{"id":14719,"date":"2024-09-14T14:48:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T14:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14719"},"modified":"2024-09-14T14:48:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T14:48:34","slug":"where-j-d-vances-weirdest-idea-actually-came-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=14719","title":{"rendered":"Where J.D. Vance\u2019s weirdest idea actually came from"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“The \u201cextra votes for parents\u201d proposal came in a 2021 speech<\/a> sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute<\/a>, a conservative organization that encourages college students to engage with right-wing ideas. About halfway through the speech, Vance says that he wants to \u201ctake aim at the left, specifically the childless left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He knows these comments will be controversial: He says \u201cI\u2019m going to get in trouble for this,\u201d and then asks the hosts if he\u2019s being recorded. But he continues on by listing off leading Democratic politicians who didn\u2019t have children at the time \u2014 Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez \u2014 and then asks, \u201cWhy have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don\u2019t have children?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, this is misleading: Harris is a stepmother and Buttigieg has become a father<\/a> since Vance\u2019s remarks. But the specific examples are less important than Vance\u2019s general point, which is a moral one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his view, being a parent is the primary source of happiness and meaning in a person\u2019s life, and people who don\u2019t have kids can\u2019t be trusted to make decisions in the interest of society writ large. Societies are good, per Vance, when they have babies; if they don\u2019t have enough, they rot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what to do about it? Vance suggests borrowing ideas from Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Hungary\u2019s authoritarian prime minister who has made increasing Hungary\u2019s birthrate a centerpiece of his policy agenda<\/a>. But Vance also worries that a Hungarian model might not be possible because families suffer from a \u201cstructural democratic disadvantage\u201d: children can\u2019t vote. Hence, he concludes, we should let parents cast votes on their behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s give votes to all the children in this country and let\u2019s give control over votes to the parents in this country,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an old idea called \u201cDemeny voting<\/a>,\u201d named after 20th-century Hungarian demographer Paul Demeny<\/a> (a vocal champion of the idea). Typically, the argument for Demeny voting is rooted in fairness. Children are people who, like anyone else, deserve political representation. Since they lack the maturity to make informed choices about their interests, parents should vote on their behalf \u2014 much in the same way they make decisions about children\u2019s medical care or education. To get a sense of how this argument works, I\u2019d recommend a recent paper by two law professors<\/a> at Harvard and Northwestern making the case at length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for Vance, the policy isn\u2019t just about ensuring fairness for families: it\u2019s about punishing childless adults. Vance sees Demeny voting as a tool for creating two-tiered citizenship, one where parents have more and better political representation than other adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you go to the polls in this country, you should have more power \u2014 more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic \u2014 than people who don\u2019t have kids,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have much of an investment in the future of this country, then maybe you shouldn\u2019t get nearly the same voice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the language of a liberal looking to expand the sphere of people whose interests are represented in the system to children. Vance\u2019s defense of Demeny voting reveals a belief that people who aren\u2019t like him, who don\u2019t share his values about childrearing, are social unequals: non-participants in the political project of ensuring America survives across generations, and hence deserved targets of political discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, Vance wants to turn the law into a vehicle for legislating hard-right morality.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/363473\/jd-vance-weird-voting-parents-demeny-postliberalism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The \u201cextra votes for parents\u201d proposal came in a 2021 speech sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative organization that encourages college students to engage with right-wing ideas. About halfway through the speech, Vance says that he wants to \u201ctake aim at the left, specifically the childless left.\u201d
\nHe knows these comments will be controversial: He says \u201cI\u2019m going to get in trouble for this,\u201d and then asks the hosts if he\u2019s being recorded. But he continues on by listing off leading Democratic politicians who didn\u2019t have children at the time \u2014 Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez \u2014 and then asks, \u201cWhy have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don\u2019t have children?\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, this is misleading: Harris is a stepmother and Buttigieg has become a father since Vance\u2019s remarks. But the specific examples are less important than Vance\u2019s general point, which is a moral one.<\/p>\n

In his view, being a parent is the primary source of happiness and meaning in a person\u2019s life, and people who don\u2019t have kids can\u2019t be trusted to make decisions in the interest of society writ large. Societies are good, per Vance, when they have babies; if they don\u2019t have enough, they rot.<\/p>\n

So what to do about it? Vance suggests borrowing ideas from Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Hungary\u2019s authoritarian prime minister who has made increasing Hungary\u2019s birthrate a centerpiece of his policy agenda. But Vance also worries that a Hungarian model might not be possible because families suffer from a \u201cstructural democratic disadvantage\u201d: children can\u2019t vote. Hence, he concludes, we should let parents cast votes on their behalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s give votes to all the children in this country and let\u2019s give control over votes to the parents in this country,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an old idea called \u201cDemeny voting,\u201d named after 20th-century Hungarian demographer Paul Demeny (a vocal champion of the idea). Typically, the argument for Demeny voting is rooted in fairness. Children are people who, like anyone else, deserve political representation. Since they lack the maturity to make informed choices about their interests, parents should vote on their behalf \u2014 much in the same way they make decisions about children\u2019s medical care or education. To get a sense of how this argument works, I\u2019d recommend a recent paper by two law professors at Harvard and Northwestern making the case at length.<\/p>\n

But for Vance, the policy isn\u2019t just about ensuring fairness for families: it\u2019s about punishing childless adults. Vance sees Demeny voting as a tool for creating two-tiered citizenship, one where parents have more and better political representation than other adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to the polls in this country, you should have more power \u2014 more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic \u2014 than people who don\u2019t have kids,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have much of an investment in the future of this country, then maybe you shouldn\u2019t get nearly the same voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not the language of a liberal looking to expand the sphere of people whose interests are represented in the system to children. Vance\u2019s defense of Demeny voting reveals a belief that people who aren\u2019t like him, who don\u2019t share his values about childrearing, are social unequals: non-participants in the political project of ensuring America survives across generations, and hence deserved targets of political discrimination.<\/p>\n

In short, Vance wants to turn the law into a vehicle for legislating hard-right morality.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/363473\/jd-vance-weird-voting-parents-demeny-postliberalism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[169,431,2082,1948,536,2081,479],"class_list":["post-14719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-children","tag-democracy","tag-jd-vance","tag-parents","tag-rights","tag-vance","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14720,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14719\/revisions\/14720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}