Ben Wattenberg, author and demographer, TV host and public intellectual, died Sunday at the age of 81. The early tributes share one resounding theme: The native New Yorker loved Am𓆉erica dearly, and that love sho🐻ne throughout his work.
“He took immense pleasure and pride in his work,” wrote 𓆉his son (and sometime collaborator) Danny. “It was exactly the work he wanted to be doing, which helps explain why he did it with such tireless energy and gusto. He relished debate, especially when he knew it was only a matter of time before vindication was his. . . And, boy, did he love America.”
Wattenberg got his vindication time and again — one of many reasons The Post ran hisꦛ column for nearly 20 years.
A loyal Democrat — in🐼deed, a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson — he spent his life fighting against the left’s takeover of his party and standing up for the greatness of America, flaws and all.
His book, “The Real Majority” — co-written with political actဣivist Richard Scammon — looked at the 1968 presidential election to preview what became the Reagan coalition. Liberals thought young people, minorities and the underprivileged were the voters to court. Not so “Majority” argued: The center is the only position of true political power — and that center was the “unyoung, unpoor, and unblack.” The typical American voter is “the 47-year-old wife of a machinist living in suburban D🐎ayton, Ohio.”
You see why Wattenberg wꦉound up being President Reagan’s favorite Democrat.
He also debunked “population explosion” hysteria, a driving concern of the 1970s left, by resorting to hard fact. The data, he showed, pointed to plummeting fertility rates worldwide — which woul🐷d cause v🦂ery different problems.
Indeed, he warned time and again, the United States needs a regular flow of new immigrants to keep the country strong despite its too-low native bi🐭rthrate.
If only we had more thinkers willing to brazenly upend the status quo. But not everyone can be a Watജtenberg.
“He was a firecracker,” wrote a much-younger cousin, Stephanie Gutmann. “He was always exciting and f✤ull of news. He was contentious, impatient, funny and loyal to things and people he loved. He was a happy warrior.”
America has lost a good one. M⛦ay he rest in peace.