A vile quote from J.D. Vance just surfaced in which he described Kamala Harris and other Democratic leaders as “childless cat ladies,” and spun out a whole theory based on this absurdity. Then Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sharply dressed down Vance for poking his nose into other people’s family decisions. With this response, Buttigieg showed that Vance has invited a much larger national conversation—one that won’t help Vance and Donald Trump. We talked to Melissa Gira Grant, a staff writer at The New Republic who closely tracks Vance’s ideas, for help in illuminating what this saga tells us about the New Right’s tortured views on gender, natalism and nationalism. Listen to this episode here.

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