Trump Makes Tech Bros More Babies Movement Even Creepier

The pronatalist movement, the idea that we need to have as many children as possible, has been getting a lot of attention online and it's really become popular because of individuals like Elon Musk and JD Vance putting it into the ears of Donald Trump and it's really become something that the Trump presidency has taken a hold to.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Hey, Brenton, thank you for joining us. I think today we're gonna talk about the neo-natalist movement. Now, this has been getting a lot of attention online. A lot of folks are following them. A lot of folks don't know what we're talking about. So tell me, what is the neo-natalist movement?

So this is a movement that started a number of years ago, and it's really become popular because of individuals like Elon Musk and JD Vance have really kind of taken a hold and put it into the ears of Donald Trump and it's really become something that this organization and the Trump presidency has really kind of taken a hold to. And the idea is that any developing nation, for many years, their population has been declining and so in order to prevent these populations from declining even further, and in order to make them even greater, the idea behind the pronatalist movement is that they need to have as many children as possible. And so they promote however you can just the creation of baby after baby, after baby. And the idea is that this will solve the problems of many nations, including those that are the top nations in the world, that are the ones that are supposed to be leading us into the 21st century and beyond.

So let's unpack that for a little bit. We can look at the statistics. Japan famously for many years has had a abysmal birth rate. They're not coming close to replacing their population. South Korea, America, some folks, you know, microplastics lead to infertility. Some of the drugs we consume lead to infertility. I know anecdotally a lot of folks struggle with fertility that want to have children. They're not talking to those people. They're not talking to you and I, they're just encouraging people to make babies. That's ultimately what the movement is. And my understanding is it really ranges in ideological standpoints. You've got everything from actual outright neo-Nazis to people who have some leftist views, but fairly odd views, generally.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. We've had conversations outside of this show about this and very interesting movement is that some of the people that are figureheads of it, they believe in L-G-B-T-Q rights, they believe in, science and statistics. And then you have people that are neo-Nazis that only want people that are of white and pure blood to be the ones who are procreating, to even individuals that don't believe in science but say that this is all faith oriented and that because it's what the Bible calls for and talks for recreation and bringing about a Christian nation and that's the best way to do is by procreating individuals. So it really does have a wide gambit of individuals that are interested in this subject. And the problem is that when it gets to the government level and they start trying to regulate it, you really fall into some issues.

And certainly, we've seen everything from the trad wives that that movement has come very popular on social media, which is that, women are supposed to be at home in the more traditional role and obviously a lot of women find this offensive and don't want to do this. They don't want to be baby factories, as it were. Ultimately, doesn't it come down to an issue of money? It's very expensive to raise a child in these developed countries. Some of the low end is like $300,000 over the course just to get you to 18. And of course, with housing prices being what they are, a lot of folks are living with their mom and dad into their twenties, into their thirties. How do these people plan to afford having all these children?

Well, quite simply, they say that it's not that expensive because you don't have to provide the children much, right? They say that you need to just get rid of excess spending, which are things like vacations or too many toys.