The GOP needs to convince voters that Donald Trump and JD Vance are regular guys, and, manifestly, they are not.
It would be strange for Democrats to attack the Republican presidential ticket for being “weird” if it weren’t true. But those men are getting weirder by the day.
Former president Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), is off to a wobbly start. A Harris 2024 campaign email sent on Friday was headlined, “JD Vance Is a Creep (Who Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide).” The statement continued, “JD Vance is weird. Voters know it – Vance is the most unpopular VP pick in decades.”
It was bad enough when footage resurfaced of a 2021 interview in which Vance called Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” Things got worse last week when Vance offered a non-apology, blaming “people” for “focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said.”
Uh, okay, but that doesn’t help at all. The substance — which Vance said he stands by — is asserting that adults without children do not deserve an equal say in the nation’s affairs. Another unearthed clip of Vance showed him arguing that parents, when they vote, should be able to cast an extra ballot for each child in their family who is under voting age. He didn’t take that back, either, going only so far as to claim it was a “thought experiment” and not a firm policy position.
I don’t like Vance, but, I kinda agree? Parents have a greater stake in our nations future, and that should be reflected in their voting power.
Of course I think this should be solved by lowering the voting age, since that prevents abusive or absent parents from having that power, while still giving it to parents trusted by their children. But Republicans don’t want that.
A) Having children is by far more common than not having children. If sperm donors/receivers are so much more fundamentally concerned with the future how did they let the climate issue become a crisis? You all have been in the driver’s seat and you fucked it up.
B) I have likely another ~40ish years left on this Earth. Towards the end of that time there’s a good chance I’m going to be reliant on people your children’s age for, at the very least, medical care and possibly other elder care depending on how my health turns out. That being the case, I’m quite invested in the next generation being well qualified to provide that, thanks.
C) Thinking that people will only care about how things turn out for future generations if they have children of their own to care about is telling on yourself pretty hard. Kind of the same energy as people who think everyone would rape and pillage if they didn’t have a fear of God keeping them in check.
Having children is by far more common than not having children.
Factually incorrect. In 2022, about 40.26 percent of all family households in the United States had their own children under age 18 living in the household. To be clear, when I say “children”, I mean by age too, I’m not concerned about giving 80 yr-olds with 50yr-old children more voting power.
sperm donors/receivers
talking like this just tells me you’re unserious about this conversation. I have no further desire to engage with you
Factually incorrect. In 2022, about 40.26 percent of all family households in the United States had their own children under age 18 living in the household. To be clear, when I say “children”, I mean by age too, I’m not concerned about giving 80 yr-olds with 50yr-old children more voting power.
Your assertion was that, “Parents have a greater stake in our nations future”. Do people suddenly stop caring about the future when their children move out? Perhaps you don’t think parents of adult children should have extra votes but you suggested that they care more about the future and the totality of people who have children is still greater than those who do not, putting that class in the driver’s seat.
talking like this just tells me you’re unserious about this conversation. I have no further desire to engage with you
More like your stances are weak and unsupportable and you want an easy exit.
So once your kids are 18 you don’t get to vote anymore? What about grandkids? Do they count? It seems like step children don’t since Harris has some of them. Would those kids still count toward the other parent even if that parent is a dead beat? What about adopted kids?
This “problem” solves itself when you think ahead to the fact that children will have the ability to vote for themselves when they become adults. The simple act of raising a child to voting age ensures that you have increased your family’s voting power, if that is your concern.
You know who else has a quantitatively bigger stake in the future of the country? Those with more money and property.
If you normalize by capita, families with children have less votes/capita.
If you nominalize by capita, people with children have less of lots of things. Fewer cars, less property, less income, lower alcohol consumption.
Kindly explain how a parent has a greater stake in our nation’s future. A tangible stake - not some metaphysical “blood ties” or “descendants” stake that they have no tangible relationship with. Make sure that your explanation also doesn’t accidentally give slaveholders additional rights for the extra “property” they have.
People care about their children more than random strangers. Often more than anyone else. Their children will likely outlive them. Thus the future affects the children more. If something affects someone you deeply care about, you’re more likely to care about it. This isn’t some revelation.
I care about my nieces and nephews. The meth heads that shat me out cared so much that one ghosted and the other one beat me up to the day I was adopted away.
Who has a greater stake here? Me, a childless uncle who wants nothing but the brightest possible future for kids that I’m involved with, or the meth heads who died after ghosting and abusing me?
As a living person who intends to continue living for at least the next 4 years, I strongly disagree about who has a “greater stake” in the nations future… especially when we take into account that the party (formerly) of “family values” keeps fucking over the future for the present, so maybe it’s all just a smokescreen to push whatever policies they want by pretending they’re just thinking of the children…
The republican party doesn’t follow any of its values, so you can’t judge the values by the party’s behavior.
Plus lowering the voting age would take away power from republicans, since young people skew left, that’s why republicans don’t want it, despite claiming to care about their children
This is remarkably similar to the “you need god to be moral, so atheists are all immoral” BS (and is coming from the kinds of people who claim the same). No, a person does not need to have kids to give a fuck about the future of other people, just basic respect and compassion for their fellow humans. “I only care about things that affect me directly” is Republican thinking.
giving a fuck =/= giving more fucks. It’s basic human psychology here, not some great moral play
There are a LOT of people that don’t give a fuck about anyone else who have kids, so your idea of “basic human psychology” is deeply flawed.
Why the fuck should you have more votes than me cause you put your cock in a vagina and let something slide out of it? Explain to me in great detail how that somehow gives you more value than me? Or how that somehow negates my ability to care about others and the future. Fucking idiot.
