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JD Vance Thinks He Can Sell His Nativism With Cat Memes

18 September 2024 at 15:47

At the center of the two biggest controversies of JD Vance’s short political career have been cats. The first came from his attacks against the “childless cat ladies” on the left. More recently, the Republican vice presidential candidate has been spreading lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets.

One possible conclusion to draw from these missives is that he is an angry man who spends too much time on the internet. Another is that he is a liar. But there is much more to what Vance is doing than mere trolling. 

Vance’s cat rhetoric is a purposeful attempt to simplify Great Replacement hysteria—hoping to convince voters that their fears of a migrant invasion and childless women are an existential threat. The controversies derive from two fixations: the number of children American women are having and the rate at which foreigners are coming to the United States. Vance wants a United States where the birth rate is high and the immigration rate is low.

In championing low immigration, mass deportation, and an increase in fertility, Vance is aligning himself with white nationalists who were once shunned by the Republican establishment. These days, he is spending less time openly espousing his ideas than he used to on podcasts. Instead, Vance—as he has explained is part of his project—is finding uncomplicated ways to get his points across (whether they are factual or not). “I do think that political rhetoric is fundamentally [about] dealing with people at their particular level,” he said earlier this year. “I think you get too deep into the theory, you actually miss a lot of the truth.” On Sunday, he went further, telling CNN’s Dana Bash during an exchange about Springfield, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Lying about Haitian immigrants eating cats and attacking childless cat ladies is a perfect example of this plan. Vance thinks he can sell what critics have called “blood and soil nationalism”—invoking the Nazi slogan—with dumb memes.

Vance has not hidden his influences for this theory of change. “I read this book when I was maybe 15 years old, called the Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan,” Vance said during a 2021 podcast appearance. “And that was a really influential book for me.” Buchanan, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Republican presidential candidate, was not subtle about his white nationalism in the Death of the West. When it came to immigration, he accused Mexican Americans of waging a “reconquista” of land they’d lost to the United States. He spoke of declining birth rates in extreme terms—claiming that “Western women” were committing an “autogenocide for peoples of European ancestry” by having too many abortions.

It is not hard to trace the line between Buchanan’s fears and Vance’s anxieties about “childless cat ladies.” The subtitle of Buchanan’s book cuts to the heart of Vance’s current preoccupations: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.

Buchanan’s worldview was rooted in a paleoconservatism that rejected the view that America is an idea and instead saw America as a people. In doing so, he embraced a framework that justified exclusion and a permanent white majority. 

Vance has been emphasizing the claim that Americans are a “people” for much of this year. During a speech to the hard-right group American Moment earlier this year, Vance made a point of bringing up “this thing that increasingly bothers me, which is the concept that American is an idea.” Vance made the same point about Americans as a people in July at the National Conservatism Conference in which he railed about the influx of Haitian migrants in Springfield. But the clearest explanation of this obsession, as my colleague Isabela Dias wrote, came during the Republican National Convention: 

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.

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 went on to talk about the cemetery plot in Kentucky that he hopes that he; his wife, Usha, the child of Indian immigrants; and, eventually, their kids will be buried in. (Her family came on “our terms” in this formulation.)

“There will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in eastern Kentucky,” Vance said. “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.”

Vance was born in Ohio. It was his grandparents who came to the state in search of economic opportunity in the 1940s. His kids would likely be buried in the family plot in Kentucky sometime around 2100—roughly 160 years after any of their paternal ancestors lived there. But for Vance, it doesn’t seem to matter. He believes his blood is connected to that soil. That is what it means for him for America to be a people.

Behind the silly memes of Donald Trump running with cats is a much darker story. Vance sees a rapid demographic shift that is being forced upon the American “people” through immigration and childless women. Vance is determined to stop it. If he has to talk about cats along the way, he will. 

JD Vance Thinks He Can Sell His Nativism With Cat Memes

18 September 2024 at 15:47

At the center of the two biggest controversies of JD Vance’s short political career have been cats. The first came from his attacks against the “childless cat ladies” on the left. More recently, the Republican vice presidential candidate has been spreading lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets.

One possible conclusion to draw from these missives is that he is an angry man who spends too much time on the internet. Another is that he is a liar. But there is much more to what Vance is doing than mere trolling. 

Vance’s cat rhetoric is a purposeful attempt to simplify Great Replacement hysteria—hoping to convince voters that their fears of a migrant invasion and childless women are an existential threat. The controversies derive from two fixations: the number of children American women are having and the rate at which foreigners are coming to the United States. Vance wants a United States where the birth rate is high and the immigration rate is low.

In championing low immigration, mass deportation, and an increase in fertility, Vance is aligning himself with white nationalists who were once shunned by the Republican establishment. These days, he is spending less time openly espousing his ideas than he used to on podcasts. Instead, Vance—as he has explained is part of his project—is finding uncomplicated ways to get his points across (whether they are factual or not). “I do think that political rhetoric is fundamentally [about] dealing with people at their particular level,” he said earlier this year. “I think you get too deep into the theory, you actually miss a lot of the truth.” On Sunday, he went further, telling CNN’s Dana Bash during an exchange about Springfield, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

Lying about Haitian immigrants eating cats and attacking childless cat ladies is a perfect example of this plan. Vance thinks he can sell what critics have called “blood and soil nationalism”—invoking the Nazi slogan—with dumb memes.

Vance has not hidden his influences for this theory of change. “I read this book when I was maybe 15 years old, called the Death of the West by Patrick Buchanan,” Vance said during a 2021 podcast appearance. “And that was a really influential book for me.” Buchanan, a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Republican presidential candidate, was not subtle about his white nationalism in the Death of the West. When it came to immigration, he accused Mexican Americans of waging a “reconquista” of land they’d lost to the United States. He spoke of declining birth rates in extreme terms—claiming that “Western women” were committing an “autogenocide for peoples of European ancestry” by having too many abortions.

It is not hard to trace the line between Buchanan’s fears and Vance’s anxieties about “childless cat ladies.” The subtitle of Buchanan’s book cuts to the heart of Vance’s current preoccupations: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.

Buchanan’s worldview was rooted in a paleoconservatism that rejected the view that America is an idea and instead saw America as a people. In doing so, he embraced a framework that justified exclusion and a permanent white majority. 

Vance has been emphasizing the claim that Americans are a “people” for much of this year. During a speech to the hard-right group American Moment earlier this year, Vance made a point of bringing up “this thing that increasingly bothers me, which is the concept that American is an idea.” Vance made the same point about Americans as a people in July at the National Conservatism Conference in which he railed about the influx of Haitian migrants in Springfield. But the clearest explanation of this obsession, as my colleague Isabela Dias wrote, came during the Republican National Convention: 

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.

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 went on to talk about the cemetery plot in Kentucky that he hopes that he; his wife, Usha, the child of Indian immigrants; and, eventually, their kids will be buried in. (Her family came on “our terms” in this formulation.)

“There will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in eastern Kentucky,” Vance said. “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.”

Vance was born in Ohio. It was his grandparents who came to the state in search of economic opportunity in the 1940s. His kids would likely be buried in the family plot in Kentucky sometime around 2100—roughly 160 years after any of their paternal ancestors lived there. But for Vance, it doesn’t seem to matter. He believes his blood is connected to that soil. That is what it means for him for America to be a people.

Behind the silly memes of Donald Trump running with cats is a much darker story. Vance sees a rapid demographic shift that is being forced upon the American “people” through immigration and childless women. Vance is determined to stop it. If he has to talk about cats along the way, he will. 

Far-Right Influencers Are Turning Against Trump’s Campaign

18 August 2024 at 19:31

Far-right influencers are standing by their man—but not his campaign.

The Washington Post on Sunday detailed how several far-right figures with large online followings—including white supremacist Nick Fuentes and activists Laura Loomer and Candace Owens—have been stirring discord by publicly criticizing the Trump campaign, arguing that he needs new leadership who will direct him to take harder-line stances on topics like race and immigration.

Fuentes dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and demonstrated how much influence he gained since his beginnings as a “fringe YouTube star,” as my former colleague Ali Breland reported. Just last week, Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) called Fuentes “a total loser.” But Fuentes posted on X earlier this month, “We support Trump, but his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they’re blowing it. Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss.”

Tonight I declared a new Groyper War against the Trump campaign.

We support Trump, but his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they're blowing it.

Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss.

— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) August 9, 2024

Fuentes, who has more than 390,000 followers on X, has made racist attacks against Vance’s Indian-American wife, Usha, and pilloried Vance for his past criticism of Trump. He has also slammed the Trump campaign for disavowing Project 2025—though probably to Fuentes’s delight, the links between the former president and Project 2025 are deep and likely durable. He called for the campaign to get rid of chief strategist Chris LaCivita and senior adviser Susie Wiles. Fuentes claimed “victory” this week after the Trump campaign hired 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

The Post reported that two days before Fuentes’s tweet, Laura Loomer, who has 1.2 million followers on the platform, said Trump surrogates looked “weak” on television, adding that the campaign “needs to change FAST because we can’t talk about a stolen election for another 4 years.” A year ago, Loomer posted a video to X with Trump from his Bedminster golf club in which he called her “very special” and said he appreciated her support.

Loomer 🤝Trump

Best President Ever. I love him so much. pic.twitter.com/bHEGP5B3xv

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) August 13, 2023

Then there’s Candace Owens, who has 5.4 million followers on X and who Trump previously hosted at the White House. She said on her podcast this week, “I’m just not sure who is driving the MAGA bus anymore.”

His most extreme supporters are joined by top Republicans who also think Trump needs to change his strategy—but their prescription differs. Former UN Ambassador and one-time aspiring Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway are among the top Republicans who have said Trump should refrain from launching ad hominem personal attacks and focus more on Harris’s policy positions. On Meet the Press on Sunday, even Trump acolyte Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said, “Every day we’re not talking about her policy choices…is a good day for her and a bad day for us.”

WATCH: Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC (R) says “policy is the key to the White House,” while Donald Trump focuses on personal attacks against Kamala Harris.

“If you have a policy debate, he wins. Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election.” pic.twitter.com/HnKaq4nlo4

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 18, 2024

But both the far-right activists and top Republicans might take some comfort from Trump’s list of extremist priorities should he be reelected. The former president has pledged to carry out mass deportations, for example, and recently signaled his openness to banning medication abortion—though his campaign subsequently denied it. And this week, Trump’s campaign account on X generated controversy after it posted a photo of Black men on a street with the caption, “Your neighborhood under Kamala.”

Import the third world

Become the third world pic.twitter.com/MVawiHQSpm

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 13, 2024

In much the same way that the GOP has not softened its stance on abortion—despite what they may try to make you believe—Trump has not really softened at all. The problem for his supporters is that Americans—even including those who are advising him—just seem less and less interested in his hard-line policy positions.

As the Post reports:

Some campaign officials previously argued that the far-right influencers offer value by amplifying political messages to their audiences. But the more overt recent attacks of Fuentes and his followers, who call themselves “groypers,” have become a “noisy” and counterproductive distraction to the campaign, said a person familiar with its operations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

“If anything, [Fuentes] is hurting the idea of getting fresh blood into the campaign, because it makes it far more difficult for Trump if it looks like he’s responding to the groypers,” the person said.


Asked for comment, Trump’s campaign referred to a Truth Social post on Aug. 11 in which Trump said he was “leading in almost all of the REAL polls” and that his team was “doing a great job.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Far-Right Influencers Are Turning Against Trump’s Campaign

18 August 2024 at 19:31

Far-right influencers are standing by their man—but not his campaign.

The Washington Post on Sunday detailed how several far-right figures with large online followings—including white supremacist Nick Fuentes and activists Laura Loomer and Candace Owens—have been stirring discord by publicly criticizing the Trump campaign, arguing that he needs new leadership who will direct him to take harder-line stances on topics like race and immigration.

Fuentes dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and demonstrated how much influence he gained since his beginnings as a “fringe YouTube star,” as my former colleague Ali Breland reported. Just last week, Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) called Fuentes “a total loser.” But Fuentes posted on X earlier this month, “We support Trump, but his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they’re blowing it. Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss.”

Tonight I declared a new Groyper War against the Trump campaign.

We support Trump, but his campaign has been hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, & donors that he defeated in 2016, and they're blowing it.

Without serious changes we are headed for a catastrophic loss.

— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) August 9, 2024

Fuentes, who has more than 390,000 followers on X, has made racist attacks against Vance’s Indian-American wife, Usha, and pilloried Vance for his past criticism of Trump. He has also slammed the Trump campaign for disavowing Project 2025—though probably to Fuentes’s delight, the links between the former president and Project 2025 are deep and likely durable. He called for the campaign to get rid of chief strategist Chris LaCivita and senior adviser Susie Wiles. Fuentes claimed “victory” this week after the Trump campaign hired 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

The Post reported that two days before Fuentes’s tweet, Laura Loomer, who has 1.2 million followers on the platform, said Trump surrogates looked “weak” on television, adding that the campaign “needs to change FAST because we can’t talk about a stolen election for another 4 years.” A year ago, Loomer posted a video to X with Trump from his Bedminster golf club in which he called her “very special” and said he appreciated her support.

Loomer 🤝Trump

Best President Ever. I love him so much. pic.twitter.com/bHEGP5B3xv

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) August 13, 2023

Then there’s Candace Owens, who has 5.4 million followers on X and who Trump previously hosted at the White House. She said on her podcast this week, “I’m just not sure who is driving the MAGA bus anymore.”

His most extreme supporters are joined by top Republicans who also think Trump needs to change his strategy—but their prescription differs. Former UN Ambassador and one-time aspiring Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway are among the top Republicans who have said Trump should refrain from launching ad hominem personal attacks and focus more on Harris’s policy positions. On Meet the Press on Sunday, even Trump acolyte Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said, “Every day we’re not talking about her policy choices…is a good day for her and a bad day for us.”

WATCH: Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC (R) says “policy is the key to the White House,” while Donald Trump focuses on personal attacks against Kamala Harris.

“If you have a policy debate, he wins. Donald Trump the provocateur, the showman, may not win this election.” pic.twitter.com/HnKaq4nlo4

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 18, 2024

But both the far-right activists and top Republicans might take some comfort from Trump’s list of extremist priorities should he be reelected. The former president has pledged to carry out mass deportations, for example, and recently signaled his openness to banning medication abortion—though his campaign subsequently denied it. And this week, Trump’s campaign account on X generated controversy after it posted a photo of Black men on a street with the caption, “Your neighborhood under Kamala.”

Import the third world

Become the third world pic.twitter.com/MVawiHQSpm

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 13, 2024

In much the same way that the GOP has not softened its stance on abortion—despite what they may try to make you believe—Trump has not really softened at all. The problem for his supporters is that Americans—even including those who are advising him—just seem less and less interested in his hard-line policy positions.

As the Post reports:

Some campaign officials previously argued that the far-right influencers offer value by amplifying political messages to their audiences. But the more overt recent attacks of Fuentes and his followers, who call themselves “groypers,” have become a “noisy” and counterproductive distraction to the campaign, said a person familiar with its operations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

“If anything, [Fuentes] is hurting the idea of getting fresh blood into the campaign, because it makes it far more difficult for Trump if it looks like he’s responding to the groypers,” the person said.


Asked for comment, Trump’s campaign referred to a Truth Social post on Aug. 11 in which Trump said he was “leading in almost all of the REAL polls” and that his team was “doing a great job.”

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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