This question should be laughable, but it’s no joke.
If the Trump/Vance ticket is elected this November, it’s possible J. D. Vance could become president, either by succession or as Trump’s likely successor. And by now it’s out in the open that Trump’s running mate has extreme hostility toward childless adults.
He goes even further; he wants to punish them. He views their decision not to have children as a social problem, not a personal choice. He claims they “make the rest of the country miserable” and “should face consequences.”
Where did this Big Brother ideology come from? You’d be mistaken if you conclude it’s nothing more than an attack line he uses against Democrats he’s inaccurately labeled as “childless” (e.g., Kamala Harris has stepchildren; Pete Buttigieg has adopted children).
It has roots in a real-life issue: Because Americans are marrying later, and having fewer children, the birth rate has fallen below what demographers call “replacement rate.” This means, without immigration, our population will shrink. A smaller workforce is a problem for business, and also results in fewer people paying taxes (see Vox article here).
But a more abstract ideology lurks in the background. There’s a movement called “pronatalism,” popular in Silicon Valley rightwing circles — the breeding ground that produced J. D. Vance — which holds that low birth rates threaten civilization (details here).
That ideology plays a large role in Vance’s thinking. But pushing for more births also crosses paths with Republican Party racism and political strategy. The only other way to fill a population gap is immigration, which Republicans oppose for two reasons: Most immigrants are non-white; and non-whites tend to vote Democratic.
It’s not that linear, of course; immigrants have to become naturalized citizens before they can vote. Republicans are trying to close that door, and have blocked immigration reform in Congress. They also claim immigrants vote illegally in large numbers, which isn’t true, but maybe they believe their own lies. Many of their voters clearly do.
If they’re worried about population decline and workforce shrinkage, and are dead-set against immigrant workers, the only other option is somehow boosting the birth rate. And if citizens aren’t willing to have more children, then Vance seems prepared to force them to. Will other Republicans follow his lead?
In considerable part, this is what their war on abortion is all about. I’m not saying Republicans aren’t against abortion on moral or religious grounds; many of them are. But it’s not lost on Vance, who isn’t particularly moral or religious, that eliminating abortion results in more births.
Very few people more adamantly oppose abortion than J. D. Vance; he wouldn’t even allow it for rape or incest. He’s equally determined to compel people to stay in unhappy and even abusive marriages; he’s in the forefront of a growing movement among Republicans to eliminate no-fault divorce. And, as we’ve seen, he’s a hardcore forced-birther.
Vox says Vance’s private speeches reveal “a belief that people who aren’t like him, who don’t share his values about childrearing, are social unequals … and hence deserved targets of political discrimination.” Where does he get these ideas? Hungary’s rightwing dictator is a primary source (see another Vox article here), whose ideas as you’d expect are undemocratic.
Not long ago, Vance wouldn’t have been welcome in the Republican Party, because his ideas are antithetical to small government and personal freedom. But the GOP is different now. Today’s Republicans and their billionaire backers have a vision of controlling society. There’s even a coterie of Republicans who want to use government power to make couples marry and have children. By choosing Vance, Trump is embracing it.
Don’t give them governing power. There are other reasons to vote against Trump, even for people who don’t particularly like Kamala Harris. Now there’s another compelling one.