JD Vance’s ‘cat lady’ attacks are just the beginning of Republicans’ childbirth obsession

Before he became Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance called for higher taxes for childless adults and insisted their votes should count less. He said abortion should be “illegal” nationally, and that the “cat ladies” and the “Kamala Harrises” of the world want to “brainwash” other people’s kids.

Misogynist “cat lady” insults are nothing new, nor is an anti-abortion GOP official advocating nationwide bans on abortion access.

But recently resurfaced remarks from the next potential vice president — and his connections to influential right-wing voices with borderline conspiracy-mongering ideas about childbirth rates — have invited more scrutiny into the natalist movement gripping Republican politics.

Vance has not been shy about his sexual politics, going so far as to call declining birth rates a “civilizational crisis” driven by a “childless left.”

His pro-natalist stumping echoes conservative arguments from prominent right-wing tech evangelists, including his billionaire boosters Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Blake Masters — another one of Thiel’s political acolytes, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Arizona in 2022 — came to Vance’s defense, writing that “political leaders should have children” or “at least be married.”

“If you aren’t running or can’t run a household of your own, how can you relate to a constituency of families, or govern wisely with respect to future generations? Skin in the game matters,” he wrote on July 24.

Musk also has been obsessed with the idea of population decline, joining conservative Christian figures and tech CEOs whose warnings soundmore like eugenics than Children of Men.

Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is a stepmother. In 2021, Vance criticized her by name