Distressed comments are proliferating in conservative ranks in tandem with the reappearance of excerpts from interviews embarrassing to JD Vance, Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee. Born into a poor, dysfunctional family, he became a perfect example of social success, experience on which he drew for his 2016 bestseller, Hillbilly Elegy. Until this point, the senator from Ohio had mainly been attacked by Democrats for his radical positions on abortion, whether refusing exceptions in extreme cases such as rape or incest or opposing a woman from his state being able to travel to another, more rights-conscious one to terminate a pregnancy.
American voters have discovered that this position was part of a vision of society that pits citizens against each other depending on whether or not they have children. In a 2021 interview with controversial host Tucker Carlson, then on conservative Fox News, Vance mocked Democratic figures including Vice President Kamala Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. He used a misogynist cliché of "childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives." He said they "want to make the rest of the country miserable too" and have no "direct stake" in the good of the nation, as they lack descendants.
Harris has no children, but her husband, Doug Emhoff, has a boy and a girl from a first marriage. Buttigieg, who is openly gay, is raising adopted twins with his husband.
Vance's statement was no blunder. On another occasion, he asserted that "almost always the people who are most deranged and most psychotic are people who don’t have kids at home." In another clip, Vance, speaking with conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, argued for higher taxes for childless people. Vance has the "remarkable ability to take a long-standing part of the tax code that enjoys broad bipartisan support and make it sound scary and unfair," lamented the conservative magazine National Review.
The Wall Street Journal, which Vance regularly targets as too moderate, also took issue with him in an editorial on July 26. "Conservatives used to believe in a neutral tax code that didn’t play favorites, but Mr. Vance is suggesting the code should be used as a political and cultural weapon against people who don’t share his values," wrote the business daily.
In the title of its editorial, the Wall Street Journal pointed to a sort of social contempt that it likened to that expressed by 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, when she compared Trump's voters to a "basket of deplorables." She apologized without ever erasing the affront. Asked to take back his words, Vance pleaded humor, adding that he had nothing against cats, or dogs.