Is it possible your correspondent has finally gotten his man? A towering figure (figuratively) who stands with this commentator in elevating promotion of marriage and family formation as the top priority of smart government?

If so, it couldn’t be more appropriate for this moment and this very week. Because regenerating flagging family formation is the key to achieving each and every objective highlighted in the nightly themes of the 2024 Republican National Convention:

Make America Wealthy Again. As this virtual ink-stained wretch previously posited, “Governments can’t and don’t create wealth. They merely redistribute it – and destroy it.

“And in the process, destroy the institutions that truly generate prosperity and motivate and animate its creation: entrepreneurship and marriage.”

As a business commentator put it: “Household formation is serious economic business. One new household usually adds about $145,000 to the U.S. economy.”

Moreover, married couples are, well, wealthier. Economists from the St. Louis Federal Reserve say young married couples boasted nine times singles’ net worth in 2019, and the Census Bureau reports the gap remains wide into older ages. 

Married families with children? Ditto. Researchers from the Institute for Family Studies estimated a decade ago that “at least 32% of the growth in family-income inequality since 1979 among families with children … can be linked to the decreasing number of Americans who form and maintain stable, married families.”

Make America Safe Again. IFS researchers again: “The total crime rate is about 48% higher in cities that have above the median share of single-parent families, compared to cities that have fewer single-parent families. That difference is even larger with respect to violent crime and homicide, specifically.” 

Make America Strong Again. Defense spending is dropping precipitously as a share of GDP as it is crowded out by spending on old-age and health care entitlements and welfare programs. And why? Social Security and Medicare are plummeting to insolvency because of equally crashing birth rates, in turn largely attributable to the decline in marriage. More than three in 10 single-mother households are on Medicaid, and they dominate food stamp and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families expenditures.

Make America Great Again. Which brings us back to the subject of our article: the sudden ascension to the pinnacle of one party’s ticket of a leader who (correctly) agrees with this pundit that enabling the American Dream of providing a better life for one’s family was exactly what made America great in the first place – and could do so again.

A solon who, in a speech for the ages prior to his election to The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body®, an oration that appealed for courage in countering the destructive tides sweeping our culture to oblivion, evidenced just such courage in asserting:

I think the rejection of the American family is perhaps the most pernicious and most evil thing that the left has done …

The fact that we’re not having enough babies, the fact that we’re not having enough children, is a crisis in this country … It’s a crisis because it doesn’t give our leaders enough of an investment in the future of their country. And it’s a crisis because we know that babies are good.

Now, I could sit here and tell you all kinds of reasons why they’re good. There’s a ton of economic evidence that suggests that children make economies more innovative, more productive, more geared toward the future … 

A country that has children is a healthy country that’s worth living in. 

Why can’t we actually promote family formation here in our country? Why can’t we give resources to parents who tell us the only reason they’re not having kids is because they can’t afford it?

This is a civilizational crisis, and if we’re not willing to spend resources to solve it, we’re not serious about the very real problems that we face. So we should do it. We should give resources to parents who are going to have kids. 

We should make it easier to raise American families. And we should send the signal to the culture that we are the pro-family party and we’re going to back it up with real policy.

We can debate the policy details, but I hope we all agree that more healthy American families is a good thing.”

He actually suggested giving extra votes to parents!

The hope and literal prayer here: that among the reasons this champion of children has been effectively anointed as the heir to the MAGA movement is to send exactly that signal.

That this courageous challenger of culture and the head of the ticket – who has forwarded notions of his own about goosing American fertility in the most colorful terms – will indeed display the conviction to such bold proposals, and the debate of exactly such policy details, a centerpiece of their campaign.

Even more so, if they miraculously overcome the inevitable political dirty tricks, October surprises and electoral shenanigans and get elected, they will make family formation the cornerstone of their governing agenda.

And in so providing an impetus for change your correspondent truly does believe in, will demonstrate that he truly, finally indeed has his man: the new wannaveep, James David Vance.

Bob Maistros is a messaging and communications strategist, crisis specialist, and former political speechwriter. He can be reached at bob@rpmexecutive.com.