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The Internet kerfuffle that took up endless pixels last week centered on Ohio Sen. JD Vance and his ruminations on the “bunch of childless cat ladies” who run the Democratic Party.
“How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?” Vance, now former president Donald Trump’s running mate, asked in a 2021 Fox News interview.
It was mostly people who would never vote for Trump, with or without Vance on the ticket, who pretended to be offended.
Why, how dare Vance mock us as “cat ladies,” they demanded, as they re-listened to Barack Obama’s speech about those terrible white people clinging to God and guns. Judgment about my life choices; well I never.
But some Republican women were also annoyed: The comments came off as condescending and judgmental, not to mention personal.
Vance wasn’t wrong on the macro level — societally, we need people to have children.
A June Pew Poll showed that Republicans largely understand this, with 59% of Trump supporters saying “society should prioritize marriage and having children,” while only 19% of then-candidate Joe Biden’s supporters agreed.
But on the micro level, Vance’s comments picked at a painful personal scab for many women — especially those who wanted to have children but, for one reason or another, did not.
Insulting people in your own base, especially women, is something Democrats do with ease but Republicans have yet to master.
A few days ago, a Zoom call titled “White Women: Answer the Call!” raised a ton of money for Kamala Harris, largely by disparaging white women.
“White women so rarely do this work,” writer Glennon Doyle said on the call. “Because you might make your neighbors uncomfortable. Because you also desperately need to be approved of and liked.”
White women are the worst, said a white woman.
The vagueness is part of what the left does well. White liberal women can say awful things about white women, while talking to white women, and everyone on the call will just assume it doesn’t apply to them.
The Trump campaign has to walk a fine line in its appeal to the fairer sex — but earning our votes is not some insurmountable hurdle.
In 2016, Trump won 39% of the female vote; by 2020, that number had climbed to 44%. (Erosion of his male support cost him re-election.)
To build on that gain, the Trump campaign should not follow Harris in treating women as some fringe minority. In fact, female voters share the concerns of men on most issues.
Like men, women care about safety and security, being able to buy food to feed our families and giving our children the life that we dream of for them.
Trump’s vow to curb illegal immigration, to be tough on criminals and to establish “universal school choice” should all be popular issues with the ladies, as well as the men.
Meanwhile, for any woman who gets sticker shock at the supermarket, Trump’s economic plan promises to reduce inflation. Anyone, of any gender, struggling to get by while the Biden/Harris White House pretends inflation is a myth will want to hear more about that.
Even on abortion, Trump came off as the moderate in his debate with Joe Biden by emphasizing that Roe v. Wade allowed for abortion up until the moment of birth.
Many people simply don’t know this truth, which illustrates the radicalism of the left’s position: While most Americans support keeping abortion legal, support drops precipitously after the first trimester.
Still, to earn the votes of women, Trump and Vance must curb personal attacks.
Sarcastic quips like Vance’s “cat ladies” comment will inevitably be clipped and shared to claim the misogyny of the all-male ticket.
Yet following the July 13 assassination attempt on the former president, voters saw glimpses of a kinder, gentler man.
His granddaughter Kai’s speech at the Republican National Convention showed a side of Trump few get to see.
The campaign should lean into this powerful form of persuasion and feature more women who know Trump well — it doesn’t hurt to show us that he doesn’t actually bite.
So while male and female voters may care about the same issues, getting women to turn out and proactively cast a Trump vote calls for the campaign to adjust its tone.
The former president already has a ready-made line: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Few of us — women and men alike — are.
Karol Markowicz is the author of the book “Stolen Youth.”