'One lesson' from Trump's 2016 win could sink 'off-putting' J.D. Vance: WSJ columnist

Donald Trump gave us an insight into who Americans are in 2016, but it appears his running mate has yet to learn that lesson, according to a Wall Street Journal columnist Sunday.

Allysia Finley, a member of the Journal's editorial board who previously argued that "tyrant" accusations fit President Joe Biden more than Former President Donald Trump, weighed in to defend the "childless cat ladies" that J.D. Vance has attacked.

"Someone tell J.D. Vance: Bearing children doesn’t define one’s character or degree of patriotism," Finley wrote in the opinion piece on Sunday.

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She goes on to argue that the election has been made more about Vance's attack than the "Biden-Harris administration’s record."

"Thanks to an un-wisecrack by Sen. J.D. Vance, Democrats are turning the contest into a fight between 'childless cat ladies' and the conservative patriarchy," the columnist wrote. "In selecting the Ohio senator as his running mate, Donald Trump made a generous in-kind donation to Kamala Harris’s campaign."

Finley further states, "There’s much to criticize about their politics, so why cast the first stone at their personal lives? Ms. Harris didn’t marry until she was 49. She now has two stepchildren. Does Mr. Vance think she should have borne a child before marriage? How would this comport with his traditional mores?"

"This writer has many childless friends, some of whom would like children but don’t have them for one reason or another. Others simply don’t want them," she added on Sunday. "Mr. Vance was fortunate to have met his wife when they were both young and fertile. Many aren’t as lucky. Being childless isn’t a personal failure as Mr. Vance implies."

Finley concludes the piece by suggesting Vance wants to use the government to "nudge" citizens.

"But Americans don’t like to be nudged, judged, hectored or disdained," the columnist wrote. "This was one lesson from Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016. George W. Bush liked to say he believed in 'compassionate conservatism.' Mr. Vance exemplifies censorious conservatism, a strain as off-putting as today’s imperious progressivism."

Read the full piece here (subscription required).