J.D. Vance: Ohio US Senate Candidate Compares Childless Women to the Mentally Ill and Sociopaths
During the last few days, I have received campaign emails from the J.D. Vance campaign. Here are the subject headings in the emails:
- Why are we listening to childless cat ladies?
- No more cat ladies
- The Childless left is ruining America.
I guess I should be grateful for small favors: in his most recent email, he doesn’t mention explicitly mention women in the subject line in ways that imply that childless females are mentally ill and undeserving of political influence.
In the passages below, italicized content is from JD Vance’s letters while the bolded text indicates my own thoughts.
Here is the full text of the email JD Vance, Republican candidate for the Ohio US Senate seat, sent me and presumably thousands of other people on his list.
The subject heading in the email is
ICYMI: Why are we listening to childless cat ladies?
Note the fact that the letter mentions childless women but says nothing about childless men. Childless men, apparently, can still have a voice in the future of our country, childless women, NO.
Note, also, the stereotype of “cat lady,” without a similar stereotype for men.
Since cat ladies are often stereotyped as mentally ill, he is summoning using a phrase that will evoke images of psychiatric disturbances.
Jessica,
Family matters.
Did you see me on Tucker Carlson recently? I needed you to hear the TRUTH.
I care about my kids, and that’s why I’ll be a great Senator.
For a father who so obviously feels superior to childless women, he writes something really stupid here. There seems to be no established link between competence in a legislative body like Congress and competence as a parent.
Caring about one’s kids does not automatically make one a good senator. A good senator should have some understanding of economics, foreign policy, how the senate works, and how to work with people on both sides of the aisle. None of these abilities is magically conferred by the act of getting a woman pregnant.
Our country is basically run by childless Democrats who are miserable in their own lives and want to make the rest of the country miserable too.
Notice the ad-hominem attack and the generalizing about Democrats. He neglects the fact that many leftists do in fact have children.
How could he possibly know whether people he may never have met are happy in their own lives or not?
Because Vance equates childlessness with the left, I researched those archetypal leftists, the “Squad,” which consists of six US congresspersons, five of whom are female. Here is the information about *their* reproduction:
Ilhan Omar, a congresswoman known as part of the Squad, has 3 children.
Rashida Tlaib has 2 children.
Ayanna Pressley has one stepchild. She also has an autoimmune disorder that may impair fertility, so I think we should give her a pass on not having biological children.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has no children.
Cori Bush has two children.
Jamaal Bowman has three children.
Thus, of the six squad members, four have at least two biological children. A fifth member has a stepdaughter. Only one squad member has no biological or step children.
In other words, Vance’s campaign emails are not only crude and cruel, they are also misleading.
Note that you will probably never hear “Mr. Family Values Vance” remind potential voters that leading conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan has no children, either biological or adopted. Neither will he mention political pundit George Will, who has several children but committed adultery while married to their mother and broke up their family. He came home one night and found that his wife had thrown his stuff on the front lawn.
What I want to know is: why have we turned our country over to people who don’t have a direct stake in it?
Uh, childless people may have nieces and nephews they care about dearly. Childless people may have worked as teachers and have a deep interest in the country their students will inherit. They may simply love America and want their country to have a good future.
We can’t let the childless Left control the future of our nation, Jessica. Will you step up and join me in the fight for a stronger Ohio?
Would he claim that infertile couples who tried desperately to have children should not have their ideas taken seriously?
Would he claim that a woman who wanted children but never married — and didn’t want to raise fatherless children — should have no say in how the country is run?
Would he claim that people who have genetic problems and decided not to inflict them on children should not have political power?
Should lousy parents — and there are plenty — have a larger stake in the country than responsible childless people?
What J.D. Vance has offered in this campaign email is a series of ad hominem attacks, an appeal to misogyny, and a pitch for funds that is devoid of any reasoned explanation of what his policies are and why they are superior.
In this one email, he has shown himself to be unworthy of such a high political position.
Update: Here is the text of the third email from Vance. As you read count the number of times he mentions childlessness and equates that state unflattering attributes:
Jessica,
Did you see me on FOX Primetime recently?
I needed to speak DIRECTLY to patriots like you about the serious issue of radical childless leaders in this country.
We can’t have people who don’t have a direct stake in this country making our most important decisions, Jessica.
We’ve allowed ourselves to be dominated by childless sociopaths — they’re invested in NOTHING because they’re not invested in this country’s children.
Fighting back won’t be easy — our childless opponents have a lot of free time.
Aha. Maybe that is the real reason he is fixated on childlessness. He is jealous.
Ah. So maybe this is the real reason he defames and seems to personally hate the childless. He envies them their freedom. A skeptic might also say Vance is somehow managing to find plenty of free time to run for the US Senate.
That’s why I need YOU to stand with me.
Please chip in ANY AMOUNT in the next HOUR to stand with me as I fight for America’s children. >>
