When I ran for governor, a reporter accused me of believing “men are smarter than women.”

Research shows, I wrote in a 20-year-old column, women know and care more about social security, health care and education. When asked, however, about 25 political questions, men were more likely to answer correctly in 15, men and women answered the same in nine, and women answered more correctly than men in only one. I quoted a left-wing journalism professor who said the reason women knew less than men about those questions is that they are more likely than men to watch local news. She said, “Watching local news makes you dumber.” This became translated to: “Elder thinks women are dumber than men.”

This brings us to Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate. The AP wrote: “During Vance’s bid for the Senate in Ohio, he said in a Fox News interview that ‘we are effectively run in this country via the Democrats,’ and referred to them as ‘a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. … How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?'”

The outrage was as intense as it was predictable. His comment became translated to: Vance has disdain for women without children; Vance believes childless women ought not hold office; and the only woman the “sexist” Vance does not hate is the one he married.

I do not have children, had a beloved cat named Cream Puff, and ran for governor and president. That people with children have more skin in the game is a common point of view held by my mother, my father, my two brothers and my pastor.

MSNBC political analyst Molly Jong-Fast said: “What’s interesting is that this is this natalism that comes from an authoritarian playbook, right? That there need to be more ‘white children,’ right? That’s the idea. This is about great replacement theory racism, right? This is what this is. So don’t misunderstand it for him wanting more children. He wants a certain kind of racist thing.” Never mind Vance has three children with his wife, the daughter of Indian Hindu immigrants.

In a response, Vance did not back down: “The left has increasingly become explicitly antichild and antifamily. They’ve encouraged young families not to have children at all, because of concerns over climate change.”

Here’s the game. Every news cycle spent on castigating Vance for his “childless cat ladies” comment is one less news cycle spent on the outrageous radical beliefs of Vice President Kamala Harris. Among them are: open border policies that have allowed more than 8 million illegal aliens to enter the country since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration; a more left-wing Senate voting record than Sen. Bernie Sanders; a desire to “reimagine the police”; saying there is a “perception” that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is akin to the KKK; advocating the abolishment of private health care insurance; taxpayer-funded health care insurance for illegal aliens; single-payer national health care insurance; taxpayer-paid family and medical leave; national rent control; a national minimum income; a commission to study “reparations;” banning fracking and offshore drilling; a transition to 100% electric vehicles by 2035; asserting it is “not a crime” to be in the country illegally; and according to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of Harris’ more vocal surrogates, a support for amnesty with a path to citizenship for the illegal aliens in the country before and under Biden-Harris.

Democrat politicians and the Trump-hating media do not want an apology. If Vance did apologize, the next news cycle would become: “What took so long?” “It was too little too late.” “The apology does not undo the insult.” The goal is simple. Democrat politicians and their media sympathizers do not want you to ask whether you are better off now than three and a half years ago. They do not want you to ask whether Harris’ radical, redistribution-of-income beliefs will make you better off.

They want you to ask whether you are a “childless cat lady.”

Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host.