By now I'm sure you know what Vance told Tucker Carlson about "childless cat ladies" in 2021:
“We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance said.And maybe you know what he said in a speech that year about giving parents extra votes:
“It’s just a basic fact: You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said. “And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people that don’t have a direct stake in it.”
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 — you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic — than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality: If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.It's true: He doesn't believe you can care about this country simply because ... you care about this country.
Vance cares about his own family, and says he cares about America. But he believes in an America where people who aren't like his family aren't fully American, if they're American at all.
Take a look at the speech Vance delivered at the Republican convention earlier this month. He said:
You know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty. Things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation. But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.What does he mean by that? He means America is a place where some people are true citizens because they've been here longer than other citizens. People like his family -- including his own wife, but only conditionally:
Now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms....Vance's wife is worthy of being buried among these true Americans because she's borne his children. She's borne the children of a true American. That's what he means when he says, "we allow newcomers into our American family ... on our terms."
I am, of course, married to the daughter of South Asian immigrants to this country....
Now when I proposed to my wife, we were in law school, and I said, “Honey, I come with $120,000 worth of law school debt, and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in Eastern Kentucky.”
... Now that cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky is near my family’s ancestral home.
... they love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home, and it will be their children’s home, and they would die fighting to protect it.
...Now in that cemetery, there are people who were born around the time of the Civil War. And if, as I hope, my wife and I are eventually laid to rest there, and our kids follow us, there will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in eastern Kentucky. Seven generations of people who have fought for this country. Who have built this country. Who have made things in this country. And who would fight and die to protect this country if they were asked to.
Now. Now that’s not just an idea, my friends. That’s not just a set of principle. Even though the ideas and the principles are great, that is a homeland. That is our homeland. People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.
Recall that when Vance delivered this speech, he thought he'd be matching up with Kamala Harris, who's also the daughter of immigrants, but who hasn't borne any children, much less the children of anyone who could someday fairly soon have seven generations buried in one American cemetery. Harris is, of course, the stepmother to her husband's two children, but he's Jewish, and I don't believe his ancestors have been in America as long as Vance's (though if you've read Hillbilly Elegy, it's likely that they've been much more respectable citizens). So while Harris's parents were in America legally -- they were allowed in on America's terms -- she's unwelcome on Vance's terms.
All this reminds me of something Kathleen Parker wrote about Barack Obama in 2008, before she became a Washington Post columnist:
"A full-blooded American."To Vance, America is about families. His own brawling, addicted, irresponsible, fucked-up family is a collection of true Americans. Harris's blended family isn't.
That's how 24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama. His feelings aren't racist, he explained. He would just be more comfortable with "someone who is a full-blooded American as president."
... Full-bloodedness is an old coin that's gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.
Who "gets" America? And who doesn't?
... It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Josh Fry's political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically — and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century — there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
