Kevin Roberts (photo, left), Project 2025’s godfather, hates dog parks (see story here). So does J. D. Vance, Trump’s 2024 running mate (see story here).
Roberts wrote a book about Project 2025 he won’t release before the election, lest it hurt Trump’s chances. However, media organizations have obtained advance copies.
In his book, Salon says (here), “Roberts spits venom at dog parks, which he sees as a decadent concession to those he believes won’t ‘give up childish things, and live in the real world’ by having kids.”
Vance orbits the same black hole as Roberts. Remember his “childless cat ladies” remark? What do these guys have against pets? To answer that question, we need some background, and to follow the money.
Republicans care about business profits. Their constituents are America’s businesses, large and small, and businesses need workers. As we saw during the pandemic, when there’s a worker shortage, labor can demand higher wages. Business owners don’t like that.
America’s birth rate has fallen below what demographers call “replacement rate,” that is, deaths outnumber births. Consequently, America’s population will shrink without immigration, which isn’t an option Republicans will consider. A shrinking population means a shrinking economy, which means less business profits, which also isn’t an option for them.
The solution is more American babies, whether women want them or not. Roberts’ and Vance’s animosity against dogs and cats, Salon explains, reflects their “resentment towards anything that might distract a woman from serving a man and raising babies.”
Salon says they think “women have no value outside of baby-making,” and raising kids so men “don’t have to.” Vance’s own mother-in-law “took a year off from her job as a biology professor … to help raise Vance’s newborn child,” which in their minds is how things should be.
It’s one thing if they and their womenfolk want to live that way. Nobody’s going to stop them. But they have plans to force this way of living on everyone else.
Roberts holds a particular grudge against a tiny dog park in Washington D.C. about the size of a Seattle suburban single-family lot. That’s not much of a concession to dog owners, and it doesn’t take anything away from his kids; in fact, it has play equipment for kids, too (see photo below).
This isn’t about competing for a small scrap of urban land. He takes offense at other people having a dog park, even though it takes nothing away from his family, because he’s irate over people having something he doesn’t want them to have.
The bottom line is Roberts and Vance are guys who want to tell other how to live, and use force if they don’t comply. Roberts is promising bloodshed if he doesn’t get his way.
