Michael Ian Black: J.D. Vance’s Obsessions Are Way Creepier Than Being Childless

Having children is good. Children are the animating force of society. Whitney Houston sang all about it. Without children, we don’t have a species. All indisputable.

But not having children is also good. Some people don’t want to be parents, some people shouldn’t be parents. Some people want children but, for whatever reasons, do not. Some have fewer children than they would like because they fear they cannot afford more, and some people have more children than they necessarily planned because they don’t know how to use a rubber.

Regardless, whether somebody has children or doesn’t have children isn’t a reflection of their values, their patriotism, or their commitment to the nation.

Vance Also Called the Childless ‘Sociopaths’ and ‘Psychotic’MEOW!

David Gardner, Martha Mercer

So why won’t J.D. Vance shut up about children? The man is child-obsessed. CNN published an article Tuesday, “It’s not just ‘cat ladies’: J.D. Vance has a history of disparaging people without kids.” The piece highlights Vance’s obsession with the childless dating as far back as 2020.

One series of fundraising emails that authors Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck uncovered include lines like, “We’ve allowed ourselves to be dominated by childless sociopaths—they’re invested in NOTHING because they’re not invested in this country’s children.”

What?!?

Those without children are sociopaths? Dolly Parton is a sociopath? Lindsey Graham isn’t invested in the country? Elon Musk, father of God knows how many, is somehow preferable as a person to Taylor Swift? Why? Who the hell is J.D. Vance to make these kinds of broad, grotesque statements?

The childless owe nobody an explanation. At what point did we begin equating fertility with patriotism? A friend of mine is a single woman in her mid-forties who has a good career, a satisfying life, volunteers, and is, by any standard, a perfectly good citizen of these here United States. No sociopathy detected despite the fact that she also has a cat!

Do you know why she doesn’t have any children? I would tell you, but I have no idea. Because it’s none of my goddamned business. Nor is it J.D. Vance’s. Should my friend’s vote less than Nick Cannon’s?

The childless are people without children. That’s it. Why must any other inference be drawn, unless you’re just a creepy fuck who wears too much eyeliner at all the wrong events?

And it’s not as if the childless are somehow an aberration. A Pew Research Study published just a few days ago reveals that 47 percent of Americans under the age of 50 do not have children. If almost half of the country is sociopathic, as Vance believes, we’ve got bigger problems than the current election cycle.

But, of course, the narrative that childless people are somehow sinister is absurd on its face. Jesus didn’t have any kids. Neither does the Pope. I don’t know if either of them had/have cats, which is J.D. Vance’s one-two whammy of degeneracy, but I’d be hard-pressed to make the argument that Jesus F. Christ didn’t care about the future.

As stupid as the argument may be, I think it speaks to something more subtle about the Republican Party. Under the leadership of Donald Trump (and before, but I’ll confine this piece to the current Republican Party), the GOP has become a shell company for investors attempting to strip-mine the nation of its value, and grab as much as they possibly can for themselves. Why do you think Trump supports Putin so much? Because Putin has already implemented this model in Russia to great success—for Putin.

In this Hobbesian model of America, the contest between the political parties is a blood sport in which to the victors go all the spoils. The “spoils” can be financial and/or cultural, but it’s a fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-American view of political power. And it very much involves children because children give them the moral license to conduct their snatch-and-grab.

Reducing expenditures on social programs, which Republicans support, will certainly hurt other people’s children but will lower public expenditures for themselves and their children. It is for the children that they wreak havoc on the American experiment and call it pro-family. Book bans, school vouchers, anti-LGBTQ legislation, anti-abortion legislation. All of it “for the children.”

No. Fuck you.

An authoritarian, Christian nationalist America is not what I want for my children. Nor is it what I want for the nation, regardless of my status as a breeder of humans or not. J.D. Vance and the Republican Party he now helps lead want to turn children into props for their grand larceny, no different than a can of Bud Light or a red MAGA hat.

Their pious concern for children, however, extends no further than their own front sidewalk. Other people’s children—the children who need SNAP benefits or Social Security or welfare or educational assistance or nutritional assistance or housing assistance—they’re not important. What’s important is being fruitful and multiplying if you’ve got the money, resources, and correct ethnic background.

If, as J.D. Vance claims, the childless are “sociopaths,” would he then have those unable to afford children start breeding like Donald Trump? What would he do to help all of those children in poor circumstances? Where are the social policies to support them? Where is the tremendous investment in those children coming from? Because the last time I checked, the Republican Party wants to cut or eliminate many of the social programs that ensure those children grow up with the best possible opportunities to thrive.

If J.D. Vance is so concerned about the goddamned future of this republic, why isn’t he out there, using his platform, to call for increasing educational budgets and childhood assistance programs?

Why isn’t he advocating for a living wage, which would allow more people to marry and raise children in a single-income household? Why isn’t he supporting unions, which help employees receive health insurance, which they then use… for their children? Why isn’t he supporting gun control measures when guns are the leading cause of death among children? Why don’t J.D. Vance’s actions match his words? It’s the kind of behavior we expect from Republicans these days.

Children are good. Exploiting them to justify your own selfishness and lust for power is bad. If J.D. Vance is so concerned about sociopathy—the inability to feel empathy, remorse, or a sense of moral responsibility—perhaps he should begin by having a little sit-down with his running mate.