This is beyond your standard natalism. He seems to not only believe that the only use for women is bearing and caring for children, he believes that those who do not bear children, or are past the age when they can, are directly responsible for the ills of society.
He’s obsessed and it’s beyond weird now. It’s sick.
The Guardian has the whole story. I suggest you read the whole thing if you have time. It’s disturbing to say the least. This guy tried to say he was joking about the childless cat ladies. He wasn’t.
Here’s an excerpt.
Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, said that professional women “choose a path to misery” when they prioritize careers over having children in a September 2021 podcast interview in which he also claimed men in America were “suppressed” in their masculinity.
The Ohio senator and vice-presidential candidate said of women like his classmates at Yale Law School that “pursuing racial or gender equity is like the value system that gives their life meaning … [but] they all find that that value system leads to misery”.
Vance also sideswiped the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a one-time Somali refugee, claiming she had shown “ingratitude” to America, and that she “would be living in a craphole” had she not moved to the US.
[…]
Last week his campaign was rocked by previous comments blasting a teachers union president for not having “some of her own” children. His previous characterizations of Democratic leaders as “childless cat ladies” have also troubled the Trump campaign’s efforts to appeal to suburban women.
Now this latest recording raises renewed questions about Vance’s contribution to the Republican ticket, which is trailing behind Kamala Harris and her bid to be America’s first woman of color president.
In the 2021 interview Vance also claimed men and boys in the US were “suppressed” in their masculinity and made racially charged remarks about American cities and his political opponents.
This is interesting:
Sophie Bjork-James, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University who has written extensively on topics including US evangelicals and populist politics, said: “Vance represents a new articulation of rightwing politics that is bridging the Christian right and a tech-influenced hypermasculine conservatism.
“He appeals to evangelicals with the message that we find happiness by fulfilling traditional gender roles, which is a cornerstone of white evangelical Christianity. He also speaks to a misogynist trend emerging out of the tech world among people who would prefer not to talk about any kind of diversity at all.”
“What they share is the view that women shouldn’t be in paid work: they should be in the home and rearing children. But the public line isn’t ‘we hate women’, it’s ‘women will be happier if they stay at home’,” she added.
Patriarchy is the world’s oldest organizing principle. I guess it was never very realistic to think the church and powerful men wouldn’t fight very hard to preserve it.
On the other hand, Vance depicted men and boys as “suppressed”, saying 52 minutes in that “one of the weird things about elite society is it’s deeply uncomfortable with masculinity”.
Warming to the theme, Vance said: “This is one weird thing that conservatives don’t talk about enough … We don’t talk enough about the fact that traditional masculine traits are now actively suppressed from childhood all the way through adulthood.”
Assessing his young son’s habit of fighting imaginary monsters, Vance said: “There’s something deeply cultural and biological, spiritual about this desire to defend his home and his family.”
He connected this with a hypothetical invasion: “If the Chinese invade us in 10 years, they’re going to be beaten back by boys like you who practice fighting the monsters who become proud men who defend their homes.”
By contrast, for Vance, “They’re not going to be defended by the soy boys who want to feed the monsters.”
“Soy boy” is a term, originating on the “alt-right”, which is used to impugn the masculinity of its targets.
He is marinated in right wing online extremism. The language he uses makes that obvious. The philosophy comes from his association with right wing Christians, tech-bros and online incel discussion groups.
The man has changed his name four times as an adult. He started off as a Never Trumper who is now even gone beyond “traditional” Trumpism. His identity has been fluid throughout his like in ways that are strange and unknowable. He’s not a normal person and we should beware of him going forward whether Trump wins or not. There’s something very twisted going on here.