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Is it possible for Trump to ditch Vance? He doesn't seem to bring much to the ticket, other than taking the spotlight away from Trump. Trump already won Ohio with a wider margin than Vance did in his senate bid. Can I get a steel man for why he was picked? It doesn't change my vote, but it comes off as a bad play to me.
Yes, but whoever Trump picks next will be attacked just as harshly as Vance. Remember what happened to Kavanaugh. All the media needs is one person claiming personal knowledge that the nominee did or said something bad.
The fact that the main attack on Vance is a blatant and total fabrication probably suggests that it's difficult to make a genuine attack land. You don't go around making up stories about the guy having sex with a couch if there's a reality-based smear available that will stick.
Is couch fucking really the main attack? The main attacks I've seen are:
He dislikes the childless
He wants to ban abortion in (nearly) all cases
He is against gay marriage
None of which are fabrications. Obviously on Twitter people are going to talk about couch fucking because it's funny, but that's not the angle the media is (mostly) going to take.
Is it true he disliked the childless? He noted in the speech where this came out of that many people have unique situations or medical issues etc.
Instead, he seemed to be reacting to a spirit of anti natalism that seems real and bad.
I saw the full context somewhere but now I am totally unable to find it.
The antinatalism stuff is, as far as I can tell, how he's trying to spin those comments now. The original sentiment was clearly "these people without children don't have a stake in our future" or something like that. Maybe you could even argue that just because he thinks they don't have a stake doesn't mean he dislikes them, but that also seems weak.
Here's an article someone posted elsewhere: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c147yn4xxx4o
I don't have a strong opinion.
On the one hand, it is in the national interest to be more positive about children, and influence more people to have more children, since we're below replacement levels of fertility throughout the wealthy industrialized world. I would be interested to hear Vance's thoughts on ways the government can encourage more children, especially children in stable, working households.
On the other hand, calling female senators who didn't have children a "bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives" doesn't sound good. It sounds like something to say on an anonymous message board, or to your good guy friend in private, but maybe dress it up or change the subject in public spaces?
He included Pete Buttigieg in that list also.
The internet says he's gay married with adopted kids? That's its own problem from a conservative perspective (and I'm personally in favor of prioritizing married man and wife couples for adoption, since there's a shortage of adoptable children, and "well off, but your dads are in the public eye all the time" isn't a clear win for a child), but doesn't seem like the same problem.
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