'Dog owners should not feel safe': Columnist flags new Vance attack on childless Americans

Sen. J.D. Vance used the words "essential weapon" to praise the Heritage Foundation president's new book which includes a tirade against a surprising subject: dog parks.

This point appears in a new analysis from Salon's Amanda Marcotte as she argued both American "cat ladies" and dog owners should be concerned about Donald Trump's running mate's views.

"Dog owners should not feel safe from the ire of Vance and his friends," Marcotte wrote Friday. "Jokes aside, the fury over pets underscores what's really going on with Vance and the neo-patriarchal movement he represents."

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts' book, "Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington To Save America," saw its release date delayed until after the November election amid Trumpworld efforts to distance the Republican presidential nominee from the conservative think tank's controversial views expressed in Project 2025, reports show.

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Media Matters obtained a galley copy that includes a foreword from Vance and an attack on dog parks from Roberts, the watchdog group reports.

“We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets,” Vance wrote in his introduction. “In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”

Among the ideas expressed by Roberts is that dog parks present a danger to the nation's future.

"Roberts targets the Swampoodle dog park in Washington, D.C.," Media Matters reports, "for having too much room for dogs to play and not enough for children, blaming this on 'the antifamily culture shaping legislation, regulation, and enforcement throughout our sprawling government.'"

Roberts argued, as Vance has, that childless Americans aren't as invested in the nation's future as parents are.

"Getting married and having kids...gives you skin in the game for the future of your country," Roberts wrote. "It forces you to grow up, give up childish things, and live in the real world."

Both Vance and his wife Usha have since walked back his comments, arguing the media took a sarcastic remark out of context and the Ohio senator's words targeted policies that make it difficult for Americans to have children, not childless Americans themselves.

Investigative reporting from CNN shows Vance has repeatedly called childless Americans "sociopaths."

Marcotte argued both men's position on childless pet owners represents both a misunderstanding of modern American life and a prejudice against a large bloc of American voters.

"They hide behind sentimental language about children, but the pattern shows something else," Marcotte concluded: "Resentment towards anything that might distract a woman from serving a man and raising babies."

And she offered a counterpoint:

"Someone should tell Vance and his buddies many people have both kids and pets," Marcotte wrote. "Did these two never read the funnies growing up? Charlie Brown and Snoopy lived in harmony, guys!"