Have you noticed this election is all about cats?

I think I know why

This election, apparently, is all about cats. Childless cat ladies. Immigrants eating their neighbors cats. You know the stories. In a moment when we could be talking about reproductive rights, climate catastrophe, Palestinian genocide, or even just the economy, we’re talking about cats. It seems like it’s all a distraction, but I think the whole cat thing actually gets right to the heart of the political moment.

See, I don’t think these gentlemen are talking about felines when they mention pussycats. I think they’re talking about, well, pussies.

Maybe it’s just a misuse of the thesaurus? Like high school sophomores trying to sound cool to their English teacher, have these men just reached for the wrong synonym? ¹

Pussies for her too!

Maybe. But maybe we should psychoanalyze it.

The evils they say they can save us from include Haitian immigrants eating nice Midwesterners’ cats, and important decisions being made by childless cat ladies.

Translation:

Dark handsome foreigners eating nice Midwesterners’ pussies.

Decisions being made by women in control of their own reproduction, who love their own pussies.

This is what these guys think is scary. This is the world they think they can save us from. A world without a white man in the sentence. A world where women’s pleasure is centered. A world where immigrants get right up there. And a world where women have agency and power over their lives and bodies and in the world at large. That’s what’s scary to them.

After all, we’re talking about one dude who think pussies are for grabbing. Even cats don’t like that. And whatever the other dude was or was not doing with that couch, it wasn’t for the couch’s pleasure, or even to make its resident cat purr. I mean, ew.

So they should be scared. But we shouldn’t be. We should just make that pussy-loving world a reality and leave them to their poor furniture.

So love your powerful self.

Love your neighbors.

Eat some, um, cats.

Vote.

Let’s make it happen.

After all, cats don’t wait for permission.

1. If they had gone formally anatomical would we be talking about Volvos and the pros and cons of foreign cars for America’s economy?