Good morning:
This week, senior fellow Rob Henderson examines a troubling new report on fertility in America. The researchers find that the collapse in babies and children—and it has been a collapse—is trailing a collapse in friendship. The number of close friends Americans have and the time spent with them have decreased. And the rate of loneliness in America has increased. As Henderson summarizes for City Journal, “the friendship recession and the baby bust are the same recession.” For most of human history, children were raised within “a thick web” of community. For young Americans who would otherwise be growing up, having families, and being productive contributors to the country, that community is largely gone.
The children Americans do have need to be educated. Also in City Journal, policy analyst Neetu Arnold reports on the rise, fall, and renewed rise of gifted and talented programs in American schools. In jurisdictions that attempted to combine students of highly unequal levels of academic capacity in the name of equity, parents revolted. Arnold reminds us that providing an advanced education to children who require advanced coursework does not necessarily mean neglecting the children who struggle.
However, we are neglecting Americans with serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, in favor of treating people who are facing typical distressing life problems, like bad grades, teen angst, or divorce. In the Washington Examiner, fellow Carolyn Gorman lays out the troubling state of mental health care in the U.S. She finds that “lack of targeting and accountability is the problem, not a lack of funding. States spent over $61 billion on community mental health in 2024,” but these programs have not reduced “the prevalence of serious mental illness, nor their rates of homelessness, arrests, or incarceration.” The system needs its priorities reordered.
Finally, investigative reporter Stu Smith writes in the Free Press that mainstream media has not paid enough attention on the modern Democratic Socialists of America to understand the group’s genuinely Communist identity, which it has not shed even as it sweeps many Democratic primary races in deep blue districts. Smith urges readers to look into the evolution of the organization and maps out the key players and what they believe. “Just as North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, doesn’t reflect the reality of its political system,” Smith writes, “the DSA’s official name isn’t a reliable guide to the ideological makeup of its current leadership.”
Continue reading for all these insights and more. Kelsey Bloom Editorial Director |
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The DSA’s Communist Turn
By Stu Smith | The Free Press | Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“At the Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering in Washington last week, President Donald Trump warned that many Democratic Socialist candidates ‘are not social democrats. These are hardcore, godless Communists. ... This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence.’ Trump’s remarks sparked a wave of condemnations, including from CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who said that ‘socialism, much less democratic socialism, is not communism.’
“Statements like Collins’ highlight how little attention the press has given to the Democratic Socialists of America and its national leadership. The majority of the DSA’s governing board, the National Political Committee (NPC), openly identifies with Communist ideology. ... Members with Communist political tendencies now significantly shape the DSA’s leadership, and the organization is an increasingly attractive vehicle for bringing together a wide range of left-wing movements, many of which profess to be Communist.”
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Mamdani’s AC Warning Revealed That NY’s Power Grid Is in Big Trouble — and It’s a Problem He Helped Cause
By Ken Girardin | New York Post | Photo by John Nacion/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust “As temperatures hit 100 degrees last week, New York City’s unconventional mayor did something pretty conventional: He urged people to use less electricity. “But when Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged residents to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees (a past practice of both Democrats and Republicans alike), he revealed something far more harmful than the heat index: how much Albany’s policies have driven New York City’s power grid to the point of collapse. ... “The state’s energy policy went off the rails last decade, when Albany set unreachable climate goals, then forced electric utilities to implement them. Mamdani has fiercely defended that 2019 climate law at every turn, even as the negative consequences have piled up.
“When Mamdani entered the Assembly in early 2021, Con Edison and others were tearing up a century-old playbook that had successfully balanced reliability and cost. Suddenly the utility companies had to pull double-duty as climate crusaders — and as Albany’s bagmen to pay for their multi-trillion-dollar boondoggle.” |
States Need an Agenda on Serious Mental Illness
By Carolyn Gorman | Washington Examiner | Photo by bodrumsurf via Getty Images
“Last month, a new state-run psychiatric hospital opened in Dallas, one of the first built in several decades. The Texas Behavioral Health Center is part of a multi-year, multibillion-dollar investment by the state to rebuild and modernize its state hospital system. No other state has made a dedicated investment of this kind, despite a nationwide shortage of psych beds. Texas’s investment represents a needed shift. ... “Serious mental illness, best represented by schizophrenia, is distinct from common anxiety, depression, and ordinary distress. ... Although it affects only about 5% of Americans, it accounts for a disproportionate share of the street homeless and incarcerated. Neglected by the mental health system, these hardest cases put other public systems under strain: social services, courts, and emergency departments. ... “Broad mental health efforts are billed as prevention for serious conditions. But almost no one with a generic distressing problem — such as bad grades, teen angst, divorce, or job dissatisfaction — will ever develop a disabling psychiatric condition.” |
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Want More Babies? We Need More Friends
By Robert Henderson | City Journal | Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images
“The American birthrate has fallen below 1.6 children per woman. Replacement fertility requires about 2.1. ... The fertility collapse is not only economic, but social. Americans are not having fewer children because they want fewer children. They are having fewer children, in part, because friendship has thinned and social support for family life has weakened. ...
“Researchers asked respondents how many kids their three closest friends had, and how those friends would react if the respondent had another baby. Would they offer to help? Cook meals after the birth? Or would they worry about their career stalling or stop inviting them out?
“The answers were associated, to a startling degree, with the desire to have children. For Americans under 30 with the least supportive friends, desired family size was about 1.7 children. For those with the most supportive friends, it was 2.8. That is a full extra child. ...
“Demographic decline is a choice, and choices can be reversed. The question is whether Americans are willing to rebuild the ordinary social world that once made children thinkable: full pews, crowded porches, friends within walking distance. A country that cannot produce friendship will not produce much of anything else.” |
The Return of Gifted Education
By Neetu Arnold | City Journal | Photo by wera Rodsawang/Moment via Getty Images
“Throughout the 2010s and early 2020s, advanced-education programs seemed to be on the chopping block, as officials and legislators claimed that they worsen racial inequalities. Schools dumped standardized tests for entrance into specialized programs and eliminated honors classes. Some coped by offering individualized instruction to students in mixed-ability classes rather than providing those students with their own classrooms. “That experiment proved wildly unpopular. In a postmortem of the 2024 presidential election, Democratic pollsters found that the most unpopular K–12 education policy was eliminating tracking in public schools. Parents discovered that their children were at a disadvantage when applying to college because their schools lacked certain advanced programs. “In San Francisco, the experiment became so untenable that the district brought back eighth-grade algebra after a decade of banishing it. Last year, Boston restored merit-based admissions to its coveted exam schools.” |
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Immigration and Economics: A Panel with Jason Riley, Dan McLaughlin, David Bier, and Charles Lane
By Manhattan Institute
In a panel hosted by Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jason Riley, Charles Lane (The Free Press), Dan McLaughlin (National Review), and David Bier (Cato Institute) explore the complex issues surrounding immigration, its economic impacts, cultural implications, and policy considerations in the United States and Europe. They share insights on how immigration shapes prosperity, social cohesion, and political dynamics. |
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