Much ink has been spilled on Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) being a huge weirdo with dangerous views on everything from women’s bodies to race to soft drinks. Even without the cartoonishly bizarre (and debunked) sofa hoax, Vance has emerged as one of the most unpopular vice presidential choices of all time.
It’s not just a personality thing either. Almost daily, new oppo research surfaces revealing Vance’s past extreme remarks on the very issues the Republicans Party attempted to moderate on during the convention when it revised its policy platform — such as his damaging-for-Trump views on abortion and on punishing women for travel out of state to seek out the procedure.
Over the weekend, the journalists over at Fox checked in with Vance on news that the Kamala Harris campaign — and everyone else in America — called him “weird,” asking the Trump VP candidate during a campaign stump interview whether it “hurts your feelings.”
“No, not at all,” Vance said in an interview that aired Sunday. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings.”
“Look, the price of admission — meaning, the price of getting to serve the people of this country — is the Democrats are going to attack us with everything that they have. I think it’s an honor,” he added.
The problem is, it’s not just Democrats who think Vance is a little freak — and not the fun, much-memed kind. The cringe kind. Sure, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) mentioned over the weekend that Trump picking Vance was “one of the best things [Trump] ever did for Democrats.” But Republicans in Congress are also privately concerned about Vance’s lack of experience, specifically on foreign policy.
This has all led to abundant speculation about whether Trump, too, feels honored by the attacks on his VP, or whether he might be having some regrets.
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JD Vance, Awkward and Discomfiting Ragelord — Josh Marshall
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You gotta love the bad spot TFG put himself in with his choice of Vance for VP. Stick with him, and most likely lose moderates/independents. Dump him, and probably also lose moderates and independents because he ends up looking weak and inept.
More importantly, dump Vance and you endanger that silicon valley tech bro money. Which was really the only positive to his selection.
Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner.
About Josh’s latest Are You On Team Weird EdBlog:
HELL YES. The one thing that fascists fear more than anything else is mockery. Their “brand” is all about being impressive and intimidating. Hard to accomplish when people are laughing and pointing at you.
The Brits knew this.
BTW, there is so much context there … first of all, the “Lambeth Walk” was a musical number from Me and My Girl from the late '30s. So perfectly familiar to any British wartime theater audience. The footage is from Leni Reifenstahl’s propaganda work Triumph of the Will, just … edited a bit, ya know.
The Wikipedia article notes that Goebbels was reportedly so enraged by the clip “that he ran out of the screening room kicking chairs and screaming profanities”.
Which is a mental image that always makes me smile. Poor old Joseph. Went to all this trouble to make his Nazi hordes so impressive and intimidating, and these swine Britishers with a little bit of film editing cut-n-paste make them look ludicrous instead.
Hate to see it.
The kind that denounces insurrection while climbing on board the insurrectionist train?