JD Vance: Divorces from unhappy, 'even violent' marriages 'didn't work out for the kids'

A white man with brown hair and a brown beard gives a thumbs up gesture from behind a lectern

Aug. 9, 2024 11:03 AM PT

At a 2021 event hosted by a private Newport Beach high school, future Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said that after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, children suffered when their parents divorced, even when the marriages were unhappy or “maybe even violent.”

Vance, the author of the 2016 bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” told the crowd at the Orange County event that his grandparents did not divorce despite an “incredibly chaotic marriage in a lot of ways,” and said that some couples now see marriage as a “a basic contract, like any other business deal.”

“This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace,” Vance said. “Which is this idea that like, well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally — you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy. And so getting rid of them, and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term.”

He added: “And maybe it worked out for the moms and dads, though I’m skeptical. But it really didn’t work out for the kids of those marriages. And I think that’s what all of us should be honest about. We’ve run this experiment in real time and what we have is a lot of very, very real family dysfunction that’s making our kids unhappy.”

Vance spoke at an event hosted by Pacifica Christian High School the year before he was elected to the U.S. Senate. David O’Neil, Pacifica’s head of school, confirmed to The Times that the school hosted Vance off campus as part of a community speaking series. He said the event was not a fundraiser.

“The evening was wonderful, and Mr. Vance was well received,” O’Neil said.

Vance’s comments were posted online by Vice News during Vance’s successful 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio.

California Democrats are trying to link Vance’s comments to Republican Scott Baugh, who is running for Congress in a hotly contested coastal Orange County district where Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) is not seeking reelection.

Baugh is on the board of trustees at Pacifica, which held the Vance event, his campaign confirmed.

Democratic state Sen. Dave Min, who is running against Baugh, described Vance’s comments as “radical” and “dangerous,” and called on Baugh to disavow them.

“Anyone who knows anything about domestic violence knows that what JD Vance is saying is horrific — it is ignorant, it is reprehensible,” Min said in an interview.

Min’s wife, a law professor at UC Irvine, directs a legal aid clinic that provides free representation to survivors of domestic violence.

“Domestic violence is never acceptable, in any circumstance,” Baugh said in a statement. “I stand by victims of domestic violence and, frankly, all crime.”

The Trump-Vance campaign did not respond to a request for comment, nor did press representatives for Vance’s Senate office.

When asked in 2022 whether he thought it would be better for couples in violent relationships to stay married for the sake of their children, Vance said through a spokesperson that he rejected the premise of the “bogus question.”

Vance said his reference to “one of the great tricks” of the sexual revolution was the contention 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.”

The reported rate of domestic violence in the U.S. has declined over Vance’s lifetime.

In “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance turns a raw lens on his family’s brushes with domestic violence, divorce and addiction. Vance’s mother was addicted to drugs, and Vance was raised by his grandparents, whose relationship, he said, was tumultuous and violent.

His grandfather, whom he called Papaw, was “a violent drunk,” Vance wrote in the book, and his grandmother, whom he called Mamaw, was a “violent nondrunk.” One night, he said, Mamaw threatened to kill Papaw if he came home drunk again. A week later, Papaw came home drunk and fell asleep on the couch.

“Mamaw, never one to tell a lie, calmly retrieved a gasoline canister from the garage, poured it all over her husband, lit a match, and dropped it on his chest,” Vance wrote. He said his grandfather burst into flames that were extinguished by his 11-year-old daughter.

Vance’s grandparents were separated for many years, but did not divorce, he wrote. They were “together until the end, till death do us part,” Vance said at the Orange County event. “That was a really important thing to my grandmother and my grandfather. That was clearly not true by the ‘70s or ‘80s.”

The event’s moderator asked Vance what cultural avenues or government policies he would support to “reinvigorate Americans’ belief in the institution of marriage.” Vance said that, among other ideas, he would look to Hungary for inspiration.

In an effort to buck that country’s declining birth rate, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in 2019 began offering subsidized loans of up to $27,500 to newly married couples if the bride is younger than 41.

The loans are forgiven if couples have at least three children. Couples who divorce, move abroad or remain childless after five years must repay the loans, including interest.

“It’s really crazy,” Vance said of the policy. “The amount of marriage has skyrocketed, and the amount of stable, long-term marriages has skyrocketed, too.”

Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.