The “Childless Cat Ladies” Controversy Exposes a Basic Truth About Politics

In a gallant if misguided effort to defend her husband’s most controversial comments, Usha Vance, wife of the Republican nominee for Vice President, dismissed his denigration of “childless cat ladies” who allegedly run the country, as a well-intentioned “quip.”  In a Fox News interview, she insisted that “what he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country.” Unfortunately for her, this interpretation of her partner’s odd assertion utterly ignores the revelation about the state of our politics that’s raised by the entire nature of the cat ladies controversy.

The actual text of J.D. Vance’s remarks, delivered during a televised Tucker Carlson interview during his successful Senate campaign in July 2021, included the statement of what Vance called “just a basic fact” that the country was dominated 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.”

As examples of the wretched souls that he denounced for immiserating the nation, Vance cited Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  As it happens, Harris has been raising two stepchildren for nearly ten years, while Buttigieg and his husband recently adopted twins.

But the real problem of the “childless cat lady” comments by Senator Vance goes far beyond the dubious designation of childless status applied to prominent people who think of themselves as parents. It involves an obnoxious and destructive habit adopted by both sides in our current political warfare.

Democrats as well as Republicans display a tendency to denounce their opponents not only for their muddled thinking and incompetence, but for the supposed evil intentions that brought about mistakes in performance. Vance claims that the omnipotent cat ladies impose misery deliberately, in some mad, bad reflex to make up for their own suffering. Donald Trump regularly asserts that his Democratic foes intentionally strive to destroy the country because they actually hate all aspects of America and Americanism. Democrats simultaneously accuse Trump of nurturing a malevolent scheme to exterminate democracy, shatter Constitutional rights and assume untrammeled, dictatorial power.

No wonder Americans have felt so discouraged and despondent over the state of our politics: with both sides preaching the worst about the malevolent purposes of their rivals, it seems to make some sense to fear that today’s politicos actually want to harm you even when they’re promising to help you.

To discard such notions as paranoid and paralyzing isn’t to exonerate all political operators concerning the damage that they may do through destructive programs and postures, but it is to recognize the most basic motivations that lead people to seek elective office in a democratic republic in the first place. Not even our most venal or inept politicians actually believe they can win re-election by imposing harm on their constituents. And re-election is the fundamental aspiration of everyone serving in elective office. At its core, the political personality seeks love and adulation, which is in chronically short supply for leaders who make life worse for the citizens who have chosen them for what we still quaintly describe as “public service.”

Yes, there are examples in America and elsewhere of ambitious vote-seekers who try to exacerbate existing differences and divisions in order to enhance their own power and influence. But as a strategy for winning the enduring support and adoration that aspiring office-holders instinctively crave, promoting polarization is a bad bet. Consider our current situation, when the bitterness dividing the major parties has become so troubling that big majorities agree only that we’re on the wrong track—even when few can accurately identify what, precisely, that track happens to be.

As to the “childless cat ladies” controversy, the recent, raucous rallies on behalf of both President Trump and Vice President Harris, don’t seem to fit Senator Vance’s odd claim that the nation’s most powerful political figures lead “miserable” lives. Politicos of every era and every faction win profound psychic satisfaction from basking in the adoration of admirers and followers and, in the case of both Trump and Harris, they unmistakably enjoy what they are doing.  Candidates want sincerely to achieve the best for their constituents not necessarily because of pangs of conscience, or even a sense of duty, but because of a craving for love that can’t be fulfilled by imposing pain or misery on those whose affection you need, both emotionally and practically.  You can’t get such fulfillment from cats alone.