The GOP needs to convince voters that Donald Trump and JD Vance are regular guys, and, manifestly, they are not.

It would be strange for Democrats to attack the Republican presidential ticket for being “weird” if it weren’t true. But those men are getting weirder by the day.

Former president Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), is off to a wobbly start. A Harris 2024 campaign email sent on Friday was headlined, “JD Vance Is a Creep (Who Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide).” The statement continued, “JD Vance is weird. Voters know it – Vance is the most unpopular VP pick in decades.”

It was bad enough when footage resurfaced of a 2021 interview in which Vance called Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” Things got worse last week when Vance offered a non-apology, blaming “people” for “focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said.”

Uh, okay, but that doesn’t help at all. The substance — which Vance said he stands by — is asserting that adults without children do not deserve an equal say  in the nation’s affairs. Another unearthed clip of Vance showed him arguing that parents, when they vote, should be able to cast an extra ballot for each child in their family who is under voting age. He didn’t take that back, either, going only so far as to claim it was a “thought experiment” and not a firm policy position.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    It’s quite easy to explain. Republicans have retreated into their own media bubble, where they can mold their own reality based on “alternative facts”. Their end goal is to project their reality onto the world and give it substance. In this bubble world, Donald Trump is the Alpha Male, and JD Vance is the everyman who speaks for the people.

    Outside this bubble, though, Trump is a narcissist and criminal, and JD Vance is severely out of touch. The only way to penetrate this bubble is to shove the truth through it until it pops. Sometimes, calling things as they are doesn’t get through the bubble, because it immediately puts people on the defensive about their choices. But call them weird? They might agree something a little weird is going on, and that might be just the opening to stick the truth in there.

    • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      I think this is why the Republicans seem weirdly upset by this line of attack. Call them fascists, they don’t bat an eye. It’s too complicated for their base to comprehend anyway, even if the would have had a problem with it. But call them out for being weird, and suddenly their base might stop for a moment and actually think: “Yeah, writing about fucking a sofa in your memoirs is a bit odd, isn’t it?”