Old people voting in their own interests at the expense of young people is them trying to maintain their higher position in the socioeconomic hierarchy. There is a secondary component related to skin tone and ancestry as well.

Nice theory, however you’re believing people vote for their best interests, and the above comment believes they’re deluded by misinformation.

I think both are occurring. Young white men went GOP, why is that? Anti vaxx leftists went with Kennedy, why is that? Why do anti-immigration and pro-economics claim the top two republican policy slots, when they’re firmly opposed in their effects on the economy? This is the contradictory trend of delusion and cult of personality.

If the BBB just passed is an indication, I think overall we are more on the deluded side, most of these deluded non-rich white folks are more anti-immigrant than pro-economics.

Of course I do not believe GOP economic policies are better than the alternative, I’m not the one who voted for that policy regime however!

Why do we need to "tackle" the demographic collapse? The CEO of Ford just said he expects 50% of white-collar jobs to be eliminated soon. Tax the AI and you'll have plenty of money for retirees. There's nothing wrong with naturally, and gradually, going back to the population levels of 1980 or whatever.

I don’t see a way to avoid population decline, assuming women have freedom and access to 100% effective birth control.

The whole process of pregnancy/birth//breastfeeding/infant rearing sucks, so that most women will opt for 1 or 2, max.

Then you have to account for all the men and women who opt to stay single (or queer or whatever). The number of women that need to have more than 2 kids to offset those with 0 and 1 will never happen.

The only possible mechanism to align incentives is to remove all old age benefits and wealth transfers, so that one likely has to depend on their children. But even then, I doubt it would work.