There was a brief moment a couple of weeks ago when I thought JD Vance might be smart. It was when I heard he had somehow transformed a couch into a sexual partner. That seemed like American ingenuity at its finest.
Alas, that story turned out to be a hoax—which forced me to consider another possibility. Maybe Vance was exactly what he appeared to be: a massive idiot. There was abundant evidence to support this conclusion.
A prime example: his repeated claims that women without biological children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country’s future.
There’s no need to belabor why these misogynistic rants are offensive. Instead, I’ll ask a basic question: Given that Vance is the toadying henchman of some of Silicon Valley’s biggest supervillains—Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen—has he never learned how to use Google? Because one quick search would have told him that, in the very recent past, another politician used the identical line of attack—with calamitous results.
In 2016, the UK’s Conservative Party held a leadership election to choose the next prime minister. Trailing the frontrunner Theresa May, candidate Andrea Leadsom hoped to gain ground by sitting for an interview with the Times.
During that interview, Leadsom suggested that being a mother would make her a better prime minister than May, who had been unable to have children for health reasons.
In the very recent past, another politician used the identical line of attack—with calamitous results.
“Genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake,” Leadsom said. She acknowledged that May “possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people. But I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.”
Sensing, correctly, that her remarks might make her sound like a monster, she added, “I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn’t have children so I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’, because I think that would be really horrible.” But then, as if to ensure that she would sound like a monster, she made the bizarre claim that May’s unproductive uterus would render her unable to recognize the urgency of an economic downturn.
According to Leadsom, May would not “want a downturn but, never mind, ten years hence it will all be fine.” In contrast with the cruel nonchalance of that childless sociopath, Mama Leadsom would be a paragon of compassion: “My children will be starting their lives in that next ten years so I have a real stake in the next year, the next two.”
“I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn’t have children so I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t.’”
The response to Leadsom’s boneheaded take was ferocious. “I think these comments are disgusting,” one Conservative member of parliament said. “I think it’s going to insult a lot of Conservative activists as well as a lot of nice, decent people.” A former cabinet minister said that Leadsom’s interview could “charitably be described as a disastrous start to her campaign.” One prominent party member said that the comments revealed a “gulf in class” between the two candidates; another said they proved Leadsom was “not PM material”; and a third simply called them “vile.”
Two days after her catastrophic interview, Leadsom was forced to apologize to May. “Having children has no bearing on the ability to be PM,” she said. “I deeply regret that anyone has got the impression that I think otherwise.” One day later, Leadsom quit the race, presumably to spend more time with the family that had endowed her with such amazing empathy.
I repeat: Shouldn’t JD Vance have googled this?
As in the Leadsom fiasco, members of Vance’s own party are now openly dissing his candidacy. According to Politico, “Republicans have mounting worries after a week of resurfaced clips of Vance calling Harris and other Democrats ‘childless cat ladies’ and suggesting parents should have more political power than non-parents.”
Even the heinous Trump shill Ben Shapiro has blasted JD: “If you had a time machine, if you go back two weeks, would [Trump] have picked JD Vance again? I doubt it.” (In fairness, if Ben Shapiro had a time machine, he would go back four hundred years.) If Vance does remain on the ticket, it will likely be because the insecure narcissist who chose him can’t admit being wrong.
And speaking of being wrong, JD’s pro-procreation argument makes no sense. The benefit of having kids totally depends on the kids. If my kids were Eric and Don Jr, I’d opt for cats.
Andy Borowitz is the creator of the award-winning news-satire site the Borowitz Report, which has readers in 175 countries
