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When most people heard that JD Vance said that Kamala Harris and many other Democratic politicians are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too,” they heard that as him saying that many Democratic politicians, including Kamala Harris are “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Most of us didn’t think too deeply on it, or consider for a moment that it might mean something entirely different and practically unrelated to the specific words that came out of his mouth.
In a pre-recorded interview with Fox News’s Ainsley Earhardt that aired on Sunday, Usha Vance helpfully explained that her husband was not, as it seemed to anyone with ears, denigrating women without children. He was simply expressing how sad he is about how tough it is for families these days!
“I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said, and try and understand what the context was in all that, which is something that I really wish people would do a little bit more often,” Vance explained.
Ah yes, well — it must be the toxoplasmosis, causing us to perceive an obvious insult as an obvious insult instead of finding a way to believe he meant something that had absolutely nothing to do with the words that came out of his mouth.
“The reality is, he made a quip in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive, and it had actual meaning,” she added. “And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase, because what he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country and that sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder.”
So weird, because it definitely seemed like he was saying that people who don’t have children don’t have an “investment” in our future and therefore should not be political leaders!
“We should be asking ourselves, ‘why is that true?’” she said. “What is it about our leadership and the way that they think about the world that makes it so hard sometimes for parents? And that’s the conversation that I really think we should have, and I understand why he was saying that.”
This would all be very believable, were Vance not from the party that opposes practically any measure that would actually help families and also make it easier on people, economically, to choose to have children. You know, things like an expanded child tax credit, universal school lunches, universal public college, investing in public education, a living wage, universal healthcare (for everyone, because if people go broke from a health emergency, they can’t take care of their children, duh) and so on.
But he is.
When asked what she would say to the women who were offended by his comments, she helpfully explained that he would never do that.
“I think I would say first of all that JD absolutely, at the time and today, would never, ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family who really, you know, was struggling with that, and he made that clear at the time and he’s made that clear today, “said Vance, who appeared to be referencing some part of that interview that absolutely didn’t occur anywhere outside of her own imagination. “We have lots of friends who have been in that position, it is challenging, never, ever anything that anyone would want to mock or make fun of.”
“I also understand,” she added, “that there are a lot of other reasons why people may choose not to have families, and many of those reasons are very good.”
Fun fact! Any reason that anyone decides to have or not have children is a good reason, because it’s their reason and their body and their life.
“Let’s try to look at the real conversation that he’s trying to have and engage with it and understand that or those of us who do have families, for the many of us who want to have families and for whom it’s really hard, what can we do to make it better?” she added. “What can we do to make it easier to live in 2024?”
Not vote for Trump and JD Vance, for one.
I would love to hear about the Republican policies that would make it easier on people to have families, because they sure do seem a lot more concerned about parents taking their kids to Drag Queen Story Hours at the library than they do about helping them ensure that their kids have food on the table. They seem far more concerned about plastering schools with the Ten Commandments than they are with properly funding them. And they are far more worried that children will be exposed to the existence of gay and trans people than they are about those children being exposed to lead.
Is there some magic way that enormous tax cuts for giant corporations and very rich people help children? Was that part of the nuance of JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” comment that only Usha Vance can hear?
Perhaps so.
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