It looks like a family holiday card except that the woman and children posing with Republican Derrick Anderson are not his wife or his offspring.
Anderson, who running in a close race for Virginia’s seventh congressional district, was seen in another image seated around the dining table with the same woman and three girls.
The images came to light in an article by The New York Times, headlined “G.O.P. Candidates, Looking to Soften Their Image, Turn to Their Wives,” which reported how “male Republicans struggling to appeal to female voters concerned about their records on reproductive rights are unleashing their spouses to make the pitch on their behalf.”
However Anderson, who is childless, engaged to be married and lives alone with his dog, sought to borrow the wife and children from a longtime friend in an apparent effort to appear as a family man.
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That’s not what Republican politicians usually hire women and children for
Wait, WTF? He’s engaged but the woman he’s misrepresenting as his wife in the photo is somebody other than his fiance? What, did she get creeped out and refuse to do it or something?
Don’t get me wrong, the whole thing is a big WTF, but that aspect of it is even more WTF-ish than the rest!
Talk about an awkward conversation with the fiancee, or a short time before it’s called off. Unless their partner is as scummy as the candidate, I see a big future in the GOP for them, assuming they get that seat. Party of family values for sure heh. Nothing like showing lies to show how highly you consider those values.
I’m not childless but if anybody knows where I can get a loaner wife I might be interested
Apparently there’s a man in Virginia who will lend you his entire family, but only if it’ll help take away their rights.
The perpetuation of the myth that you are less of a person for not having a family or children is absolutely fucking disgusting
I should preface this by saying this whole idea of renting a family for a photoshoot is just nuts and wrong and wtf on many levels, I’m not defending that.
I will say though this isn’t necessarily about being “less of a person”, I think that’s kind of reductive and may not really describe the guy’s intention.
I recently started a family at 42, so I’ve lived 20 some years as an adult without a partner and children and it’s true that I’ve felt somewhat excluded in some ways not having a partner and children. More-so than anything social, in 2024 it seems like it’s very very expensive to be single. Like there’s a very very narrow line you have to walk if you want to navigate life and be able to retire above the poverty line, and having a spouse is a requirement.
Another aspect is simply that my priorities have changed since having children. I mean I always knew logically or understood academically the issues relevant to families, but now I grok them, I really feel them in a way that I just couldn’t before. That doesn’t make me better or “more of a person”, it just makes my experience different.
Maybe it’s a bit like, as a white hetero male I can imagine what it might be like to belong to a minority, or understand the relevant issues logically, but I can never feel how that would feel.
With all that in mind I can understand how a childless person trying to get elected might think that being perceived as “childful” might make them more electable, but aside from being just weird and wrong it’s unethical and manipulative and naive.
But it is hilarious when the person perpetrating it does not have a family or children
Not when those who need to hear it don’t hear it and/or don’t care to hear it
Every single life adds value to the world. Splitting people into groups then discontinuing those groups as less than or useless is a recipe for failure. Anyone who does not see that is not qualified for a leadership position.
Tim Scott gave up the ruse as soon as his Presidential campaign ended. These guys are so stupid and obvious it’s painful.
He was breathing fairly easily. It occurred to Ford that he might breathe more easily yet without the weight of his wallet bearing down on his chest, so he slipped it out of Harl’s breast pocket and flipped through it. Fair amount of cash. 55 Credit tokens. Ultragolf club membership. Other club memberships. Photos of someone’s wife and family - presumably Harl’s, but it was hard to be sure these days. Busy executives often didn’t have time for a full-time wife and family and would just rent them for weekends.
-Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
Honestly, I doubted that a fictional writer could be as sleazy and vile and disgusting as reality. I hand it to Douglas Adams for keeping parity, but not for long…
I thought this was the onion.
Ate the nonion, as it were.
These idiots don’t understand that the internet is a thing that exists despite using it constantly.
“No one will ever find out that I don’t actually have a family.”
The problem isn’t that people will find out. It’s that 99% of their voters are too stupid to think critically about the people they vote for.
Exhibit A: George Santos
Best and brightest.
Republicans have to continually poke fingers at others to detract from their own significant shortcomings.
These people know their voters won’t use any critical thinking and refuse any contrary info anyway
I feel bad for those poor girls.
Imagine growing up and remembering the one time Uncle Derrick took pictures with you and then took your family out to a nice dinner.
And then you realize they were just using your likeness to push restrictions of reproductive rights.
And then Uncle Derrick hand picks you for the Homeland Breeding Program because of your exam you took last week, and you are surprisingly fertile.
Under His Eye.
(Goddamn that grossed me out and made me feel all sorts of uncomfortable writing that 🤮)
That’s OK! Republican Voters are KNOWN to do their Own Research and will VERY EASILY find out he Lied!
engaged to be married and lives alone with his dog,
How does that work? Don’t most people cohabitate before marriage? Or is he engaged to his dog?
Many people do, but not everyone. Religious people especially tend not to cohabitate before marriage, as that would be considered a sin.
Imagine getting married and discovering they’re the worst roommate ever.
Many Christians believe that living together before marriage is wrong. Many conservatives are either Christian or appeal to Christian values (as they’re both largely patriarchal and controlling; at least as practiced). This guy’s conservative.
Then why wouldn’t he just do a photo shoot with his fiancee and his dog? Conservatives are idiots or someone is lying.
Conservatives are idiots
For this one, I think this is the answer.
The article talks about how Republicans are alienating virtually every woman in the country. So, to appear electable, they’re having their wives and kids do the ads, so that out-of-touch women will see a woman in the ad and decide that the candidate is a good guy.
But that, and the whole focus on “traditional family values” and everything boxes them into a certain image, that you’re not a real American man if you’re not married with kids by the time you’re in your 30s or something. So, even if he had a picture with his fiance and dog, it would prove he’s not a “traditional family values” republican. So, better to pose with a friend’s wife and kids than prove that he’s not “normal”.
Or at least use his dog in the fake photo?? Cmon, he’s got one creature on this planet that loves him (ignorance is bliss), and he leaves it out of the family photo?!
What a monster, lol
His dog, apparently smarter than every Republican voter in Virginia’s seventh congressional district, refused to have anything to do with it.
What woman would want to marry sometime that felt the need to put his political career over their relationship? Sounds like a match made in heaven
Is this one of those cat ladies I’ve been hearing about?
WEIRD
Considering the news out of Russia about making childless families ideology illegal has been in the headlines… does this dude think he works for Russia?
EDIT: Sorry, forgot to add the word “ideology”.
Some Republicans are literally working for Russia; the rest just love Putin and the reactionary religious conservatism and oppression of minorities he stands for. In either case they effectively work for Russia.
And the law forbidding promotion of the “childless lifestyle” achieves oppression of women, nonreligious people and LGBTQ+ people all in one go. Republicans will certainly want to do something similar.
Say what you will, but that’s a full, lush beard.
