Should Parents’ Votes Count More? Unpacking J. D. Vance’s Attack on the “Childless Left”
The answer to the question put forth by J. D. Vance, “should parents’ votes count more than those of the childless” is a resounding NO.
I’m not exactly sure if Vance defines himself as a conservative, a populist, or what.
But I find that people who are non-liberal, non-left tend to assume anyone who is single or childless is an anti-American, Democrat-voting, nuclear family hating heretic.
I’m a conservative woman who arrived into middle age with never having married or having had children – not by choice, but by circumstance.
I deeply resent how so many conservatives or other types of non-liberals frequently equate womanhood, or maturity, with marriage and parenting (having children). It’s revolting and sexist.
Other conservatives (or non-liberals and non-leftists) who despise the left, who want to “own” the left, frequently come up with moves like this, which inevitably end up causing collateral damage.
Not all women (and men) who remain single and childless are there by choice or because they hate marriage and the nuclear family.
I will say that it’s rather disingenuous for the author of the following to frame the situation as Vance starting the “cultural war” when as of the last several years, non-liberals have been responding to cultural wars begun by liberals!
Contrary to leftist and liberal propaganda (as what appears in this piece at The Week by Mathis), conservatives and Republicans do not want to suppress votes, or stop anyone (i.e., American citizen) from voting.
(Link): Should Parents’ Votes Count More? Unpacking J. D. Vance’s Attack on the “Childless Left”
by Joel Mathis
July 26, 2021
J.D. Vance has endured a tough start to his campaign for the open U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, so maybe it’s no surprise that he’s borrowing a time-tested Republican tactic and doubling down on cultural warfare.
During a gathering of conservatives on Friday, the onetime Hillbilly Elegy author blasted the “childless left” — citing by name Democratic politicians including Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
“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 indirect stake in it via their own offspring, via their own children and grandchildren?” Vance asked, rhetorically. (Harris, for what it’s worth, has two stepchildren with her husband, Doug Emhoff.)
Better, he suggested, to give extra voting power to America’s parents.
“The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to 16-year-olds,” Vance said. “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 the children.” He added: “Doesn’t this mean that non-parents don’t have as much of a voice as parents? Doesn’t this mean that parents get a bigger say in how democracy functions?”
His answer, according to The Federalist website, was “yes.”
Now, Vance likely was just trolling for attention — he immediately mentioned, no doubt hopefully, that the idea would be mocked by The Atlantic and The Washington Post. And yes, the proposal is probably too silly to ever get any real traction. But let’s take it seriously for a moment, for two reasons:
First, the Overton window has been stretched beyond recognition in recent years, so there is no telling what extreme notion might end up generating mainstream support. More importantly, though, Vance’s suggestion represents yet another sign of the clear and disturbing belief in the GOP that some constituencies — Republican-leaning voters, of course — are more deserving of electoral power than others.
Vance has good reason to believe that giving parents an extra vote or two — or three or four, or more — might empower conservatives at the expense of Democrats.
The Institute for Family Studies, a “pro-natalist” think tank, found that during the 2020 election, pro-Joe Biden counties had fertility rates 25 percent lower than counties that went for Donald Trump.
“Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, increasingly inhabit different worlds in terms of family life,” the demographer Lyman Stone wrote in an IFS blog post after the election. Given how close the presidential vote margin can be in swing states, it’s not hard to imagine that stacking the deck in favor of parents might produce more GOP-friendly results in the future.
But the effect of marriage and child-rearing on one’s political preferences might be more complicated than it seems at first glance. Research has shown that parenthood can have particularly “liberalizing effects” on mothers, for example, although it’s a bit of a toss-up whether having daughters, in particular, makes parents more likely to lean left.
One new study has shown that married men shifted dramatically in favor of Democrats during the 2020 election — cutting Trump’s lead in the demographic down to 10 percentage points, much smaller than his 30-point margin four years earlier.
…Having a kid, it seems, has only solidified my liberalism. Somehow, I doubt that Vance really wants me or my feminist wife or the many Democratic-voting families we know to carry an extra vote when we go to the polls. Even if he did, though, his idea would still be lousy. “One person, one vote” is the democratic ideal. Parenting shouldn’t be the exception.
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So, I’m on nobody’s side here. I found little I agreed with in this editorial by this liberal guy, except for supporting the “one person, one vote” notion.
That non-liberals keep hyping natalism to the degree they do (that even the Bible does not do), is reprehensible. They need to stop it.
At Salon, the liberal site that mocks celibate adults because the idiots who run Salon are a bunch of skanky, sex positive, liberal skanks:
(Link): New idea gaining steam in right-wing circles: Only parents should be able to vote
Fox News hosts on Sunday promoted the idea that “childless” Americans should not be allowed to participate in society by voting.
The idea was recently floated by Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance.
“Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of the children,” Vance told a conference on the Future of American Political Economy.
The hosts of Fox & Friends discussed the merits of the idea that the “childless left” should not be able to vote.
“I think it’s an interesting idea,” host Will Cain said. “I’m into interesting ideas. Let’s think about it. Let’s talk about it. He’s saying childless leaders are making decisions that are short-term in mind, not focused on the long-term future health of this country because they don’t have a stake in the game. Parents have a stake in the game, they have children so give parents a bigger say.”
….According to Hegseth [Fox news person], a large family is “a reflection of optimism.”
“Do you want to pass AOC’s America off to America or J.D. Vance’s?” Campos-Duffy asked. “American Marxists want to tear down the American family.”
— end —-
That last part is totally accurate: today’s Democrats are supportive of neo Marxism, and part of Marxism is eliminating the traditional family unit.
Related:
(Link): The Culture War is a Leftist Offensive
(Link): America’s Fertility Dilemma by Lois M. Collins
(Link): Biological Man Wants A Womb Transplant to Get Pregnant and Have a Baby
(Link): Study: Couples Without Children Have Happier Marriages / Study: Having Kids Ruins Your Life
(Link): The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake – by David Brooks – and Related Links
(Link): Why we’re child-free and happy (article)
(Link): Famous Evangelical (David Barton) Says Drinking Coffee is Destroying Marriage
(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible
(Link): Lies The Church Tells Single Women (by Sue Bohlin)
(Link): The Christian and Non Christian Phenomenon of Virgin Shaming and Celibate Shaming
(Link): The Nauseating Push by Evangelicals for Early Marriage
(Link): A Response by Colon to Regnerus Re: Misguided Early Marriage Propaganda
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