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The Partial Observer by Don Feinberg

Let’s All Play Vance-ocracy

From the Genius Mind of JD Vance Comes Something We’ve All Been Waiting For!

It’s all the rage in Silicon Valley and among lawyers from elite law schools (I’m looking at you, John Eastman) who are bored with democracy, which takes so much effort, constant participation and anybody can play. Intellectual force that he is, JD Vance knows the problem and is the only person in America brave enough to tell it like it is. That’s why he’s invented Vance-ocracy for those select few people who want something new and exciting that only the right people can play. Vance-ocracy is to democracy what pickle ball is to tennis: for older people with bad knees who still crave the thrill of competition.

JD’s been talking about his new game in snippets here and there, letting slip some of the best elements of the game, like childless cat ladies and women who work and don’t have children, but here for the first time are all the rules. Given to me by a fellow Yalie (I went there too, just like JD), they are printed on the inside of the game box, like Scrabble. JD is so wonderfully old fashioned, I mean traditional, I mean great again.

Here’s how to play:

• Who gets to vote and how many times (fun!)
• Only people with children can vote.
• The more children, the more votes (yay, Duggars). Players must be married to get extra votes.
• Grandparents can vote, determined by how many of their children have children. If their children have no children, grandparents’ votes are reduced (see below).
• Unmarried men with jobs (earning over $75,000.00) can vote, but only till age 50 (time to get married, guys, and make those votes!).
• Widowers, men or women, 40 or under, can vote. Women over 40 can’t (too late for safe vote production, gals) but men can till 50 (see above).
• Working women with children get only one vote regardless of the number of children they have. However, if they leave the workforce then they get as many votes as they have children!
• Divorced couples lose their votes except for the parent that has custody. If custody is shared, each parent gets 50 percent of a vote per child.
• Couples that adopt, so long as children are from non-sh*thole countries.
• Couples that use IVF. However, votes can be reduced by the percentage of embryos lost during treatment. (Explanation of this little understood but very important rule is below.)

Votes are reduced if:

• You are a Democrat, all rules above apply EXCEPT all your votes are worth only half. (For example, if you are married with three children, you get 1.5 votes.)
• Grandparents whose children don’t have children get 75 percent of a vote for each child not having children (sorry Grandpa and Grandma).
• The couple is on welfare, then each child counts as three-fifths of a vote (an oldie but goodie).
• Single mothers are like Democrats, 50 percent of a vote per child.
• If a couple uses IVF, the calculation for votes is per the following example: two children conceived and born equals two votes, number of embryos placed but not successfully implanted in the woman’s placenta and thus not brought to term, six, makes total votes for the couple .66—that is, two babies divided by six embryos multiplied by two.
• Children coming out as LGBTQ+ MUST be deducted from vote total.

Players disqualified from voting:

• Single mothers on welfare cannot vote.
• Sperm donors. (Not fair for obvious reasons.)
• Gay men (adopting or having children by any means does not count.)
• Gay women (adopting or having children by any means does not count.)
• If all your children die before producing grandchildren. (Seems unfair, but is it really?).

Special bonus play:

• Any player that tells a Democratic candidate for federal office to “Go to hell!’ gets an extra 10 votes.

The player wins who:

• The player with the most children by the most women who is worth over $500,000,000.00 wins. In other words, only men can win. The winner is crowned Procreator and King or, as players say, an Elon Musk.

Don Feinberg is a retired beer importer and brewery owner who has never written or submitted an editorial before. He thanks JD Vance for giving him the inspiration and courage to do so.