Exactly three years ago in this space, we posted, “A red state icon with revolutionary ideas about families is running for the US Senate”, where I reported JD Vance’s remarks to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) about the up-and-coming leadership of the Democratic Party:

They’re well-known people. Kamala Harris; Mayor Pete Buttigieg; who’s now the secretary of transportation; Cory Booker; AOC… What is the one thing that unites every single one of them? Not a single one of them has any children.             

Why is that? Why have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don’t have children? And why is this just a normal fact of American life? That the leaders of our country should be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring, via their own children and grandchildren?

Regime media called his remarks “homophobic”, “bizarre and obviously indefensible”, “a sign of intellectual and perhaps moral bankruptcy”, and slimed him as “a contemptible and cringe-inducing clown.”

The same year – 2021 – Vance made the same point with Tucker Carlson, this time mentioning “cat ladies”:

We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, be it 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. And it’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.

See what is going on here? In July 2024, Vance became Donald Trump’s running mate. Regime media immediately concocted a “controversy” over his 2021 remarks. This is old news, resurrected and recycled to attack Mr Vance. Why? Donald Trump.

In-your-face politics

Some background is helpful to understanding the tsunami of slander sloshing down upon Mr Vance.

I once dwelled among the chattering class. They despise Donald Trump and will do whatever it takes to stop his return to the White House. Regardless of your opinion of the former president, there is no disputing that he is the most persecuted public figure on the planet. After two impeachments, relentless lawfare, non-stop regime media condemnation and an assassination attempt (where the US Secret Service couldn’t do anything right except take out the alleged shooter), he perseveres. 

Trump is hated by the chattering class because he brought glasnost to America. I’m not talking about any of his appointments, policies or publicity stunts. His bombastic rhetoric by itself rendered a public service by demolishing the taboo on calling out political correctness; making cheap labour immigration a staple of public discourse; challenging media elites' “fake news”; asking verboten questions about getting along with Russia; and having NATO allies pony up for defence.

Yes, talk is cheap, and he can be coarse, but by saying such things out loud, things that many folks understood but were afraid to mention, he opened Pandora’s Box, changing the political culture much as Mikhail Gorbachev did in the waning days of the USSR. Like him or not, Trump is a disrupter, a bull in the china shop of the permanent regime.

Then along comes JD Vance. He endorsed Trump and is now his running mate. Going after Vance is going after Trump. Expect more contrived controversies cut from the “cat lady” cloth. It’s all politics.

Hysterics

As you might expect, once the 2121 story of Vance’s “cat lady” reference was recycled, venomous anti-Vance vitriol ensued. One amusing screed was a CNN post, “How ‘cat lady’ became an insult for women of a certain age”.

Vance’s using “cat lady” as a dig at Harris “expresses hostility for women in public office by implying they should be at home” with children, said Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, a professor at the University of Wollongong in Australia who authored a chapter about “crazy cat ladies” in the nonfiction book Animaladies.

Check out the above link to “The 'Crazy Cat Lady': Gender, Animals, and Madness”. Some academic heavy lifting there. More from Prof. Probyn-Rapsey on “cat lady”:

It’s a sexist framing for child-free women, but more importantly, it doesn’t seem to matter if she has children or not. It’s a tool in the misogynist’s toolbox — an attempt to exclude women from the public sphere and imply that her contributions to political life come at the cost of family, or, as Vance is implying, the whole nation.

Catch that? “Sexist framing”, “tool in the misogynist’s toolbox”, and “attempt to exclude women from the public sphere”. What a terrible fellow! Methinks Mr Vance hit a nerve – three years ago. Hopefully, the good professor’s rage hasn’t been bottled up all that while.

CNN also found an eminent sociologist to further enlighten us about “cat lady”:

The “felinization of women” in ancient society “reflected women’s power,” wrote Corey Wrenn, a sociologist from the University of Kent in a 2018 analysis of gendered feline imagery. But sometimes, Wrenn said, that power was perceived as “threatening and necessary to suppress.”

The above link to Ms Wren’s “analysis of gendered feline imagery” yields a profoundly edifying article entitled “Pussy grabs back: bestialized sexual politics and intersectional failure in protest posters for the 2017 Women’s March”. Silly me – I had no idea that “cat lady” would yield such consequential scholarship. Don’t know about the “felinization of women”, but the feminization of women would be nice.

Ms Probyn-Rapsey: “Lots of people like cats and won’t stomach their affection being made a target for misogyny, so Vance will have to reckon with that!”

Watch out, JD, you’re getting under the “cat ladies'” skin, even in Australia. Your media auto-da-fé is already well underway.

Silver lining

But there is a huge silver lining: Vance’s views are getting attention just when public awareness of the demographic crisis is catching on.

The Wall Street Journal posted, “Why JD Vance Worries About Childlessness: Republican vice presidential nominee links low fertility to high housing costs, social isolation and a lack of patriotism”.