The Trump administration’s ideologues keep coming back to birth rates. The new National Security Strategy, released on Friday, declares that Europe is facing “the stark prospect of civilizational erasure” because of “migration policies that are transforming the continent” and “cratering birth rates,” leading to a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.” What Europe needs, the NSS states, is more “unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history” and a “revival of spirit” that today’s far-right parties promise. To match that energy in the United States, the administration offers a “restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health” based on “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.”

As if we needed more reasons to compare our current predicament with the rising authoritarian movement in Europe a century ago, when continental leaders were also in a panic about falling birth rates and flagging national virility.

When it comes to birth rates, unfortunately, the panic is not confined to the authoritarian right. We are in the midst of a social panic in which a growing left-right chorus is trumpeting the supposed demographic crisis. The right has been louder about it, of course, with Elon Musk and JD Vance leading the charge for more baby-making. But the left has not been entirely dismissive. A recent Jacobin essay by sociology professor David Calnitsky argued that “the population-decline scenario is one where life gets worse and worse long before it ends,” and The New Republic, though often critical of right-wing pronatalists, published an

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