J.D. Vance and the Cat Ladies

I don’t pretend to know much about President Trump’s vice-president pick, J.D. Vance. I read his book, Hillbilly Elegy when it came out, but I have not followed his career or statements. So, what I’m about to write is based on a limited and narrow slice of reality—his now infamous comment in 2021 that, “We’re effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

This comment is causing a huge brouhaha with pundits salivating at the idea that Vance should be removed from the ticket. Here are my thoughts.

One of the key components of Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was his policy of playing offense rather than defense. Leftist reporters are always going to ask questions meant to embarrass and put Republican candidates off guard. In 2016, candidate Trump turned the tables. He and J.D. Vance need to do so again. I suggest that they answer questions about cat ladies with words akin to the following:

If you want to have a serious question about economics and the future of the United States with our declining birth rate, we can do so. If you are playing a game of “gotcha” I’m not going to play. Let’s rather talk about population growth in America due to unvetted and illegal immigrants when Kamala Harris was the border czar. Let’s talk about how many news outlets are retroactively erasing comments by themselves and by President Biden acknowledging that she was responsible for the past three years on the border. Let’s talk about her acquiescence in the attempt to lie to the American people about the state of Joe Biden’s health.

You could replace J.D. Vance with anybody including George Washington or Moses and the Leftist powers will find an outrageous quote from them or, if that is not readily available, they will make one up. Since they control the media and academia that will be front page news no matter what else is taking place in the world. Remember the career destroying tactics used against Robert Bork (1987)? Raymond Donovan (1981-1985)? Remember activists harking back to Mitt Romney or Brett Kavanaugh’s high school days to either report or fabricate a story?

Senator Vance’s quote is being reported as a cruel and inhumane attack on women who desperately want a child but are tragically not conceiving. Actress Jennifer Aniston, among others, is playing the victim of a bad man who mocks these women. Puhleeze! This is an old playbook. It is the same as producing a twelve-year-old girl raped by her stepbrother and presenting her as the typical abortion candidate or pretending that an ectopic pregnancy that threatens a woman’s life will be forcibly mandated to continue. Neither of those cases honestly depict the abortion culture in the United States. The childfree movement has nothing to do with women facing fertility issues. Neither does it ask the serious question as to whether freely choosing to not get pregnant in one’s most fertile years should make one an object of sympathy when one cannot naturally get pregnant after those years have elapsed.

I agree with J.D. Vance’s understanding that American women are more single, unhappier, and more bitter than ever before. And those women are politically active and extremely influential in Democratic politics and cultural issues. One of the most disturbing discussions I uncovered while doing research for our book The Holistic You, was between Meghan Daum and Mary Warrington discussing how, although both were happily married, they felt they made the correct personal decision to not have children. The discussion ended with a shocking conversation about perhaps choosing to euthanize themselves when they got older since they knew that there would be no children to love and care for them. As more women fit this category, I have no doubt that the legislation and culture around euthanasia will be affected.

As most of you know, our daughter, Rena, passed away three weeks ago. Since her diagnosis, she was lovingly supported, physically, financially, and emotionally by her husband, mother and father, five sisters and a brother, a sister-in-law, and five brothers-in-law. (She was also blessed with many wonderful friends, having devoted herself to building friendships and community – often initiated because of children.) As her body began shutting down over the last weeks of her life, she was constantly surrounded, and her needs met, by close relatives who loved her. Fewer and fewer people will have that privilege as they choose to journey through life without children. The personal, cultural, and economic ramifications of low fertility are real. I might have expressed myself differently than J.D. Vance, but he did speak the truth.

My personal life monopolized my attention as the vice-presidential pick was being discussed. J.D. Vance may not have been my first choice, but that is irrelevant. Allowing him to be destroyed by any comment ever made is a suicidal mistake for conservatives.

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