Somewhere on Instagram, a Buddhist cat lives with a Buddhist monk. The monk dresses the cat up in tiny orange robes and small spectacles, and then the cat appears to sit in reverential mindfulness as the monk reads the dharma to him. I don’t really know what’s going on, but God knows I love that cat. The translation of the caption is obscure — is this cat a reincarnation of some sage, or just a particularly docile creature with a saintly disposition? I have all these questions, but many more about the state of the cat at the present time.
It strikes me that cats may need their inner Zen more than they know because they’re preoccupying many more people than Buddhist monks right now. And none more than JD Vance — once an upwardly mobile hillbilly and now Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick and chief presidential cat-meme generator.
It’s been millennia in the making, but 2024 must surely be “peak feline”. I wouldn’t be surprised if we looked back on this time and realised the future of the democratic world order as we knew it was precariously balanced on the agile shoulders of this mysterious quadruped.
A short history of cats indicates their social cachet has varied wildly over time. Sometimes they were revered. For example, the cat-headed goddess Bastet in ancient Egypt represented power and protection, while the Roman goddess Libertas, who stood for freedom, was associated with the domestic cat. And the Viking goddess Freya rode in a chariot pulled by two cats.
But at other times, the cat’s reputation was in the gutter. By the Middle Ages, Christians had developed a visceral aversion to felines. Even the pope railed against cats as creatures of the devil and the familiars of witches. For more than 1,500 years, the cat (especially the black version) was associated with heresy and witch-burning, until the great late-Victorian rehabilitation. Suddenly cats re-entered the popular imagination via literature, poetry and illustrations as playful charmers with a worldly, aristocratic streak. They were smarter and less needy than dogs, and probably many humans. Today, we cohabit with an estimated global population of more than 400-million cats. They’re the second-most popular pet after the loyal dog. Hence the Zen cat of the middle path.
So what are we to make of JD Vance and his version of bitter-and-twisted childless cat ladies, presented as latter-day harridans and witches, with their dried-up wombs and liberal values, and viewed in contrast with wholesome Christian families. Vance characterised female members of the Democratic leadership 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”.
It’s an old insult with a long tail for uppity females. Suffragettes were often characterised as “cat ladies” just 100 years ago, when they had the gall to come out into the streets and demand the vote. Best they stayed at home with their familiars — an insult that gets cat ladies every time.
What JD realised belatedly is that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of childless cat ladies. And definitely not on the wrong side of Taylor Swift — she has lyrics for that, as well as an endorsement for Kamala apparently brought on by a sudden rush of blood to her head after she mused on the “cat lady” theme for a while and railed against the fake Taylor for disseminating Trump memes.
Suffragettes were often characterised as “cat ladies” just 100 years ago, when they had the gall to come out into the streets and demand the vote.
Even JD realised the “cat lady” shtick he’d started might be backfiring. Taylor isn’t the only “cat lady” to suddenly remember her “pussy hat” from her last brush with the misogyny of the Trump campaign and came out in defence of all furry creatures and the women who associate with them. He quickly pivoted to a new cat meme — this time in defence of felines. This is what they teach you in Political Strategy 101. He claimed hordes of hungry Haitian migrants, from the dark and savage places beyond the border, were apparently chopping up the cats of Springfield Ohio for kitty casserole. This line of argumentation sparked a million cat memes in return, spawned by the predominantly male incel corners of the internet, emblazoned with calls to “save the cats” from the marauding migrants by voting for Trump.
This cat-eating stuff was a big plot-driver in Donald’s first (and probably only) debate with Kamala. Apparently “she” is encouraging this cat-eating thing while also being a card-carrying member of the cat-lady contingent. The whiplash is real. Trump’s other line of argument was that “he was speaking”, so she should not interrupt him. He smirked as he said it, calling her out on what she said to pro-Palestinian protesters at an early rally.
Look, it could be worse. Speaking in public while being a woman is not a straightforward thing. In some places, it’s been completely outlawed. Try buying cat food as a woman in Kabul. Before August, you couldn’t be seen in public, but now you can’t be heard either. Women’s voices have literally been outlawed.
I’m sure JD Vance has something to say about the “natural”, God-given role of women in relation to these injunctions against speaking outside the home. My feeling is that, if the women of Afghanistan still have access to the internet, they should watch the Buddhist cat and hope for better luck in the next lifetime. In the meantime, I say, ‘If you can’t eat them, join them.’ Viva the cat ladies, viva!
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