J.D. Vance is to authenticity what Velveeta is to cheese, or Trump’s hair is to…hair.
His recent “performance” on ABC—in which he tried to pick a fight with George Stephanopoulos to impress Trump—was less interview than audition for “The Biggest Bootlicker.”
So they’ve created a simple formula.
You go on corporate media, whose journalists must invite you on knowing you’re going to lie about everything. Why?
Because they’re owned by monopolistic merdes who don’t even try to do their jobs.
They’re now just there to make money, for “shareholder value" and to find mergers hiding in pre-war closets [ed note: support independent media!]—like Mike Johnson…at certain bars.
You attack the host as left wing. Deny what he/she says even if there’s video, audio or photographic evidence. Claim a conspiracy against right-wing troglodytes such as yourself.
And always—always—play poow wittle victim getting ve-wy, ve-wy ang-wee at da mean man askin qwest-yuns.
Yes, it’s television of, by and for addled toddlers, a stupid waste of everyone’s time and insult to our system of governance.
But, then again, so is the existence of the Republican Party since at least 2010.
Of those Republicans who do this little dance on tv, there are really three types. Those who truly need mental-health help—you know, perpetually angry at tree branches for whispering indignities about them just out of earshot.
The rest of the scrum, full of more sh*t than a port-o-potty convention, but capable of pulling off some of the serial lying.
And then there’s JD, a guy who can’t convincingly order donuts.
Fails at basic communication efforts with other mammals. Gets doors slammed in his face in Greenland. Is so profusely protested he has to run from the hills while on a skiing vacation.
And a guy whose charisma is so all-consuming Donald Trump couldn’t even remember his name when he first announced his support for him.
Here’s to Vice President JD Mandel!
JD Vance is what we’d call, back in my school days, a “loser.” An asshole.
My kids and their friends have their own Gen Z versions, a “sweat” or “try-hard.” The kid always trying to impress other kids—who are all actually scouting for back doors the minute they get stuck in a Dave & Buster’s with this dripping bibcock.
And the adult—ish in JD’s case—form? Someone nobody likes, nobody wants to be around and everybody knows is as fake as a manufacturing jobs created by Trump.
The JD Vances always had girlfriends in Canada or the Niagara Falls area. In college, always talked about scoring the winning touchdown for “the team,” til you discovered they washed the team’s towels.
As an adult, taking credit for scoring the big client when they collated copies for the presentation.
Or in JD’s case, claiming in a book that they were from a place they weren’t, grew up in circumstances they didn’t. And the real tell you’re a deeply insecure little dweeb with the self-assurance of a shell-less turtle?
You change your name, four times? Five? Seriously, who the f*k does that? Can this person possibly have any sense of self when they perpetually can’t accept their own name?
So James Donald Bowman became James David Hamel who became J.D. Hamel who became J.D. Vance who became JD Vance. Yes, this toolshed went to all the trouble to change his name one last time because he couldn’t live with two periods.
Ever wonder why these Vance-baby memes were so popular? Could they have been communicating something real about the person parodied in them?
So back to our interview where JD (not J.D., you insensitive bastard!) practically had flop sweat pooling into un-natural hot springs.
Bowman Hamel Vance tried to channel righteous outrage at Stephanopoulos, but ended up sounding like a kid reading cue cards in a bad high school play.
Every gesture, every sneer, each clumsy insult. JD tried soooo hard to sound authentic. But came across as a dimwitted drone dripping with calculation.
Sad and insincere. Like war-ravaged Portland.
This was supposed to be JD’s moment. Put the damn “liberal media” in its place! Instead, it was like watching a mediocre TikToker try to do De Niro.
Vance puffed himself up, attacked the host, repeated MAGA sacred text like an underpaid extra. And it looked as natural as Trump in a Speedo.
[Ed note: Pause. Ewwwww. Continue.]
You could tell Vance didn’t believe a word exiting his talk-hole. And was just thinking and praying—as Republicans do during tragedies—that the boss watching in Mar-a-Lago would toss him a participation trophy for approximating Lara Trump’s singing.
Problem is, Trump has one gift. Yes, otherwise a brain-wounded wombat. But he’s always been a performer—a conman—because he can instinctively read a room and tell what everyone wants.
And Trump knows they don’t want Vance. He can smell the desperation Vance wears like a cheap eau de toilette.
So could George Stephanopoulos. Who in a Boss move that should be standard practice, cut JD’s feed, cut to commercial and then cut the schmuck off his show.
(Now we get to see if ABC, Marvel, Hulu, ESPN, Disney or whoever runs this hydra kicks George off for journalism…perhaps offers Trump another bribe—inspirational!).
I dunno, JD. You looked kinda weak. A tad dorky. The boss isn’t gonna like that.
The boss being a guy JD once called “an idiot” and “America’s Hitler.” Who said he hoped Trump would lose to Hillary on an NPR show I was on with him in 2016, now has to pray Trump was on his meds when watching that feeble, disaster of an interview.
And in his Trump arse-snoggling, has become the most transparent phony in American politics (and competition’s stiff!).
He’s like what you’d get if you ordered a 3D-printed “generic MAGA” then hit add beard for gravitas and then add eyeliner for…well, you explain that one, JD.
But one thing it couldn’t give him—like when Vincent Price dies before gifting Edward Scissorhands human hands—was a heart. Or, at least any understanding of how to communicate emotion to the human organisms that surround him.
Every time Vance opens his mouth, you can practically hear the ka-ching of his political ambition cashing checks his dignity can’t cover. It’s like karaoke conservatism—and he’s singing the National Anthem Roseanne Barr-level off-key.
The irony: the man who wrote Hillbilly Elegy to posture as a truth-teller from the heartland, has turned into the most hollow Beltway puppet of ‘em all. Vance isn’t channeling working-class anger.
He’s miming it—cringe-level unconvincingly—because he’s a low-self-esteem liar who feels the constant need to Trump-fluff.
Because deep down, he knows that just like everyone else, Trump doesn’t like him.
That without pressure from the tech bros JD used to hang with—others with gifted dispositions like Musk and Thiel—Trump would never have chosen this anorak as VP in 100 years.
You see the problem is there’s been a high-stakes, James Bond casino table where right-wing chuckleheads have been upping the ante the last two decades. Who can part with the most pride? Who can show-off the most shamelessness?
This performance instead of policy got us Trump. And by extension, the multi-named, always trying to get into the frat that doesn’t want him by reminding everyone his great uncle was a member, eternally locker-bound kid in junior high, JD Vance.
I mean, folks, did JD take this picture at Incels-R-Us?
The kind of social parasite all too happy to play the part, no matter how see-through he is. Because at least people are saying (one of his) name(s), he tells himself as he looks—with disdain—in the mirror each morning.
This should be something Democrats can use to their advantage, because Sun Tzu said something about dividing your enemy, and clearly there’s already tension, as Trump watches JD flail.
On a broader note, if Trump’s purple blotches and cankled, ankle-weights went out on a date with actuarial tables, they’d find there’s a good chance nature has a plan for Trump in that great money-laundered condo in the sky.
Likely at some point in the near future.
And what happens when a MAGA audience looks at the emperor’s court jester who’s never been funny…or clever, or the slightest bit interesting? And the emperor has left the gold-encrusted building?
Then JD’s another sellout doing bad dinner theater for the world’s worst dead-dictator. And still the last kid picked for a kickball team at recess.
His usefulness to the fascists he helped backstop—with only couch-charisma left to offer—is gone. And he’ll find himself part of a rudderless, splintering criminal enterprise, with lots of angry, purposely-riled up Nazis high on algorithms and Alex Jones.
And no Trump to protect him.
JD may wanna ask Mike Pence how that almost worked out for him.
