Surprising Duggar Family Member Wants To Get Involved In Politics: A Look Back At The Duggars’ Political Failures

A member of the Duggar family wants to get more involved in politics, and the identity of the Counting On star in question may shock you.

As the Duggar Family Blog reports, Joy-Anna Duggar celebrated her 19th birthday on October 28. The Duggar family friends who run the blog marked the occasion by listing a few of Joy-Anna’s aspirations, most of which are similar to those of her female family members. Like all Duggar women, she wants to become a wife and mother. She’s also interested in doing mission work like her older sister Jill. However, Joy-Anna may also share an ambition with her father Jim Bob and her older brother Josh. According to the Duggar Family Blog, one of her future goals is to become involved in politics.

Jim Bob Duggar is a former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives who ran for U.S. Senate in 2002. As reported in an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article published on Quiverfull, Jim Bob spent a large chunk of his family’s money — $250,000 to be exact — on his bid for more political power. According to Gawker, one of his platform positions was that incest should be punishable by death. Jim Bob also said that pregnant rape victims should be forced to carry their rapists’ babies.

Jim Bob’s campaign was ultimately a failure, even though he insisted that a higher power had called on him to run for the Senate seat. His eldest son, Josh Duggar, believed that God wanted the entire Duggar family to get involved in the race.

“We’re in the race because we feel God has told us to run. We’re not against any of our opponents in any way,” the then-13-year-old said.

According to the Washington Post, Jim Bob also launched a failed bid for an Arkansas Senate seat in 2006.

Josh Duggar would eventually go on to spend a lot of time around political figures far more powerful than his father. As the executive director of FRC Action, a conservative lobbying nonprofit, Josh rubbed elbows with the likes of Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and Reince Priebus. However, as the Washington Post reports, Josh was forced to step down from his position after it was discovered that he had sexually molested four of his younger sisters as a teenager. According to People, he’s now supporting his family of six by selling used cars.

Great meeting today w @SenTedCruz. He always conveys passion for America & the importance of faith, family & freedom! pic.twitter.com/SvBjBw1GXV

— Josh Duggar (@joshduggar) May 6, 2015

It’s unclear if Joy-Anna Duggar wants to run for political office like her father or pursue a position with a political organization like her older brother. Members of the Duggar family don’t have the best track record when it comes to pursing positions of power, so she may be more interested in being politically active the way she and other female members of the Duggar family have been in the past. This would include campaigning for conservative Christian candidates and supporting causes that matter to her and her family.

One of these causes is forcing transgender women to use men’s public restrooms. As the Inquisitr previously reported, Michelle Duggar caused a massive controversy in 2014 when she recorded a robocall in which she equated transgender women with child predators. Her goal was to convince citizens to protest a Fayetteville, Arkansas, anti-discrimination ordinance protecting LGBTQ citizens from discrimination. According to the Arkansas Times, the ordinance was repealed, but a similar one was adopted last September.

As E! News reports, Joy-Anna Duggar was one of the many members of the Duggar clan who took part in the “Faith, Family, Freedom” bus tour in 2014. The tour was aimed at promoting politicians who were against abortion and same-sex marriage, two issues that the Duggar family feels strongly about. Joy-Anna also appeared in a political ad for Rick Santorum when he ran for president in 2012. He didn’t get the GOP nomination.

According to Us Weekly, Jim Bob Duggar endorsed Mike Huckabee for president last May, but his family didn’t hit the campaign trail like they usually do during election years. This is likely because Josh Duggar’s sex scandals turned them into political poison just a few weeks after the endorsement. According to the Huffington Post, Huckabee actually defended the Duggars at a January 12 campaign stop in Clinton, Iowa, but doing so did him no favors — he dropped out of the presidential race in February after performing poorly in the Iowa caucuses.

In January of this year, Joy-Anna Duggar and a larger number of her family members attended an anti-abortion protest, the March for Life in Little Rock, Arkansas. This could be a sign that the entire Duggar clan is itching to be politically active again.

Are you surprised that Joy-Anna Duggar is still interested in politics after witnessing her family’s political failures? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

[Featured Image by Duggar Family Official Facebook]