WSJ steals from "Baby Gap"

The WSJ rips off my "Affordable Family Formation" series. In "Cheer Up, Conservatives! You're still winning," John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge write:

Last November, American conservatives were full of grand visions of a permanent revolution, with spending brought back under control, Social Security privatized, conservatives filling the federal bench, and a great depression visited on the lawsuit industry. Six months later, listening to conservatives is as uplifting as reading William Styron's "Darkness Visible." Larry Kudlow bemoans "the dreariest political spring." John Derbyshire worries about the "twilight of conservatism" as the Republicans go the way of Britain's Tories. For Pat Buchanan "the conservative movement has passed into history"--much as, some would say, Mr. Buchanan himself has done...

The biggest advantage of all for conservatives is that they have a lock on the American dream. America is famously an idea more than a geographical expression, and that idea seems to be the province of the right...

If the American dream means anything, it means finding a plot of land where you can shape your destiny and raise your children. Those pragmatic dreamers look ever more Republican. Mr. Bush walloped Mr. Kerry among people who were married with children. He also carried 25 of the top 26 cities in terms of white fertility. Mr. Kerry carried the bottom 16. San Francisco, the citadel of liberalism, has the lowest proportion of people under 18 in the country (14.5%).

So cheer up conservatives. You have the country's most powerful political party on your side. You have control of the market for political ideas. You have the American dream. And, despite your bout of triste post coitum, you are still outbreeding your rivals.

They don't mention, of course, of where they got this idea or data. It might raise a few red flags about the health of conservatism if they admitted that the mainstream Republican establishment's drink-the-KoolAidism means that all the interesting intellectual work on the right is being done by a demonized fringe.

They also don't mention that higher fertility among whites doesn't automatically ensure a growing slice of the electorate for the GOP: nonwhites, who on average favor the Democrats have higher fertility than whites. Plus immigration is boosting the Democratic-leaning groups. I'm not sure who is going to win this struggle, but I don't think it's healthy for the country.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer