Just when you think people “representing” the Republican Party can’t get worse in comes Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance, set out to replace Rob Portman. Vance has continuously made headlines for his misogynist and horrific views.
After calling rape “inconvenient,” the GOP candidate has now come under fire for his appearance on a podcast in September hosted by a right-winger who once said “Feminists need rape,” Mother Jones reported. According to Mother Jones, while speaking about the “American leadership class” Vance talked about “revolutionary conservatism” on a podcast hosted by right-wing activist Jack Murphy.
According to Mother Jones, Murphy is known to run a “secretive men’s organization” which claims all major American institutions including universities, the media, the government, unions, professional organizations, nonprofits, and corporations, have been “infiltrated, corrupted, demoralized” and aim to “control you forever.” Murphy has historically run several efforts against feminism, wokeness, and other conservative bête noires. He made headlines in 2015 for a now-deleted blog post in which he claimed “Feminists need rape. … It is our duty as men to save feminists from themselves. Therefore, I am offering rape to feminists as an olive branch.”
During his 90-minute interview with Murphy, the two bonded over their “masculinity” and fawned over one another’s views on culture wars and politics. In addition to discussing how America is failing, Vance called for Trump’s return to the White House in 2024 so that Trump could fire every top and mid-level federal government employee to “deconstruct the administrative state.”
Like other Republicans often have, he even seemed to support extremist actions implying the phrase “desperate times require desperate measures” calling for a “de-Nazification” plan to purge liberals from the government.
“If we’re going to push back against it, we’re have to get pretty wild, pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with,” Vance said.
His appearance on such a podcast is not surprising given the recent comments he has made about rape and marriages himself. In an interview published by Vice News Monday, Vance claimed that divorce inflicts more harm on children than would be if people stayed unhappy together even in “violent" relationships. The interview refers to comments he also made in September regarding people staying in abusive or unhappy marriages.
Asked by Vice News why the candidate thought “it would be better for children if their parents stayed in violent marriages than if they divorced,” and also if he wanted “local or federal law changed to make it harder for couples to divorce,” Vance said:
“I reject the premise of your bogus question. As anyone who studies these issues knows: Domestic violence has skyrocketed in recent years, and is much higher among non-married couples. That’s the ‘trick’ I reference: that domestic violence would somehow go down if progressives got what they want, when in fact modern society’s war on families has made our domestic violence situation much worse. Any fair person would recognize I was criticizing the progressive frame on this issue, not embracing it. But I can see that you are not a fair person, so rather than answer your loaded and baseless question, let me offer the following: I’m an actual victim of domestic violence. In my life, I have seen siblings, wives, daughters, and myself abused by men. It’s disgusting for you to argue that I was defending those men.”
Again this isn't the first time Vance has made such comments. Vice News noted that Vance has repeatedly expressed that people should disregard their safety for the sake of raising children in a “loving home.”
In March, at a forum hosted by Toledo Right to Life, he said that “marriage is a lifelong union between a man and a woman.”
He added: “The entire idea that you can discard your husband or your wife like a piece of clothing is one of the most dangerous assaults that we’ve ever seen on the family in this country. If we want children to grow up with healthy, happy lives, we should be reminding them that the most important thing that we can do for our kids is make sure they grow up with a mom and dad at home. The assault on the institution of marriage has been a profound evil. It hasn’t just affected our adults, it’s affected our children in big ways.”
Of course, not every Republican supports Vance’s views, especially as he is quickly being deemed a controversial candidate. According to The Daily Beast, Republicans are concerned that he is “running the worst campaign you can possibly run.”