Why did Taylor Swift sign off as ‘childless cat lady’ as she endorsed Kamala Harris for US president?

Kamala Harris has won the US presidential debate… at least as far as the Swifties go. Soon after Harris and Donald Trump concluded the ABC debate, the Vice President got one of the biggest endorsements of the night – from Taylor Swift . The superstar singer backed Harris in a post on Instagram, saying the Democratic candidate would be the “warrior” to fight for the rights and causes she believes in.

On Instagram, where Swift has 283 million followers, she wrote, “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 presidential election… I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”

More from United States Of America

From father's advice to pastor's call: How Charlie Kirk's shooter Tyler Robinson was turned in to police Charlie Kirk: Killer still at large, motive uncertain; FBI releases photo with $100,000 reward

The artist encouraged her followers to register to vote and also addressed the AI-generated images shared by Donald Trump in late August that falsely depicted Swift and her fans endorsing his campaign for president. “It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” Swift’s post read.

She said she watched the debate and urged her fans to research “the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most”.

She then went on to sign off as “childless cat lady” , a reference to comments made by Trump’s running mate JD Vance. Her post appeared with a picture of her cat Benjamin Button – it is one of three she owns.

But what’s the “childless cat lady” trope and why does it keep featuring in the US presidential election? We explain.

What were JD Vance’s ‘childless cat lady’ remarks?

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

As Trump weaponises tariff, Fed sees a bigger worry: Not jobs, but rising prices in America

Despite a backdown deal, Trump deploys hundreds more National Guard troops in Washington DC

It all goes back to a 2021 Tucker Carlson interview with JD Vance. The Republican vice presidential candidate was then lamenting about the country, which he believed was run “via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies… And they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too … You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.”

He identified Harris as one, even though she has two stepchildren. And then said that “cat ladies… live in one-bedroom apartments in New York City.” “They’re obsessed with their jobs. They’re obsessed with their wealth and with their fortunes,” he said. He claimed they had “no direct takes” in the future of the country and “hate normal Americans for choosing family over these ridiculous D.C. and New York status games”, according to a report in The New York Times.

How did the interview resurface?

In July, Hollywood star Jeniffer Aniston put up a post on Instagram, addressed to Vance, sharing the Fox News interview clip. “I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States,” the F.R.I.E.N.D.S actor wrote.

“All I can say is… Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too,” she added.

Aniston’s comment went viral with many, including Republicans, criticising Vance. Among them were fans of Swift.

“It’s bold, for someone seeking votes, to hone in on ‘childless cat ladies’ when the leader of Childless Cat Ladies is Taylor Swift,” British writer Caitlin Moran posted on X in July.

Another user on X shared the TIME magazine cover where the singer posed with one of her cats, writing: “Hell hath no fury like a certain childless cat lady who has yet to endorse a presidential candidate.”

How has Vance reacted since?

After Aniston’s post kicked up a storm, Vance doubled down his 2021 remarks. He told “The Megyn Kelly Show" in an interview in July, “Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I’ve got nothing against cats”.

“It’s not a criticism of people who don’t have children. I explicitly said in my remarks … this is not about criticising people who for various reasons don’t have kids. This is about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child.”

The Republic VP nominee’s wife Usha Vance defended her husband in a Fox News interview in August. “I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and try to understand what the context was… Because what he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country. And sometimes our policies are designed in a way that makes it even harder.”

Days later in Philadephia, JD Vance once again said it was a “merely sarcastic remark”. “The media wants to get offended about a sarcastic remark I made before I even ran for the United States Senate,” he claimed in his defence.

Is the remark likely to hurt Vance, Trump?

The comment continues to haunt the Republicans two months on. Critics draw a comparison between Vance’s “childless remark” and his stance on abortion rights and reproductive health care. In June, Vance helped Republicans block a bill that established the right to IVF across the US.

It does not help that in the US, a record number of American women have chosen to stay childless: 21.9 million women in the US between the ages 20 and 39 had not given birth in 2022, reaching a historic low, according to the US Census Bureau, reports Al-Jazeera. A Pew Research survey of around 2,770 adults between April and May this year showed that the share of US adults under 50 who do not have children and are unlikely to ever have children rose by 10 percentage points from 37 per cent in 2018 to 47 per cent in 2023.

With comments targeting women, Vance stands the risk of isolating this vote bank. Vance’s comment “offends on so many levels,” Debbie Walsh, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), told Al Jazeera. She said that it offends people like Kamala Harris, who is a step-parent; women who consciously chose not to have children; and those who have adopted.

What’s worse is that Trump too continues to make sexist jibes at Harris and other women. The vice president has a 14-point lead in the gender cap among women. And as polls near, the Republicans are calling their two nominees.

Nikki Haley said on Monday that Trump and Vance should change the way they talk about women. “You don’t need to call Kamala dumb. She didn’t get this far, you know, just by accident. … She’s a prosecutor.”

“You don’t need to go and talk about intelligence or looks or anything else. Just focus on the policies,” she added Haley said that when Republicans call Democratic women “dumb,” “Republican women get their backs up, too.”

Vance has not been too popular. According to a CNN report in August, he had the lowest favourability of any vice presidential candidate. A new poll released last week showed Democratic vice presidential pick Tim Walz to be more popular.

A poll from USA Today and Suffolk University found Walz is significantly more popular than Vance: 48 per cent of likely voters found Walz favourable and 36 per cent found him unfavourable, compared to 37 per cent who found Vance favourable and 49 per cent found him unfavourable, reports Forbes.

Experts are divided over whether vice president picks can influence the poll outcome. But in a closely contested election, anything could be a game-changer. It remains to be seen if then if the “childless cat lady” will bring Vance – and by extension Trump – down.

With inputs from agencies