WE'RE DUKAKISING J.D. VANCE, AND I DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THAT

None of you agreed with me when I said this in the comments to an earlier post, but I'll say it again: I don't like the J.D. Vance couch meme.

I don't like it for a lot of reasons: First, it's disinformation. Vance did not write in Hillbilly Elegy that he once masturbated as a teenager by inserting his penis into a latex glove and placing the glove between two couch cushions. I want Democrats to be better than Republicans about respecting the truth and not smearing opponents with lies. I remember GOP lies during presidential campaigns: Republicans told us that a young Kitty Dukakis burned an American flag, that Bill Clinton was a youthful Russian spy, that John Kerry served dishonorably in Vietnam. I understand that I'm supposed to see this as payback, and not as Democrats saying that we're at war, so a respect for truth is something we might need to sacrifice.

I also don't like the couch meme because if he did this as an adolescent, so what? Teenagers masturbate, and some get creative when they're doing it. Who knows how your favorite politician or athlete or pop star jacked off (or jilled off) at the age of fifteen?

This meme worked, but for a reason that makes me uncomfortable: because Vance is weird and spectrum-y and awkward as a public figure. Part of me is thrilled to see Democrats taking advantage of a Republican's awkwardness and part of me is uncomfortable: Republicans said Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and Mike Dukakis were weird and spectrum-y and awkward, and that was a big reason why all four lost their elections. Are we now agreeing that those were valid lines of attack?

"Weird" is the word Democrats are using to attack Republicans this year.

Donald Trump is weird.
JD Vance is very weird.
Vivek Ramaswamy is really weird.
Elon Musk is really really weird.
Lindsey Graham is weird af.
Tim Scott is so so so weird.
Mike Johnson is incredibly weird.
Ted Cruz is insufferably weird.

Republicans are fucking weird.

Vote Blue.

— The USA Singers (@TheUSASingers) July 29, 2024

I like this line of attack when it's connected to weird ideas and weird policies. Denouncing adults without children as "childless cat ladies" and proposing that parents get extra votes? Preventing interstate travel by women seeking abortions? Wanting to replace American democracy with brutal tech-enabled micro-monarchies, as recommended by Vance's friend Curtis Yarvin, aka Mencius Moldbug? Those are weird ideas. "Weird" is a good word to use in reference to those proposals.

But it seems to me that Vance is being attacked as weird merely because he's a spectrum-y guy who has ideas, which is exactly what happened to Dukakis, Gore, and other Democrats. I don't like that. The attacks on those Democrats always felt to me like a respectable adult version of high school bullying, and this has some of the same qualities.

If Kamala Harris picks Minnesota governor Tim Walz as his running mate, we'll see, at least at the vice presidential level, a reversal of the pattern we had when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush led the GOP: Democrats will be the party in which a gregarious man says his ideas are simple common sense, while Republican ideas are peculiar notions cooked up by eggheads who spend way too much time in their rooms alone.

Gov. Walz on trail stumping for Harris. Posting a few of his remarks that stuck out to me.

"These guys are just weird," he said before calling Trump/Vance "a threat to democracy" who will put people in danger. He said Trump is going to have his "ass handed to him" in Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/BcHYSFKFxX

— Eva McKend (@evamckend) July 28, 2024

"Climate change must be a hoax because Al Gore is a weirdo" is a statement millions of Americans believe. Maybe it's good that we're attacking Republicans the same way, but I wonder.

I'm also concerned that it will be hard to use "weird" in reference to both J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. Trump's public affect is the exact opposite of Vance's sullen-nerd persona. Vance seems as if he spends hours seeking pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-scientific justifications for his own prejudices and resentments. But Trump just blurts out whatever he thinks after two minutes of watching Fox News. He's gregarious where Vance is mumbly. Intellectually, I see how they both fall into the category of "weird," but viscerally they seem to belong to very different high school cafeteria tables. I'll accept the argument that we're in a battle for America and therefore we can't forsake any weapon, but I wonder if you can even get swing voters to see both Trump and Vance as "weird." Can this even work against the guy at the top of the ticket? It's clear we're about to find out.

ADDING: I think Democrats should fight. As I said in the comments a couple of days ago, I think Democrats should fight much harder than the milquetoast generation that ran the party until a couple of weeks ago ever wanted to fight. I'm just questioning whether this is the best way to fight. And until Harris is five or more points in the lead in all the polls, I think the jury will still be out on whether this aspect of the new Democratic combativeness is working.