JD Vance Is Deeply, Genuinely Concerned About the U.S. Birth Rate, Which Is Declining Due to Porn

In this week’s episode of “what absurd thing is the GOP blaming for why the United States keeps getting shittier,” current frontrunner in the race to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate, JD Vance, blamed declining marriage and birthing rates on abortion and pornography.

In a newly circulated article from August 2021, the Hillbilly Elegy author told Crisis Magazine, a periodical for pious Catholics:

“I think the combination of porn, abortion have basically created a lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other.”

The writer, who spoke to Vance at a convention for young conservatives, also noted that he said he wanted to “outright ban” porn.

This isn’t the first time Vance made plain his feelings on the fact that fewer and fewer American Gen Z and Millennials aren’t quite feeling up to getting yoked and bringing a baby into this leading manufacturer of human suffering we call a country. Last year, he vented to Tucker Carlson that the U.S. is being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies” who “want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” and took great pains to call out Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and former presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg—all of which are either married or engaged and two of three have children. “Maybe, if we want a healthy ruling class in this country…we should support more people who actually have kids,” Vance said.

First and foremost, Vance and the GOP are wrong about the supposed decrease in birthing rates. New data from 2021 just showed that for the first time in seven years, the rate actually increased. That’s beside the point, though. It would simply be too much for the GOP to ponder the plethora of reasons Gen Z and Millennials might have less desire—and frankly, diminishing capability—for getting married and raising a family. But because I know a few of them read Jezebel, I’ll name a few: weekly mass shootings, the ruthless restriction of bodily autonomy, climate change, rising poverty and unemployment rates, and truly terrible healthcare, if any. In short: Many of us are too busy attempting to subsist in a hellscape they’ve helped create.

Somehow, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Republicans’ excuses for the lion’s share of issues in the U.S. just keep getting more creative. Of the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blamed too many doors; former President Trump pointed to unarmed teachers, and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went with godlessness. Not unlike the rest of the GOP, Vance leaned on two more of his old standbys: “fatherlessness and drug addiction.”

“We need to address the culture of fatherlessness and drug addiction in our country, focus on the importance of family so that our next generation is guided and empowered with strong support systems,” Vance said via statement.

He’s getting good at this routine, which probably means he’ll be elected.