“Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party” VP Candidate Publicly Eats Supporter’s Face
J. D. Vance seems to have a cruel sense of humor and issues with women. Weird!
![[JD Vance]](https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/JD-Vance-edited-1024x576.jpg)
One of the worst aspects of politics in the age of social media is its focus on memes. It’s normal for pundits to complain that campaigns are “too online”–in other words, focusing on scoring points on social media platforms like X/Twitter. Yesterday, Republican Vice Presidential Candidate J. D. Vance once again decided to meme for the lulz and ended up attacking a supporter in the process.
In an attempt to “dunk” on Kamala Harris and her upcoming CNN interview, Vance published the following tweet/xeet/whatever:
This particular meme goes back to the 2007 Miss Teen USA Pagent. Miss South Carolina, Caitlin Upton (then 18) gave a nonsensical answer to the question: “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future. [source]
This clip quickly went viral at the time. And if that was all there was to it, this probably wouldn’t be a story worth paying attention to. However, there was a darker side to the meme. Upton would later reflect on how the negative reaction affected her mental and emotional health:
I definitely went through a period where I was very, very depressed. But I never let anybody see that stuff, except for people I could trust. I had some very dark moments where I thought about committing suicide. The fact that I have such an amazing family and friends, it really, really helped. [Begins to tear up] Sorry, it’s just really emotional. This is the first time I’ve actually been able to talk about it. It was awful, and it was every single day for a good two years. I’ve only spoken to my fiancé about how I felt in those moments truthfully, and my best friend. And, recently, my mom. But, like, my dad doesn’t even know yet. [source]
At this point, we can begin to see how continuing to use the meme is in bad taste. In fact, that’s something Upton commented on after Vance’s tweet:
I think most of us agree with Upton that online bullying is a bad look full stop. In fact, this was Melania Trump’s signature issue while First Lady. So, engaging in that activity is bad enough. What makes it worse is that a quick glance at her social media presence shows that Upton is a Republican and public Trump supporter. She also has a personal history with the former President, as she signed with the Trump Model Agency in 2007.
When presented with these facts in a CNN interview, J. D. Vance did the only logical thing for someone on the Trump campaign: he doubled down, saying he “won’t apologize for a joke.”
I’m sure some commenter will call me out for lacking a sense of humor. Again, unlike the former President and his Vice-Presidential candidate, I don’t find punching down funny. And, as previously discussed, I’m not a huge fan of anger-based humor. I also think it’s an especially bad choice to engage in such humor when the subject of the joke is a public supporter of your campaign.
Then again, I guess it’s another day in the life of the “Leopards Eating Your Face” party delivering on their platform. That said, I hope it might give some of that party’s supporter’s a moment of pause to consider that maybe, just maybe, the party’s name should be taken literally instead of figuratively.
Either way, it’s also more weird behavior.
Maybe he meant to say he’s not apologizing for being a joke.
Also: I asked on another thread about this 20-minute edit thing. That is too long, IMO.
Hey, just because her husband can’t remember her name is no reason for you to get it wrong.
@Michael Reynolds:
Fixed. Thank you for that catch.
JD Vance is beginning to seem like the type of person who could manage to step on a rake in the middle of an otherwise empty hockey rink.
Vance’s sense of humor reminds me of the Truly Tasteless Joke books which kids passed around way back in the day.
The jokes in there were not in any way funny. There are funny jokes involving race which some get offended by. But ‘what do you call 10 black guys and 1 white guy’ is not one of them, and that’s the joke for JD Vance.
@Jen:
Stepping on a rake is a Republiqan tradition going back to the days of Mayor Robert “Bob” Terwilliger.
@Modulo Myself:
There’s a certain variety of offensive joke that some people enjoy telling (e.g. dead baby jokes) in part because they know they’re taboo, and so there’s an element of a forbidden fruit. What much of the right does is more than a few steps farther: they’re not even telling the jokes for the purpose of laughter, they’re telling them in anticipation of the backlash just so they can point to the people objecting as joyless scolds. It’s much more of a dominance ritual than any sort of attempt at levity.
The problem here is that the target in this case is a Republican and Trump supporter–indeed, this meme has probably been spread by more than a fair share of liberals over the years in order to attack a certain image they have of conservative women–and so Vance doesn’t get the dunk on liberal tone-policing that this gambit is normally supposed to achieve. Beyond that, the stereotype he’s trying to apply to Kamala Harris (the ditzy, brainless beauty queen) is off; even in Republican circles I don’t think that’s how Harris is commonly viewed, and elsewhere it just comes off as baffling–weird even.
As people living under authoritarian regimes have found out the hard way throughout history, being on the team does not make you safe – you are still subject to the whims and cruelty of those in power.
@anjin-san:
Being “on the team” makes you more susceptible. You are surrounded by a forest of Karens. Petty infighting is more satisfying to a measurable subset than actually quelling external enemies, advancing goals.
If your goals are sadistic, expect sadists to sign up.
Stefanie didn’t boo and hiss forcefully enough during Two Minute Hate. Stone her!
@anjin-san:
@de stijl:
We saw just that on El Weirdo’s sole term.
Historical examples are too numerous. In more recent dictatorships, the way it happens is very clear. Something goes wrong, and the dictator or ruling clique on top looks for someone to blame; someone other than themselves, that is.
The most popular means to go about it, is to look for traitors inside the ranks. These get rounded up and face consequences ranging from mild (like public disgrace and shaming), to serious (like imprisonment), to terrible (like execution). It doesn’t even matter if they did anything, just that they can be blamed for failure.
You don’t even need an actual dictatorship or totalitarian regime, either. McCarthy did plenty in the free and democratic 1950s USA.
Matt, I agree with everything you said (although you might want to check what you have inside and outside of quotes there), but want to reinforce a couple of things. First, this is yet another case of a self identified conservative who cannot see the harm in something until it happens to them. I may be wrong, but I would be surprised if she was on record as saying that while she abhors Trump mocking the physically and mentally disabled, the contempt for differentness that he displays on a daily basis, she feels compelled to vote for him because of this or that reason.
And the other thing: it’s not a “joke”. The modern Republican Party is led by the kids who used to beat up the sissies and the queers, the mentally and physically challenged, the too slow or too fast to develop, and, well, everyone they felt safe punching down on, usually with the tacit approval of the sports coaches and weak administrators. If by some chance they were called out on it, the response would always be a surly and defensive, “It was just a joke!” With a side glance to let the victims there was plenty more to come.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-president-trumps-plan-to-dismantle-the-deep-state-and-return-power-to-the-american-people
@Doc Joyner, you think they’re not going to reach down to you, me, and all the rest of us who serve/have served and receive a federal pension? Yeah, we’ll be on one of those rungs soon enough.
@Kathy:
Purges happen, usually, to distract. The regime cannot be blamed if there were saboteurs, obviously.
Matt, you have messed up the blockquote on the paragraph starting:
I was thinking it was you until the language was clearly not yours, and then there was a link to the source.
Also, what an amazingly stupid question she was asked. Why can 1/5th of Americans not find the United States on a map? Because they’re a bunch of dumbasses, that’s why. But she wasn’t in a setting where she could say that. I give her full credit for saying anything beyond “wtf?”
@de stijl:
And if you ask why the regime cannot catch traitors and saboteurs before they engage in malfeasance, you will make a long acquaintance with a prison cell, or a short one with a firing squad.
The question in these beauty contests, as I understand them, are meant to test the poise of the contestant, and her ability to give an anodyne answer to a perhaps very charged question. To pour oil on troubled waters, as it were. The content of the answer doesn’t matter all that much, just her fluency and poise.
What strikes me now is how close that is to a basic political/media skill: the ability to deflect and redirect a question.
She did not do all that well, however.
@Gustopher: & @MarkedMan:
Thanks for pointing it the quote issue
To be very clear, if Trump is elected Project 2025 goals will be pursued. Federal bureaucracies will be politicized to favor one ruler, one party.
Do these people not realize that their person might not get re-elected? That the others might take advantage of those new rules if they have power? Hopefully, they wouldn’t, but still, shouldn’t you think about how the new rules and regulations you want to enforce could be used against you in the future?
Do you expect a future free from people who could vote you out of office?
People who propose such ideas scare me the fuck out of me because they will try to eliminate any possible means of voting against them by any means possible.
They are only working at the margins now. It could get way nastier.
They want a forever regime.
How / why is Louis DeJoy still Postmaster General?
Is this a constitutional oversight thing? I’ll fuck up for n years and not be held accountable? How has he not been fired?
@de stijl: The PMG can only be terminated by the Board of Governors, of which the PMG is a member. Draw your own conclusions about why he hasn’t been fired.
I’d be mildly interested to know: do we know why she turned off her social media? I didn’t know who she was before this post, and it seems like she had a career and stuff before today, judging by Google’s results summaries, but everything I click through to is either deleted or private.
I can guess, of course, but I’m more interested in confirmation.
@David S.: The Leopard’s ate her face. Of course she shut her social media down.
@Modulo Myself:
Eleven guys. How is that a joke?
Ftfy