Vance’s ‘cat ladies’ remarks have dark historical legacy

^{"J.D. Vance" by Gage Skidmore licensed under CC by S.A. 2.0}

Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, has recently received widespread criticism for remarks during a 2021 television interview in which he said, “We are effectively run in this country … by a bunch of childless cat ladies” and that people without children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the future of the nation.

On another occasion, he stated, “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power.” That idea, known as “Demeny voting” after demographer Paul Demeny, is not original to Vance but was first proposed in Europe before World War I.

Vance has since dismissed his “childless cat ladies” remark as sarcasm. Democratic critics have aimed to portray these comments as “weird” and out of touch with the sentiments of the American people. That is for the voters to decide in...