In all the words flying around online during the current political season, very little is being said about the importance of marriage and family as the key factor of societal health. This is a particularly glaring omission, with notable exceptions, during the Republican primary. 

Dan Darling put it this way: “One thing strangely absent from the GOP primary is any conversation about how to help bolster marriage and family, economically, socially, etc. It’s a huge issue and there was almost zero conversation about it from candidates. Huge missed opportunity.”  

To talk about social stresses such as crime, identity confusion, mental and emotional distress, the addiction crisis, and other things while not addressing the importance of the family is to mistake fruits and the root.  

To think these issues can be addressed with money or lawmaking is a form of the political illusion that all problems are political and have political solutions. In fact, the best way to address most political problems is upstream from politics. 

This Point was previously published on February 16, 2023.