world has long been a major strength of the US and we're giving it away in exchange for nothing at all.
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
Taylor and Travis’s engagement came up on the family group chat this morning.

My mom goes “oh wow, I can’t wait to see if they have babies soon!!”

My sister (diehard Swifty and left winger politically) immediately said “shut UP. I don’t want her to have babies”

I have no clue if Taylor will have kids or not, but I do think Taylor can make it “cool” to be a mom for women in my sister’s demographic (29 years old, good career). Same way she could move the needle in some circles with a political endorsement.

Does her having a kid make it magically more affordable all of a sudden? No. But affordability is not the reason my sister is so anti-children. So for some people, it could matter. And I admit I’m probably biased because I happen to have a close family member who is in the exact demographic where something like Taylor Swift becoming a mom really COULD influence my sister’s whole outlook on what a meaningful/ideal life looks like.
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What do you think is the reason your sister is supposedly "anti-children"?
 
rodoheel said:
I will believe that conservatives actually support legal immigration when they actually propound and seek to pass proposals to streamline and simplify the legal immigration system such that more people can legally immigrate to the United States. Many Republicans like to hide behind the convenient fiction that they support people immigrating to the US, they just want them to do it the "right way" and not "jump in line" ahead of the people doing it the "right way." But the reality is that there is no realistic "right way" for most people to immigrate to the US, and that the "line" people have to wait in can be decades long and full of all sorts of pointless bottlenecks and roadblocks.

The Trump admin clearly is not interested in expanding legal immigration - they are intentionally trying to reduce the immigrant population in favor of native-born Americans, largely based on white nationalist nonsense about the "dilution" of Western culture by outsiders. Which of course is just going to be self-defeating. because the native-born birth rate is so low that cutting off the flow of mostly younger immigrants, many of whom have large families, is going to ultimately cause our population pyramid to fully invert and create some real problems. The constant influx of immigrants from all over the world has long been a major strength of the US and we're giving it away in exchange for nothing at all.
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It has been well-documented on these boards that the Trump admin is sending ICE to courtrooms where legal immigrants are expected to show up to for hearings to legally extend their stays, usually with an end goal of becoming American citizens.
The current justice department works with the judges to deny the immigrant their renewal, and then ICE immediately arrests them.
I have not seen one Trump voter here or elsewhere say, “I don’t support this.”
 
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ChileG said:
It has been well-documented on these boards that the Trump admin is sending ICE to courtrooms where legal immigrants are expected to show up to for hearings to legally extend their stays, usually with an end goal of becoming American citizens.
They work with the judges to deny the immigrant their renewal, and then immediately arrest them.
I have not seen one Trump voter here or elsewhere say, “I don’t support this.”
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💯
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
Taylor and Travis’s engagement came up on the family group chat this morning.

My mom goes “oh wow, I can’t wait to see if they have babies soon!!”

My sister (diehard Swifty and left winger politically) immediately said “shut UP. I don’t want her to have babies”

I have no clue if Taylor will have kids or not, but I do think Taylor can make it “cool” to be a mom for women in my sister’s demographic (29 years old, good career). Same way she could move the needle in some circles with a political endorsement.

Does her having a kid make it magically more affordable all of a sudden? No. But affordability is not the reason my sister is so anti-children. So for some people, it could matter. And I admit I’m probably biased because I happen to have a close family member who is in the exact demographic where something like Taylor Swift becoming a mom really COULD influence my sister’s whole outlook on what a meaningful/ideal life looks like.
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Do you think establishing a dystopian autocracy will provide an incentive for young folks to have children ?
 
I support legal immigration and allowing immigrants entry into the US based upon our country's needs. That could range from Indian engineers to unskilled Mexicans.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
Based on conversations I have had with young couples I know who are choosing to not have kids, the economy and cost of living is the number one reason. Put bluntly, they don't give a shit if celebrity couples aren't having kids and that's not an influence, they're not having kids because the cost of childcare is prohibitive, the cost of living for many young couples has become prohibitive, and it's a matter of money. Buying a home is now out of reach for many young couples, and might always be, and rent is insanely high as well, as is the cost of college. I know couples where the wife got pregnant and they had to give up jobs they liked and move back to be close to their parents because they couldn't afford daycare for the kids and so the parents agreed to do it. And - I know this horrifies conservatives - but we now live in a society in which it is acceptable to make your own choices about whether to have kids. My wife and I don't have children, and we didn't choose to do so because some celebrity didn't, it was simply our choice. I have spoken to older conservative relatives and people I know back home who have looked at us with shock and horror when we say that we don't have children; it is simply unfathomable to them. Welcome to the 21st Century, folks.
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Waay too pessimistic view of things. No question housing is expensive and we need to focus on building more entry housing. But your reality is not mine. Both of my children purchased their homes in their mid 20s. My son just closed on his 2nd home. 90% of their friends from HS and college own their own homes in places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Charleston, Dallas, No. VA and many have already started families. I realize this might not be a completely representative sample of young people but still....
 
Ramrouser said:
Waay too pessimistic view of things. No question housing is expensive and we need to focus on building more entry housing. But your reality is not mine. Both of my children purchased their homes in their mid 20s. My son just closed on his 2nd home. 90% of their friends from HS and college own their own homes in places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Charleston, Dallas, No. VA and many have already started families. I realize this might not be a completely representative sample of young people but still....
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This is one of your primary problems. You aren’t able to see or understand that just because you or people close to you have a particular experience, that it can’t and shouldn’t be extrapolated to most other people, especially not as it pertains to proposing policy?

I’m in my mid-30’s, have a HHI in the upper six-figures, and just bought a $1.1M house in a gated golf course community in a Charlotte suburb. Ten years ago this fall I was working in a full-time, completely unpaid internship two years after I graduated from college because I couldn’t get another job at the time, and I was dead-ass broke. Which of these two vastly different life situations do you think is more similar to that of the majority of younger people in their 20’s and early/mid 30’s (peak years for having children)? Should I extrapolate my current good fortune and believe that it applies to all other or most other young people? Clearly the answer is no.

Do you see why holding policy beliefs and positions based almost exclusively on your own life experiences is not a great way to legislate for the masses?
 
I can't tell for sure, but I'm guessing one of the trolls took over the thread. Super-ignore is not only your friend, it's a semi-civic duty.
 
Ramrouser said:
I support legal immigration and allowing immigrants entry into the US based upon our country's needs. That could range from Indian engineers to unskilled Mexicans.
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Yet Trump killed a comprehensive immigration reform bill that had bipartisan support, so he could campaign on immigration. He killed a good bill solely for political reasons. You want legal immigration, then pass a goddamn immigration bill. You aren’t going to solve immigration problems with masked banditos in unmarked vans.
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
Yes, in the same way she has been influenced by all her life experiences and external factors in the past. Attending UNC, being a Swiftie, etc.
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Why not just be satisfied with whatever choice she makes for herself? I'm asking honestly. I've never once considered that it would be a thing to want to influence people to have children or to not have children. Hell, I think there are a LOT of people who should be nowhere near a child, but it isn't really my place to influence them one way or the other.
 
Ramrouser said:
LEGAL immigration - not let the third world bum rush the southern border - which was Biden’s immigration policy.
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Show me any effort that Republicans have made toward legal immigration policies. If I've missed it, I apologize. All I see is a pretty blanket attempt to keep people out or throw people out. If the concern was LEGAL immigration, wouldn't that also be a focus?
 
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