MAGA Misunderstands the Family
What a new report gets right—and wrong—about America’s crisis of family life.
In recent years, National Conservatives have grown increasingly fixated on the American family. They view themselves as participants in an ongoing war over the role of family and family life in the modern world. As JD Vance recently put it: “I’m going to take aim at the left, specifically the childless left. Because I think the rejection of the American family is perhaps the most pernicious and most evil thing that the left has done in this country.”
For social conservatives, the Western family has fallen prey to the monstrosities of leftist ideology. They argue that a combination of welfare, the sexual revolution, and no-fault divorce has led the family to the brink of collapse—and with it, Western civilization.
This view is echoed in a recent report by the Heritage Foundation, a MAGA think tank, which seeks to diagnose and remedy the problems that plague the family. The report declares:
Today, fewer than 50 percent of Americans believe that society is better off when people prioritize marriage. These new norms mean that many children today will have no concept of the traditional family name, family home, or family vacation, because their definition of family doesn’t include marriage and, often, either fathers or siblings.
The report’s authors go on to offer a wide-ranging, broadly nationalist agenda to address what it sees as the total collapse of modern society’s moral fabric. They argue that the only real solution to America’s family crisis is a renewed commitment to marriage, which they understand as the stable commitment of one man and one woman. The report proposes the elimination of marriage penalties embedded in welfare programs and providing targeted financial support for those couples who meet their definition of the family.
But despite their laudable aims, the scholars of the Heritage Foundation fundamentally misunderstand the nature of family. While it is undeniable that families (and children in particular) are the foundation of any flourishing civilization, it is not the case that the decline in family is the result of attacks from the political left. What the right sees as a full-frontal assault is, in many cases, simply an attempt to expand the family beyond the tight strictures of 1950s social norms. What’s more, the decline in birthrates is a worldwide phenomenon, and is especially prevalent in Asia. This should cast doubt on the idea that the American left is uniquely to blame for the crisis of the family.
Before diving into exactly where National Conservatism loses the plot with regards to the family, it is worth acknowledging what they get right. Though most leftists have at least a modicum of respect for the family, some, such as the writer Sophie Lewis, openly despise the family, arguing in books such as Abolish the Family that it is high time for us to rethink the central role we allow families to play in our lives.
What’s more, it’s certainly true that a healthy family dynamic is one of the greatest guarantees of human happiness. As the 1966 Coleman Report showed, educational resources and economic success pale in comparison to family dynamics in shaping the prospects of the next generation. All of this the authors of the Heritage Report understand well.
Social conservatives are also right to point out that the family is not as healthy or vibrant as it once was. Since Daniel Patrick Moynihan first sounded the alarm about the collapse of the two-parent household in a landmark report in 1965, the situation has only worsened. An increasingly large number of children are raised by single parents, with a litany of studies showing that this drastically undermines their health and well-being. Likewise, a mounting number of young people have chosen to forgo having families altogether.
To put it plainly, the family is in trouble.
However, the most important thing is not just identifying a problem; it is correctly diagnosing the problem’s origin and finding a workable solution. It is here that National Conservatives go seriously wrong.
For one, they completely misunderstand what a family is. Their idea, borrowed from a unique and fairly rigid time in American history—the 1950s—is that a family should, most of the time, only ever consist of a father, a mother, and their biological children. This means that while many National Conservatives are in favor of straight parents adopting children, they are generally against surrogacy.
In addition, many thinkers on the right imply that even among monogamous couples, sexual intercourse and romance exist solely for human reproduction. As the (comparatively moderate) conservative political theorist Robert George writes: “Embracing a concept of marriage as a form of sexual-romantic companionship or domestic partnership … was, I believe, a tragic mistake.” He goes on to plug an organization whose entire purpose is to try and abolish same-sex marriage and encourage young people to connect romantically only if they wish to reproduce.
This nationalist account of the family excludes same-sex couples and any children they may choose to have. Glaringly, it also offers a conception of human romance that would be unrecognizable to, say, Shakespeare or Jane Austen. While child-rearing is arguably the most important thing any human can ever do, it is not necessarily the source of the innate attraction two souls feel for one another. Nor is there any ethical reason to believe that romantic life ought to only ever be coupled with having children.
As a result of this faulty premise, the Heritage report consistently implies that adoption by gay couples and romance without children are the product of human selfishness—placing the wishes of the couple above all else. The authors of the report state:
Policies should favor natural marriage over same-sex and polyamorous relationships, cohabitation, or intentional single parenthood. Fathers and mothers are not generic and interchangeable “parents.” It is not discrimination to acknowledge the differences between them. Each brings unique and complementary assets to the vocation of parenthood.
It goes on to imply that children without two biological parents are doomed to live sadder, less fulfilled lives.
But this is simply not true. Adoption by gay or straight couples is, as often as not, the product of the same strong nurturing instincts one finds in biological parents. Numerous studies demonstrate that the adopted children of gay parents are just as likely, if not more likely, to succeed in life.
In other words, National Conservatives consistently fail to comprehend the manifold avenues through which a life may be well led. As they make openly clear, they believe there is only one form of a healthy family—a male and female couple who come together for the purpose of having children and reproducing.
Nor does the decline in families choosing to have children necessarily indicate a rise in selfishness or some hatred of the family. By and large, nationalist fears that the “traditional” family is openly despised by the youth of today is simply false. The truth is that many young people are getting married and choosing not to have children due to forces largely outside of their control. The current economic climate makes it immensely hard for young people to take the necessary financial steps to start a family. The cost of housing, childcare, and living in general have reached astronomical levels. The average young career professional simply cannot keep up.
Of course, it’s true that the West has been captured by a strong individualism. National Conservatives’ attack on individualism remains one of the strongest aspects of their thought, and is no doubt one of the reasons for their recent political success. While an emphasis on the innate dignity of each individual human soul will always serve as a philosophic pre-requisite to a just society, too great an emphasis on the individual creates significant social problems. Humans are not made to live alone. At our best, we dedicate much of our existence to serving others. Conservatives are right to point out that this simple moral truth has been supplanted in recent decades by a near total adulation of the self-interested whims of individuals. Yet here, conservatives should view modern people—including the left—as victims of this trend rather than selfish propagators of it. Many young people today are lonely and unhappy, often for reasons they do not understand. They would never willingly choose this state of affairs.
At bottom, the National Conservatives do not understand the varied and powerful forces of human desire and longing. As a result, they lack the necessary empathy to actually tackle the problem, and instead treat young people as culprits rather than victims. It is hardly surprising, then, that their policy solutions are often illiberal and top-down—designed to force changes in a society they have come to believe is entirely contemptible. It no doubt would be easier if social ills could be easily solved through the brute force of the state. But history has proven time and time again that such avenues to social reform are doomed to failure.
In truth, the crisis of the family is best solved neither through illiberal statism nor by excluding some people from the benefits of family life. Instead, we should promote policies that uplift the family in all its varieties by providing individuals with the economic and philosophic tools to be able to choose family instead of isolated individualism. Some of this is relatively easy: protecting same-sex marriage, alleviating economic hardship through family-planning incentives, and making adoption more accessible. The Heritage report already recommends a child tax credit: if implemented, this should also be offered to those who do not fit within the narrow definition of family given by National Conservatives. Other important steps towards reviving the family are far more complicated—discouraging extreme individualism will take decades of work by writers, artists, and communities pushing to remake our culture from the bottom up.
There is little doubt that the family is in crisis. But the beauty of the family lies in its naturalness—the fact that parental love transcends social convention to form a basic building block of human happiness. As such, we should not only preserve the family as it currently exists; we should expand its warm glow to all people, and resist the narrow-minded gatekeeping of National Conservatives.
Jeffery Tyler Syck is an assistant professor of political science and the director of the Center for Public Service at the University of Pikeville in his native Kentucky.
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While I have no problem with gay marriage and same sex couples figuring out the massive complexity of raising children, the male and female married with children model will always be the platinum situation. Just like I don't have any problem with females pursuing career over family, the female that chooses marriage and family is the platinum situation.
Evolutionary biology does not shift on the demand of the progressive agenda. Female mothers and male fathers that are married make for the most well-adjusted children that in turn make the best population for society. The stats prove it.
That does not mean that we don't accept non-traditional family situations. It just means that we have to accept that traditional is the premium target and our public policies should always support moving to that as the goal.