J.D. Vance has argued that parents should have more voting power than the "childless cat ladies" he has criticized as lacking a true stake in the nation.
The Republican senator and vice presidential nominee has been roundly lambasted for his 2021 comments about women who haven't birthed children, but he also declared twice that same year that parents should be allowed to cast ballots in an election on behalf of their own children.
"These children are the future of this country and yet the parents who have them actually have no advantage in our democratic process," Vance told the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in July 2021. "They have a smaller voice in some ways — in very many cases — than the people who don't have any children at all. The children who come from these families have no real representative in our democracy. Why don't we change that?"
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"Now some people will say this is radical and this is crazy," Vance added. "The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds but let's do this instead: Let's give votes to all children in this country but let's give control over those votes to the parents of those children."
The Ohio Republican reiterated that same point a few days later in that now-infamous "childless cat ladies" interview with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, when he identified vice president Kamala Harris, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) as members of the "childless left."
"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," Vance said in that 2021 interview.
The resurfacing of his remarks about giving parents more electoral power opened up Donald Trump's running mate to another round of criticism.
"There's something SO weird about 'smug' parents who act like having kids is an accomplishment," said A.J. Delgado, a senior adviser on Trump's 2016 campaign who soon after became a fierce critic. "HAVING kids is not an accomplishment. A flea can hatch children. RAISING kids well is an accomplishment."
"I thought it would take 6 weeks for Trump to regret picking Vance. More like 6 days," said X user Andy Dyer, who describes himself as a "disaffected RINO."
"JD Vance's statement is inherently undemocratic," added X user Eva P. "Democracy is fundamentally about equal representation and the principle of 'one person, one vote.' Proposing that some citizens should have more influence than others go against the essence of a fair and equal democratic process."
"To which parent!? Cuz they might not be voting the same," posted X user boeing driver.
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