Who runs the world?

I, and to a lesser extent Jennifer Aniston, run the world, according to JD Vance.

Specifically, this offputtingly fuzzy man claimed that America is run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too." Now the 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee is coming to Minnesota with former President Donald Trump to insult us to our faces.

As Trump showed the world he's not man enough to debate Kamala Harris, all eyes turned to a treasure trove of unhinged interviews his running mate gave in 2021. Including a newly unearthed suggestion by Vance that childless Americans (bad!) should be taxed at a higher rate than parents.

"Let's tax the things that are bad," Ohio's own Vance said during an appearance on the Charlie Kirk show. I cannot prove it, but I strongly suspect that this was when children started using "skibidi Ohio rizz" as an insult.

Nobody levies a punitive tax on Jennifer Aniston on Minnesota's watch, JD Vance.

"I truly can't believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States," the actress posted on Instagram this week as Vance's comments ricocheted around the internet.

Aniston spent most of her childbearing years under public pressure to explain when, whether, why she hadn't had a baby yet. All while she was going through round after heartbreaking round of fertility treatments. Vance and his Senate Republican colleagues blocked protections for in vitro fertility treatments this year after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people.

Did Vance apologize? He did. To cats.

"Obviously it was a sarcastic comment. I've got nothing against cats," he said on Megyn Kelly's podcast Friday. "The substance of what I said, Megyn — I'm sorry, it is true."

This marks the second time in recent memory that politicians have leveraged cats as insults. First Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey joked that remote workers were "losers" who would rather stay home wrapped in "nasty cat blankets" than go back to commutes and cubicles. Now this.

To paraphrase childless cat lady Taylor Swift, the cats would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.

"My God, they went after cat people. Good luck with that," Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz marveled on MSNBC earlier this week. "It would be funny if it wasn't so sad."

People like Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, don't "really have a direct stake" in the future of this country, Vance went on to say in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson. Because they are "people without children." Apparently, the two stepchildren Harris helped raise don't count any more than the millions of American women who've never given birth.

For someone who claims to be pro-life, Vance sure seems to think some lives have more value than others.

I don't have a kid. I don't even have a cat. What I have is a strong suspicion that for Vance, my sole value to society is my womb.

There are many reasons why people do or don't have children. Absolutely none of them are his business. Some of us couldn't have kids. Some of us didn't want kids. All of us can see that smirk on Vance's face. The smirk of a man who thinks that having children entitles him to attack anyone who doesn't.

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was trying for a baby with her husband, astronaut-turned-U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, when she was shot and nearly killed by a would-be assassin. Let's give her the final word, shall we?

"That dream was stolen from us," she posted on social media. "To suggest we are somehow lesser is disgraceful."