Keep up this great campaign strategy, Vance
JULIA CONLEY for Common Dreams
Instead,
the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host
Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing
against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance"
of his argument.
Vance
made it clear, said Aaron
Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he
meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds
the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The
comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host
Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling
out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this
week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice
President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's
presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children
"don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and
therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
In
separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should "have more power" at the
voting booth and that "if you don't have as much of an investment in the
future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."
He
also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad"
in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things
that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are
bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
While a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the senator's taxation proposal was "basically no different" than the child tax credit supported by the Democratic Party, Democrats who have pushed for the credit have heralded its proven ability to slash child poverty rates and help families afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials, rather than viewing the tax savings as a way to reward people for procreating.
In
his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his
own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for
becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that
the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a
signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm
proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm
a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the
past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their
policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't
think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the
problem."
Vance
and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and
progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel
extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having
families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made
child-rearing less accessible.
In
recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by
conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of
West Virginia in blocking the
extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with
cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program
to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can
have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under
Republican abortion bans, numerous
stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to
carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal
abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who
were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion
care.
As
with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having
children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face
consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and
freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who
become pregnant through rape/incest."
University
of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that
one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies
are anti-family.
"But
I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my
kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
