The human brain is a strange and wonderfully labyrinthine organ. A single, random thought can lead you to places you didn’t realize existed . . . and sometimes wish you had never discovered.

Now, you know I’m going to give you an example . . . right?

In Russia, Vladimir Putin declared 2024 to be The Year of the Family. For 12 full months, he promoted and rewarded — with great fanfare and monetary incentives — couples who had happily produced multiple children and espoused conservative, family-first values. In and of themselves, large families are great . . . provided you have the desire, the temperament, and the resources to house, feed, clothe and educate all those children.

But Putin took the fun out of child-rearing by declaring it every couple’s obligation to the state, even going so far as to authorize time out on the job for a little afternoon delight, just to help things along. Russia’s population had been in serious decline for some time, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of young men to Putin’s war in Ukraine has only exacerbated the situation. So he declared that people must procreate.

And to further augment the numbers, he has been inviting conservative families with multiple children to emigrate from other countries to Russia, capitalizing on their naïveté by luring them with promises of an idyllic life on a piece of land of their own, and the opportunity to live free of the Western “evils” of liberalism. The Feenstra family of Saskatchewan, Canada, is a prime example.

But Putin is not the only one who has jumped on the “family values” bandwagon. Here in the U.S., I have recently read (and written) about the burgeoning pronatalist movement, and the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). The pronatalists, as the name suggests, are advocates of large families — the more, the merrier. And the CREC churches promote, not only large families, but an all-Christian, patriarchal society in which women would revert to being little more than baby-making machines and servants to their masters.

Elon Musk is one noted proponent of pronatalism, having already fathered at least 14 children with various women, and expressed his intention to keep going; JD Vance’s church is a member of CREC. Others have been known to speak in favor of “White Christian Nationalism,” including Donald Trump, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And to be sure the increased population is comprised only of the most “desirable” individuals, certain steps have to be taken. So the current administration has plunged headfirst into a frenzy of deportations and entry visa restrictions, aimed primarily at Hispanics, Middle Easterners and Black Africans. But White South Africans have been made welcome, as well as Europeans with enough money to buy their way through the front door via Trump’s $5 million “gold” visa cards.

While Adolph Hitler went to the demonic extreme of slaughtering Germany’s “undesirable” citizens — Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and the mentally or physically disabled — Trump’s methods are far more subtle than those of a drug-crazed homicidal maniac. By simply eliminating programs fostering DEI and assistance to LGBTQ people, and withdrawing funding from universities and other institutions that promote DEI, he strives to make life untenable for a huge segment of the national population.

It appears to be a simple equation: While working to increase one sector of the population — the “desirables” — you begin simultaneously eliminating the so-called “undesirables” . . . thereby (hopefully) resulting in an eventual net gain.

And, with some careful planning and a little bit of luck, the remainder will be mostly comprised of White Christian nationalists.

At least, that’s the way it appears to me.

Now . . . would someone please prove me wrong? PLEASE??!!!

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/28/25