Far-Left New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told New York City residents and business owners to take on the heat wave in the name of collectivism, urging them to keep their thermostats set to a toasty 78 degrees. “New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool. Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can,” Mamdani told residents. The high temp on Wednesday was 91 degrees, which can feel even hotter in the city. Temperatures are expected to hit around 100 degrees for the rest of the week. “Our City is doing its part too: maintaining the 78 degrees rule in our buildings, dimming/turning off our lights during peak electricity demand, asking private partners to do the same, and powering down non-essential equipment,” the mayor added. “A stable grid means the AC stays on, and lives are saved. Let’s ease demand — and get through the heat — together.” New York: it’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool. Set your AC to 78 degrees, turn off lights/electronics you’re not using, and unplug what you can. Our City is doing its part too: maintaining the 78 degrees rule in our buildings,… — Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) July 1, 2026 He also instructed business owners to keep the thermostat at 78 degrees. Mayor Mamdani: “Set you thermostats to 78 degrees to alleviate the stress on our grid” The warmth of collectivism pic.twitter.com/VQjrvBPVqY — End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 1, 2026 Mamdani, who has spoken about the “warmth of collectivism” and embraces socialist policies, was quickly roasted online for the request to residents. Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis joked, “Is this what was meant by the warmth of collectivism?” Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt asked Mamdani, whom he referred to as a “commie,” to show his thermostat. He added in a follow-up tweet, “Communism always goes the same way. They smile & promise you the world. Free this, free that, abundance for all! How? Don’t ask!” Pratt wrote. “Then they get into power, and the rationing begins. First a smiley ask. Then a demand. Then a bullet. ‘You used too much energy, comrade.” “I have texted all my coworkers who voted for Zohran to send me a photo of their A/C set to 78,” Barstool’s Jack McGuire said. “This is the stark scarcity of socialism,” New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik commented. “New York is a state of extraordinary abundance in energy, power, and natural resources. Yet it is only because of the failed policies crushing our state’s energy independence that we have to settle for this Third World scarcity.” “The Communists really mean it when they say ‘replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,'” she added. “AMERICA IS THE LAND OF THE FREE, THE HOME OF THE BRAVE, AND THE INVENTORS OF AC (in Brooklyn, no less)!!!!” Barstool founder Dave Portnoy posted, “78 degrees??? Welcome to communism people! Hope you enjoy!” Related: Mamdani’s Coldest Rent Control Gimmick Yet

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** Two hundred and fifty years after the Declaration of Independence, the nation’s birthday ought to be one of those rare occasions capable of rising above party politics. Americans disagree about almost everything else; surely they can agree to celebrate the country itself. Instead, even America’s birthday has become another casualty of polarization. The Trump administration’s Freedom 250 celebrations have been practically boycotted by the Left as critics accuse the White House of transforming a once-in-a-generation civic anniversary into a partisan spectacle. Meanwhile, TikTokers moan into their iPhones about living in the “worst country ever” as this anniversary approaches, having never looked overseas to check in on how the North Koreans are getting on. Where the blame lies in this culture clash not the point. The country simply no longer possesses many institutions that everyone instinctively feels belong to everyone. Except, perhaps, one. While politicians argue over who gets to define America, millions of Americans from left to right have been captivated by another national event altogether: Taylor Swift’s wedding, rumored to take place on the very same weekend. It is easy to dismiss the frenzy surrounding America’s biggest pop star as celebrity obsession. But the sheer excitement surrounding her marriage shows that in an age when so much of public life feels fragmented, people are still drawn to one institution that transcends politics — the happy ending to a great American love story. This happens just as marriage itself has become increasingly rare. Half a century ago, roughly seven in 10 American adults were married. Today, only about half are. For the first time in the nation’s history, fewer than half of American households are headed by married couples. Marriage has become increasingly concentrated among wealthier, better-educated Americans while declining sharply elsewhere. That class-bound marriage inequality should concern us all, no matter our politics. Married men and women consistently report higher levels of life satisfaction than their unmarried peers. They are generally less likely to experience chronic loneliness, more likely to enjoy long-term financial stability and better health, and more likely to raise children who flourish educationally and economically. Of course, no statistic guarantees an individual’s future, and no marriage is immune from hardship, but the pattern is remarkably strong. The decline of marriage is impossible to separate from many of America’s other challenges. Headlines frequently warn us about collapsing birth rates, an epidemic of loneliness, declining trust between the sexes, and widening inequality. These are often treated as separate crises requiring separate policy solutions, yet they all intersect with one of America’s saddest social revolutions: Fewer people are marrying, and fewer children are growing up with married parents. For decades, popular culture encouraged a generation to believe that personal freedom and self-realization should come before permanent commitment. Marriage was something to postpone, or even eschew, while focusing on more individualistic ambitions. Few people embodied that cultural moment more than Taylor Swift. Swift abandoned dreams of Romeo-and-Juliet-style love to her teenage works, and her mid-career music (1989, Reputation) became the soundtrack for millennials navigating fierce feminist independence, ambition, heartbreak and self-discovery. She represented a generation told that careers and glamour and personal growth were life’s highest priorities. Relationships weren’t expected to last (“We are too busy dancing to get knocked off our feet,” she proclaims in “New Romantics”). But the heartbreak recounted in her “Tortured Poets Department” exposed the truth: Beneath the confident sheen of individualism, she was eventually angered by the men who never committed to her. (“You swore that you loved me, but where were the clues? I died on the altar waiting for proof,” from “So Long, London” ) So her traditional wedding — literally, America’s sweetheart marrying the boy on the football team — carries cultural significance beyond celebrity gossip. Of course, liberal-leaning Swift is hardly one to shout about traditional marriage values. But that’s what makes her story all the more compelling as it mirrors a broader generational shift. Millennial women who swore they didn’t need a man 10 years ago are no longer simply chasing a corner office or a strut down Fifth Avenue. Increasingly, they are finding the culture of hedonism wanting and looking for permanence: for homes, children, and lifelong commitments. The institution once portrayed as restrictive is becoming aspirational again. Of course, celebrity comes with privileges that ordinary Americans do not enjoy. Finding a spouse generally becomes more difficult with age, particularly for women, and many people who delayed family life discover that reality too late. Our culture has often been reluctant to acknowledge those trade-offs honestly, preferring to assure young adults that every milestone can be postponed indefinitely without consequence. Survey after survey finds that young Americans still hope to marry someday. They still dream of building families. They still long for the security of belonging completely to another person. The aspiration hasn’t been killed off; it just became shamefully hidden. Trump is right about one thing: America needs renewal. But while governments can organize pomp and pageantry, it takes much more work to rebuild habits of trust, sacrifice, and mutual obligation that sustain a free society. The strongest nations are built around family dinner tables, in neighborhoods, in churches, in civic associations, and, above all, in marriages. Perhaps that is why the country’s biggest cultural event this Independence Day is not another political rally or even a state fair. If America wants its next 250 years to be stronger than its last few decades, it won’t need fireworks, but more weddings. *** Lois McLatchie Miller (@loismclatch) is a writer and social commentator from Great Britain, focusing on the state of free speech, faith, and family across the globe.

On the same day last month, two prominent opinion writers both addressed the U.S. fertility decline: Louise Perry wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “Falling birth rates are a mystery,” while Jessica Grose at the New York Times stated that it is “not a mystery” why fertility rates are falling, pointing to the significant drop in teen births as the most likely culprit. From a demographer’s perspective, the U.S. fertility decline is not a mystery at all. The data clearly point to the massive drop in the number of children women have during their 20s as the direct cause. Between 2007 and 2025, the U.S. total fertility rate (TFR) dropped from a replacement level of 2.1 children per woman to 1.57 children per woman. And the drop in births among women ages 20 to 29 accounts for 78% of the overall decline in the total fertility rate. Understanding the Total Fertility Rate (TFR)  The total fertility rate (TFR) is calculated from age-specific fertility rates of women in the current year, which are basically summed across each five-year age group and converted to a per woman rate. It answers the question “If today’s birth patterns hold, how many children would an average woman have over her lifetime?” It is a real-time snapshot of the current fertility level, similar in approach to how life expectancy is calculated. Instead of getting fixated on the calculated TFR number, it is more important to look at the underlying data behind the TFR, the actual fertility rates by age. This shows a very clear picture of what is going on with declining fertility in the United States. The fertility rates for women ages 20 to 24 have been cut in half, from 105 births to 52 births per 1,000 women in this age group since 2007. The drop among women ages 25 to 29 is also very significant, at about a quarter (28%). Taken together, the fertility rate among women between ages 20 to 29 has declined 38% in the past 18 years. Credit: Institute for Family Studies. A drop by percentage can appear much more dramatic when the base for calculation is small. Fertility rates among teens dropped by 72% since 2007 (from 42 births to 12 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19), but the decline among women in their 20s was only 38%. Does that mean the decline in teen fertility rates is the main driver of the U.S. fertility? Absolutely not.  Women in their 20s carry way more weight in determining the overall fertility trend than teens, because they are the ones who have the most births. There is another measure demographers use to understand  fertility levels: the complete fertility rate (CFR). It is the average number of children born to a group (cohort) of women by the time they finish their productive years, typically measured around age 45. This is a retrospective measure, and you can only calculate it after one generation of women has finished childbearing. This is the measure upon which the claim “most women eventually have two children” is based. But CFR Data is at least 20 years behind the current trend. That’s why demographers rely on the total fertility rate (TFR) to track fertility changes. There is no reason to expect that today’s twentysomethings will follow the paths of women in their 40s and end up having two children by the end of their childbearing years. Childlessness is Near a Record High In fact, motherhood is shrinking quickly in the United States. By 2024, the most recent year for which data is available, nearly 1 in 5 women reaching the end of their childbearing years (18.8%) had never given birth, approaching the record high set in 2006. In an earlier study tracking fertility trends, I first identified this uptick in childlessness: in 2020, just four years earlier, the share was 1 in 6 (16.5%). Some may argue that modern reproductive technology, such as IVF or egg freezing, may reverse this trend. It is true that modern reproductive technology has enabled many older women who wanted children to become mothers. Between 2006 and 2016, childlessness among women ages 40 to 44 dropped sharply (from 20.4% to 14.4%). There is a good reason to believe that technology contributed to this decline: in 2012, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine removed the “experimental” label from egg freezing, making IVF and egg preservation more mainstream and accessible. That timing speaks volumes. Credit: Institute for Family Studies. However, women who benefited from this wave of new reproductive technologies were born in the 60s and 70s (late Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers). As early Millennials (born in the 80s) enter their 40s in recent years, we have seen a steady rise in childlessness. Technology alone cannot explain this reversal. Much of this is likely driven by the decline in marriage among Millennials, which is another factor closely linked to fertility decline. The U.S. fertility decline is shaped by many forces, but the data point to one primary driver: the collapse of childbearing among women in their 20s. Recognizing that is clearly the first step toward addressing it. *** This is republished with permission from the Institute for Family Studies. The original can be found here. Wendy R. Wang is the director of research and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and an expert on demographic trends, marriage, family, and well-being.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** In 1776, the United States was nothing, but it promised to become everything. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of this auspicious founding moment, the United States, having become everything, threatens to become nothing again.  This prospect arises because of the growing polarization and distrust of the American people for one another, and above all a notable decline in old-fashioned patriotism and respect for our fellow citizens. The fraying bonds of social trust among Americans might snap if present trends continue. That the American people, or at least their engaged political class, are deeply polarized is not breaking news. According to repeated surveys over the last 20 years, partisan and ideological distrust has been growing rapidly. One of the more eyebrow-raising recent trends is the number of Republicans and Democrats (over 50% in some surveys) who say they don’t want their children to marry someone of the other political party. More ominous is the declining number of Americans who express love for country or pride in being American. According to a recent NBC News and Gallup survey data, as recently as 2004, 70% of Americans said they were “extremely proud” to be American. By last month that number had fallen to just 33%, while the number of Americans saying they were “not at all proud” or “only a little proud” of being American had risen from basically zero 20 years ago to a total of 24% today. But this trend has a lopsided distribution: It is largely an ideological and partisan phenomenon. Patriotism and love of country is conspicuously plummeting among liberals and Democrats. Gallup’s annual survey on patriotism finds that Republican patriotism or pride in citizenship has remained around 70% or higher for the last 25 years, regardless of which party was in power in Washington. The GOP trend line is so stable you could  balance a glass of water on it. Democrats have always been a few percentage points lower than Republicans, even when a Democrat was in power, but they fell precipitously when George W. Bush and Donald Trump were in the White House.  In other words, to put it bluntly, patriotism among a growing number of Democrats seems conditional about whether they are in power or not. And a conditional patriotism is a weak patriotism. The last time so many Democrats were conditional about their attachment to the country and their fellow citizens ended in a civil war. “Patriotism is civic friendship,” the political philosopher Harry Jaffa once wrote. “Patriotism is the link between justice and friendship in its purest or transpolitical form. Those who see each other as utterly alien cannot be fellow citizens.”  Bitter partisan divisions over the best course for the country have been with us from the very beginning. Is there something different about today’s disaffection with the country? One clue might come from revisiting the bicentennial in 1976. Old readers will recall that the country was at a low point in 1976. The nation had good reason to be depressed and divided. The wounds from the Vietnam War and the social unrest of the 1960s were still fresh, as were the doubts about our future in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The economy was also in dreadful shape. Despite all the reasons for pessimism, there was very little decline of patriotism among Americans. To the contrary, the celebration of the bicentennial, with the large-scale spectacle of colonial era “tall ships” sailing up the Hudson River in New York serving as the visual highlight, helped lift the nation out of its sour mood. The “tall ships” procession on the Hudson is going to be repeated this July 4, though we can speculate whether a President Kamala Harris might have preferred a procession of slave ships instead this year, given her many prior comments about how the arrival of American colonists led to the oppression of minorities. But zoom in a little closer and we can find a sharp contrast with the present moment. Back in 1976, even the Left was on board with celebrating the nation’s founding. While the Left did not relent in its radical critique of modern America — especially American capitalism — it found it useful or necessary to don the rhetorical garments of Yankee Doodle Dandy.  The most notable effort was the “People’s Bicentennial Commission,” led by young leaders from the anti-Vietnam War movement. While the PBC was Marxist to the core, they were careful to wrap themselves in the American Founding and attempted to associate their anti-capitalist crusade with the “revolution” of 1776. The PBC very cleverly assailed the commercialism of the bicentennial — large consumer brands had gone in big for using bicentennial imagery and official logos on their products — as representing a “buy-centennial.”  Less effective were their attempts to associate the revolutionary leaders of 1776 with the radical totalitarian revolutionary leaders of the 20th century. The leader of the PBC, Jeremy Rifkin, wrote that “a genuine understanding of revolutionary ideals is what links Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, and Benjamin Rush, and the American people, with Lenin, Mao, Che [Guevara] and the struggles of all oppressed people in the world.” Their attempts to wrap themselves in the mantle of the American Revolution were so obviously insincere that the Senate Judiciary Committee, run by Democrats in 1976, held a two-day hearing to expose the essential radicalism of the PBC. The committee concluded that the PBC “is a propaganda and organizing tool of a small group of New Left political extremists who seek to use the Bicentennial to further their own goals.” Can anyone imagine congressional Democrats today convening a congressional committee to investigate the Democratic Socialists of America, several of whose leaders have admitted they are running for office as Democrats only as a convenience toward their end of radical revolution? To the contrary, New York City Democrats just chose three DSA candidates, at least one of whom has said openly her goal is the abolition the United States as we know it and “the total eradication of  Western civilization”. All three DSA candidates will enter the House of Representatives next January, unless the House votes to refuse to seat them on the sensible grounds that they cannot uphold their oath of office to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” Beyond the DSA candidates of this election season, today the Left barely makes a perfunctory effort to embrace the American founding. Instead the Left’s ideological and ahistorical propaganda today is best exemplified by the “1619 Project” of the New York Times, which asserts America is and always has been a “slavocracy” rather than a democracy. Scratch a leftist today and he admits that he thinks America is and has always been a fraud. The Nation magazine unintentionally revealed this in its dyspeptic July 4 issue in an article celebrating its hero, Senator Bernie Sanders: “Sanders doesn’t really go for Fourth of July-style patriotic boasting.”  Some of the founders of 1776 and 1787 were gloomy about the nation’s prospects and worried that the nation might not survive very long. America has been through many periods of crisis that were followed by renewal. Abraham Lincoln, foreseeing as young man the dire consequences of neglecting or forgetting the principles of the founding, began warning as early as 1838 that the nation needed to recur constantly to “our ancient faith” if it was to avoid being the author of its own destruction. That’s a message patriots should keep in mind on this semiquincentennial. *** Steven F. Hayward is a visiting professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy and the author of nine books, including “Patriotism Is Not Enough.”

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** The Fourth of July is a special day, and this one has been 250 years in the making. That means great care must be taken to plan out how to maximize the celebration of this great nation. While every red-blooded American’s heart swells when he hears the national anthem or sees a giant banner waving in front of a deep blue field of summer twilight, there’s only one day dedicated to going all-out in patriotism. That’s a high bar any year — even more so on the semiquincentennial. So I’m here to help you figure out what’s a “want to do” and a “must-have” this Independence Day. The first and foundational part of celebrating America’s founding is to have people over (presumably other Americans, but if they’re not, show them that our melting pot is more than queso or fondue). Ideally, you should host as many as your house can hold. Thankfully, my parents host the whole family and friends every year, and their house is almost big enough to hold everyone. But by the end of the holiday, it can feel tight. That’s because we come several days before the Fourth. We stay several days after. The house is hot, and still someone is baking a pie or some cookies. This is why it is vital to have a cooler filled with ice and cheap, American beer. (For those taking notes, this is the second thing you need.) And thankfully, they have great non-alcoholic options for those who don’t partake. Budweiser, Hamms, and Coors are all obvious choices. Busch NA and Budweiser Zero are perfect for those who abstain — or anyone, actually. They’re necessary to beat the heat. The ice-filled cooler is important; the beer needs to be frigid, not just refrigerator-cold. Now we move on to the food. There should be a tradition already in your family. If not, it’s high time to make one. My family has started to make ice cream on the Fourth. We get out a vintage ice cream maker that miraculously still works. We give it a rinse, spin up a custard base and then throw it in the contraption, which spins and whirs in its own bucket of ice and salt. Nothing tastes as good as homemade ice cream on the lawn on July 4. Nothing. You can eat store-bought ice cream, sure. But where’s the fun in that? You can eat store-bought waffle cones, sure. But isn’t it better to scorch your fingers on a waffle cone iron in the hot kitchen where someone is making cookies or pie again? Obviously at some point in the afternoon, you might be tempted to take a nap. Power through and do some fireworks instead. Drink some water. You have to keep going. Maybe there’s a kiddie pool you can stick your ankles in. Maybe there’s some watermelon to eat with another cold beer while dinner gets started. There is only one option for dinner on the Fourth of July: hot dogs and hamburgers. There’s nothing more American than slabs of carcinogen-coated meat on high-fructose corn syrup buns with pickles brought to you by FD&C Green. For hot dogs, it’s the same except the meat is more mysterious and it comes in beautiful tubes. At last the meal is served on platters and plates. The spread is set across kitchen counters or the table. Eat out on the lawn even though it’s hot. It’s still hotter inside even though the AC is set to 72. The sky darkens as the food effortlessly disappears. After eating the house-heating pie and cookies, you’re ready for the main event: fireworks. It’s not lost on me that we spend billions every year to get fireworks straight from China. But credit where credit is due: They invented them. We perfected them. You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars. I wager you can get everything you need to have a good time under $50 if you plan it out. The trick with fireworks is to know your audience. With young kids around, you need little zippy fireworks that aren’t too scary. The gimmickier the better: Dragon Poo, Dog Poo, Mr. Poop — turns out poop-themed ones do really well. More thrilling are the whizzers that spin up into the air. Or the ladybugs that scream. Parachutes are fun for the daytime or early evening hours. For the bigger DIY displays after dark, kids like fountains. They’re not scary. They glow. They usually don’t scream or pop too loud. They’re safe — but boring. That’s why you need some for the adults, too. Get a duke’s mixture of big and little stuff. The number of shots is the wrong way to think about it. You need to think about the total number of wicks you get to light: the thrill of another rocket going into the sky, yet another mortar sent up into oblivion. Let the people on the lawn pretend the fireworks are for their benefit. Without them, it’s not a “show.” But the true joy is lighting something, running away, and watching it blow up. This is where the dangerous stuff comes in: mortar shells, Roman candles, missile bases, cakes, firecrackers. These have cost fools their fingers and idiots their eyes. These fireworks are a celebration of freedom. They ask you to take your life into your hands and accept the risks and the responsibilities of having fun. They require you to do the right thing in the right way for the safety and well-being of those around you; we’ve all seen what happens when the party gets ruined by those who can’t govern themselves. Shoot everything off, and end with the biggest one you have. Call that a finale, and then say good night to everyone or go inside and bask in the afterglow of another American holiday well spent. Before you close your eyes to sleep, pray for our leaders and thank God you live in the best country in the world. If you don’t believe that, you should go live somewhere else until you come crawling back to this country on your knees. Then try celebrating again on another Fourth of July with gusto. The food, drinks, and fireworks are window dressing. The real secret is loving America — not with empty words but actions. And that’s best done however you want. God bless. *** Brendan Clarey is the deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer.