Here’s the Cincinnati Enquirer’s fact check on JD. No, he didn’t say he fucked a couch in Hillbilly Elegy. Yes, he posted about dolphin porn with a twitter post showing he searched for “dolphin” and “women”. Yeah, he had some Trump critics on his Venmo, but that could be because he told Venmo to import his contacts.
Then we get to the eyeliner. Here’s a TikTok user who thinks he wears it. Pretty convincing. The Enquirer isn’t sure about this one.
Just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wearing eyeliner, if you’re a man, as long as you own it. I think we need to spend a lot more time on this important issue, so here’s a thread to discuss it.
Also, if you think I’m being mean to JD, then you can read this story about how he accused Walz of “stolen valor” because Walz chose to retire after 24 years in the National Guard to run for office, before Walz’ unit was deployed to Iraq. JD was a press officer for the Marines, served for 4 years and, he admits, saw no real fighting.
TaMara
I stomped all over you…many apologies. Also, VoteVets has this handy chart that relates to your post.
Shalimar
There is nothing wrong with being a press officer. My step-dad was a press officer in the Air Force Reserves and was a lt. colonel when he retired, after beginning his career working in military radio deployed during the Korean War.
Being a press officer does not give you the right to denigrate artillerymen with 5 times your service.
...now I try to be amused
Making accusations that don’t reflect well on oneself is just part of a day’s work as a Trump dignity wraith.
KatKapCC
The problem with “as long as you own it” is that people think if he denies it, then it’s fair game, and there is simply no way to go after a man for possibly wearing makeup without sounding like homophobic/transphobic/masculinity-policing schmucks. I know a lot of guys who wear or have worn various bits of makeup for various reasons — some gays, some goths, some just because they thought painting their nails was fun, etc. If you believe the first part of your quote here, then the second part should have nothing to do with it. To me, the eyeliner jokes feel a lot like the “Miss Lindsey Graham” shit, where supposedly woke-ass libs suddenly think HAR HAR UR GAY is a sick burn. The couch thing to me is a joke based on him being a loser incel, so that’s fine. Jokes about men wearing makeup are impossible to disentangle from homophobia and transphobia.
K-Mo
Is this why he’s always hissing about lovecats?
Sister Golden Bear
@KatKapCC:
Saying it again for the folks in the back.
It would be another thing if attacking Vance for being hypocritical about gender policing others, and being transphobic AF, while being gender non-conforming himself. But that’s not what happening.
schrodingers_cat
Yup its the Bronzer-Eyeliner ticket
Its a liquid liner too. That gives you a thin sharp line. Like the one JD has in his interviews. He is not born with it, its Maybelline.
Pink Tie
@Sister Golden Bear: I agree for the most part, but I do think that his homophobic and transphobic positions kind of make him fair game. I’ve definitely known men who like cosmetics and manicures, and it would never occur to me to ridicule them just for that reason. JD made his pull-out couch and now he has to lie in it.
ETA I hate the Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott jokes too… they both seem like sad closet cases and their politics are enough reason to pile on. But people who are trashy hypocrites get what they get.
matt
Vance says that Walz is a pervert and you’re worried dissing Vance for wearing eyeliner while talking like that is queer shaming?
schrodingers_cat
@Sister Golden Bear: @KatKapCC: I have no problem with anyone wearing makeup, its the hypocrisy. Makeup for me but rigid gender roles for thee.
JCNZ
One of the things I liked about Al Gore was that he never pretended his time in Vietnam was anything but Public Affairs.
This Vance guy is the very epitome of the Rear-Echelon Mother-Fucker.
JCNZ
One of the things I always liked about Al Gore was that he never pretended his time in Vietnam was anything but Public Affairs.
This Vance guy is the very epitome of the Rear-Echelon Mother-Fucker.
Kent
Any enlisted soldier who isn’t a MAGA Trump cultist will tell you that once you’ve done your 20 years then you’ve more than done your duty and are free to walk away at any time. Walz put in 24 years before resigning from the Guard to run for Congress.
K-Mo
@JCNZ: He’s also not a hillbilly and he hates Trump. Just a counterfeit.
Baud
@Kent:
I hope they do say it then.
Sister Golden Bear
@Pink Tie: and others:
The thing is… it’s not being tied to his homophobia and transphobia or his hypocrisy. As KatKapCC said, it’s been the equivalent of “the “Miss Lindsey Graham” shit, where supposedly woke-ass libs suddenly think HAR HAR UR GAY is a sick burn.” That’s what I have a problem with.
Can just say that as a queer trans woman, I’m in a better position to judge this than most of y’all. When the folks who’s been targets of a slur are telling you something is problematic, maybe give us the benefit of the doubt.
@matt:
<resets sign to “0 days since cis-het nonsense”>
hueyplong
@JCNZ: I read that and I hear Gilbert & Sullivan:
He is the very model of a rear echelon mother fucker.
KatKapCC
@Pink Tie: No one is “fair game” for bigotry. Because you are not making Vance the joke, you’re making potential queerness the joke. And you are telling other queer and/or trans and/or gender-nonconforming folks that they are also jokes. And no, you do not get to say “No I’m not, it’s okay for them!!” because again, you are making queerness the joke.
If Eric Swalwell occasionally used eyeliner and the right made a thing out of it, would you join their chorus? I’d imagine not. It does not matter how atrocious someone’s politics are, that doesn’t somehow cancel out the atrociousness of bigotry. You wouldn’t call Tim Scott the n-word, I hope. You wouldn’t deadname or misgender Caitlyn Jenner, I hope. You wouldn’t call Greg Abbott a cripple, I hope. Bigotry doesn’t get magically absolved because the target is a bad person.
Pink Tie
@Sister Golden Bear: beg to differ, and you are assuming I can’t relate to queer slurs or any other kinds of sex- or gender-related slurs. In my view, the mockery of JD Vance for wearing makeup when he is vying for chief of the gender police is totally warranted. Anyone can wear as much makeup as they want, but this is a person who publicly advocates against trans people and wants to roll back women’s basic civil rights. I don’t believe that making fun of him can do any more harm that what he is already trying to do. Fuck that guy.
KatKapCC
@matt: Tell me what is wrong with a man wearing eyeliner, WITHOUT mentioning anything to do with masculinity or gayness or a particular person’s politics or statements.
KatKapCC
@Pink Tie: So you think the way to highlight hypocrisy is to engage in homophobia?
Tim Scott is part of a racist party and supports a racist candidate. Are you going to call him the n-word?
Pink Tie
@KatKapCC: I personally am not making these jokes, all i’m saying is that it’s hard to object when the target is such a homophobic, transphobic bastard. I think the queer jokes are intended to hit him where it really hurts — and I think it’s safe to assume that people mocking him for the eyeliner are mostly pointing out how stupid and hypocritical he is. The jokes are also just about his vanity, for goodness sake. I don’t even wear eyeliner but this gross Ohio schlub wears enough for a hair metal band? Let’s read less into people’s intentions if it helps bring these assholes down.
JCNZ
@K-Mo: “Character is destiny” – the most chilling expression in the English language.
Darkrose
Is Vance a hypocrite for wearing eyeliner while setting himself up as the gender police? Yes. Are there other things that we can go after him for that don’t come close to making us sound like we’re buying into that sexist and homophobic framing? Also yes.
My wife and I say a lot of shit about Lindsey Graham that comes from a place of rage–but we don’t say it in mixed company because we don’t feel like explaining why two queer women can say it but straight people really shouldn’t. A lot of the insistence from liberals that it’s okay to shame Vance for wearing eyeliner sounds like “But rappers use the N-word, so why can’t I?”
Gretchen
That stolen valor thing is infuriating. The tone police are complaining about Walz’s couch joke, but apparently this and Trump’s constant claim that Democrats are in favor of murdering newborns is totally fine. You can’t fact-check your way past these people. Laughing at them gets them where it hurts.
“A despot doesn’t fear eloquent writers preaching freedom – he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.” E.B.White.
Msb
Disgusting – to use a Renaissance phrase, the trumpers return like dogs to their vomit. Trump is trying and failing at Birtherism 2.0 (ca. 2011) and Vance, perhaps prompted by Swift Boat LaCivita, is rerunning the even older Swift Boat technique (ca. 2004). Sleaze, but not even new sleaze. Old dogs, old tricks.
Gretchen
Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philly has a picture of a couch in front of their business and says “JD Vance, we’re ready for you”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Shalimar: Nothing gives anyone the right to denigrate artillerymen.
Omnes Omnibus
@K-Mo: Well played. Kudos.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Any enlisted soldier?
K-Mo
@KatKapCC:
Is this kind of thing in bounds?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-getting-ruthlessly-roasted-over-132022383.html
K-Mo
@KatKapCC: If Tim Scott went around saying black people are bad, would it be OK to point out that he is black?
hueyplong
@K-Mo: The Jan 24 pic is just shy of blackface.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pink Tie: This sounds a bit like the people who are against the death penalty except for such and such. They aren’t against the death penalty.
JCJ
Where does this make up tutorial fit? Is it out of bounds?
https://x.com/Dark_Garland/status/1816639433418113124
Ohio Mom
I purposely didn’t read that article when the Cincinnati Enquirer arrived on my driveway the other morning. I already don’t like or trust Vance much as possible.
Remember, he’s my junior Senator and as a result, I’ve had a front row seat to the JDVance show fof two years now. Ugh.
I keep hoping that after this national exposure and humiliation, he’ll crawl out of Ohio as soon as his Senate term is up and back to wherever he came from before he carpet-bagged his way here (Silicon Valley, I think).
Pink Tie
@Darkrose: I appreciate this take. Again, I don’t tell or really even laugh at these jokes, and I don’t agree that someone would equate this with abject racism. My feeling is that people mocking JD are switching his own homophobia and transphobia back in his direction, deservedly so. How does that feel, asshole? I also think that people making fun of him aren’t the same people who would shame their own kids or community members. I don’t have an idea for solutions to this, but I don’t like commenters suggesting I would dead-name trans people or use the n word. JD is reaping what he has sown.
Baud
@KatKapCC:
The shade doesn’t work with his complexion.
Trollhattan
@Shalimar:
Hunter S. Thompson wasn’t an officer but did enlist in the Air Force where, rejected after applying to become an aviator, he became a sports editor while serving in the Office of Information Services.
I’m certain as the day is long he never prevaricated on what led to his honorable discharge.
Sounds like a mutual separation.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
My sister was gay and I’ve known in my lifetime, many, many gay people. I knew a gay man on the ship I was stationed on while in the USN. Of course the USN “didn’t know” he was gay. The policy at the time was NO gays, but unless one got caught by the wrong person they didn’t know. I have zero idea what it is like today, other than it is, like life outside the military – different. Women serve on ships and in combat now. That is a radical change from 50+ years ago. And it was past due.
Sister Golden Bear
@schrodingers_cat: Lemme put it this way…
I see the attacks on Vance for wearing eyeliner — which I’m not to seeing tied to his hypocrisy — being a bit akin to white people using the coconut icon to support Harris, which you educated us about. While neither was intentionally misused, they’re both a bit problematic, and there’s plenty of other ways to attack Vance/support Harris.
There’s so many odious things we can attack Vance about that we don’t have to make fun of his eyeliner, unless it’s specifically tied to his hypocrisy. If it’s the latter, then by all means have at it.
@Darkrose:
Yep. There’s a big difference. Despite what some cis-het folks here seem to believe is their divine right to do.
Look all I’m saying it’s such an easy thing to attack Vance in ways that aren’t simply about “HUR HUR Vance wears eyeliner.” It might be a small thing, but why not make the lives of kids who are still getting bullied for being gender nonconforming a tiny bit less shitty.
As far Trump, that’s a different thing because his make-up is so clownishly overdone and so obviously tied to his vanity. Both the Yahoo article and the Dark_Garland video were about that.
Lyrebird
Thanks SGB and everyone here.
A good thing is that not only is Vance odious, not only do we now have that great Walz video going around talking about what REAL family values are, Vance keeps on bringing himself down further!
Sister Golden Bear
@Pink Tie: This is how you do it:
“This gross Ohio schlub wants to legislate trans/queer people out of existence for threatening gender conformity while simultaneously wearing enough eyeliner for a hair metal band.”
Or:
“Vance’s eyeliner would like a word with him about his attempts to stamp out queer/trans people.”
Or:
“Vance is wearing so much eyeliner that the drag queens he’s trying to make illegal are telling him to tone it down.”
Tom Levenson
@Sister Golden Bear: I love all of these, Katie!!!!
fancycwabs
So nobody’s gonna ask Vance about whether faking heel spurs to avoid the draft is honorable conduct?
Elly
My son is in the Army rn, and the implication that your service isn’t genuine if you haven’t seen combat chaps my ass. You give up a LOT when you’re in the military – we chat frequently over Discord, so I know as much about my dude’s day-to-day existence as he’s able to tell. I would never impugn Vance’s service, just because he was a press officer, because the military makes a lot of personal demands in addition to performing the duties associated with one’s military occupational specialty. So I’m happy to tell that couchf***er “thank you for your service,” as well as call out his hypocrisy (“I was lucky to escape any real fighting,” Vance wrote of his deployment).
Steve in the ATL
@Sister Golden Bear:
You may not be seeing that, but I’ll bet almost everyone else is. As noted by others supra, Graham and Scott and Vance are hypocrites and deserve mockery for their hypocrisy, and said mockery does not suggest that the mockers are anti-gay, anti-black, et al. These hypocrites can be mocked for lots of things other than this, but they absolutely should be for this as well.
UncleEbeneezer
I’m not gonna make jokes about Vance and eyeliner for all the valid reasons that several commenters have laid out. But I’m also not gonna spend my time defending him. There are endless examples of Misogyny and LGBTQ-phobia aimed at other people that I’d rather push back on. No person can ever fight back on all of them so we all have to pick and choose our battles so I’m not gonna feel bad about putting ones aimed at Vance at the absolute bottom of my list. This is my version of “going low” I guess.
I do think that clever ways of pointing out that his use of eyeliner would likely get him punished by his own bigoted policies is a much better approach and I encourage them. But obviously they have to be clearly mocking his hypocrisy not the act of gender-non-conformity.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: YES!! This is exactly what I was talking about. These are great :)
Hoodie
I’d say the eyeliner thing isn’t so much about Vance’s hypocrisy, but his phoniness. He’s a fake hillbilly (he didn’t grow up in Appalachia), a fake heartlander (he went to Yale and lived for years in Silicon Valley) and a fake traditional manly man who by God wouldn’t be wearing eyeliner. Trump is a phony for similar reasons, e.g., a supposed tough guy who’s actually a fucking coward.
K-Mo
@Sister Golden Bear: Thanks SGB- I appreciate your thoughts and your patience.
schrodingers_cat
@Sister Golden Bear: Okay lesson learned I won’t do it again.
Ruckus
@fancycwabs:
I am of the age when the draft was hot and heavy and we were at war. I took my draft physical at 18 and 2 months and saw that you had to be rather disabled to not pass it. They drew blood into a test tube then put it unmarked into a rack of several hundred available spaces. They had us pee in a bottle and then put that unmarked into a different rack. This entire day was a waste of our government’s money. Every draft physical was a waste of our government’s money because they wanted bodies and didn’t give 2 damns how they got them. Hell, not one damn. And I volunteered for service during that same war over 2 yrs later. I couldn’t stand coming home day after day, waiting for the letter to report. It may have never come, but I seriously doubt that. And yes they started the lottery. My draft lottery number was 15. And I was 1A. The odds of me going were likely better than 99%. I understood being a draft dodger. I was not planning to run, hide, whatever, but fully understood why someone might. Look up the statistics on military personal during The Vietnam war. Think about being 18-20 yrs old and if you wanted to go. We have people on here that went. I enlisted and was sent half way around the world from Vietnam but the only choice I made was to enlist and enlist in what branch. And I could have been sent to war. When you enlisted you got to choose which branch and that was it. Not what you did, where you were sent. And it was for twice the time in, 4 yrs not 2.
scav
Success! More arguments among ourselves about ourselves than anything else. Once again, congrats!!
sdhays
@Gretchen: I guaran-fucking-tee all of the fuckers who are fainting over the couch joke had no problem laughing about Al Gore “inventing the internet”, something he never said.
Pink Tie
@Omnes Omnibus: it doesn’t, though. nobody brought that up. It is so beyond frustrating that i can (correctly) observe that JD Vance is a vain, fake hypocrite and that includes him putting on makeup while going after drag queens and whomever else likes to engage in gender nonconforming stuff. I would argue that it makes us *less* liable to all that because we are defending the rights of others to do what they want! Nobody is suggesting that Vance is gay or trans, people are just accurately saying that he is a dick for shitting on LGBTQ people while obviously wearing makeup in public. He explicitly isn’t being shamed for being gay or trans; he is being shamed for his hypocrisy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pink Tie:
The last six words are completely unnecessary.
George
@scav:
Too true, too true. The monsters are due on Maple Street.
Hodge
Vance doesn’t see your clever strike against his hypocrisy; however, your queer allies do see the constant equating of non-masculine acts as objects of mockery.
And every time it’s brought up that these attacks on hypocrisy don’t feel good, we’re told we’re wrong. Now with bonus tone policing!
Pink Tie
@UncleEbeneezer: could not agree more. I’m a parent of teenagers and friends with their queer friends, in addition to my own group. Nobody is queer shaming JD Vance unless he is being shanked by Trump’s own team who are experiencing buyer’s remorse. See if you horseshoe lefties can countenance that possibility. The eyeliner thing is solely to expose him as a fake, vain phony AND they are also trying to find a way to push him off the ticket. True Democrats aren’t engaging in this – we are ignoring or laughing at these jerks, and getting D’s elected. Go touch grass.
206inKY
@KatKapCC: Agree wholeheartedly. There are so many things to mock Vance over, but eyeliner is not one of them.
Brent
@KatKapCC:
I will probably regret wading into this but the Tim Scott comparison piqued my interest.
I have probably called him worse but that is in the context of my black self talking to other black people about a person who engages in discussions about our community in ways that I, and probably most black people, find particularly harmful coming from a prominent black figure. This language I often use in this context is decidedly not of the style that I would use if I were discussing Scott with white people.
However, my thought is that your comparison doesn’t seem quite apt imo. To me, it would be more like if, having spent his career engaged in respectability politics as a way to denigrate black people and blame our culture for whatever problems we face, Scott then decided he needed to “dress down” and accent his appearance with a more hip hop based style to try to garner some “street cred.”
I would DEFINITELY make fun of him if he started dressing like Jay Z but at no point would I feel that I was denigrating hip hop artists by doing so. Although, to your point, I can see certainly how others might take what I am saying that way.
Thats sort of what the eyeliner discussion seems like to me. For the party obsessed with promoting retrograde ideas about masculinity, it seems more than a little ridiculous to have a prominent representative walk out there in seeming violation of its own nonsensical principles. Moreover, I feel like its important to point that sort of contradiction out.
But none of that is to suggest that I don’t see your point about the danger of this type of mockery.
UncleEbeneezer
What on Earth are you talking about? You must have me confused with some other commenter.
Pink Tie
@Brent: I like your perspective. I am white but engage daily with Black friends who more or less share your view. They can’t deal with Tim Scott, Robinson in NC, etc and we all have respect for each other even though we don’t all have shared experiences. Some of my Black male friends do not understand what it’s like to have been raped, and I am really glad they don’t. But as a rape survivor I can opine and people should at least try to listen. JD doesn’t respect what I think or anybody else who has been in an abusive relationship, marriage, or any other similar thing. As a queer person I also have some feelings on this too. I couldn’t care one bit about JD Vance’s little Sephora situation but I DO care about his racism and misogyny and what his views might do to all of us. And some of my close friends are trans as well. My straight kids might suffer under him if he becomes part of the administration. This isn’t academic to me at all. Every time i have to hear this stuff on the news I have to cry and fucking leave the room, so NO I am not tone policing.
Pink Tie
@UncleEbeneezer: not you, i meant others
Omnes Omnibus
@Pink Tie: Which one of us is a horseshoe leftist then?
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Eyeliner? Like the Taliban? Why is the GOP fan boys of the Taliban?
Pink Tie
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m talking about the people who can’t see the forest for the trees, ie the people who are so pissed about the perceived anti-LGBT attacks against Vance that they are missing the larger picture. I fundamentally don’t get why making fun of JD’s idiotic eye makeup is such a big deal. The people who object are already going to object! Anti trans people are the way they are, and we know that. If anything I would think drag queens would be criticizing his poor aesthetics.
Omnes Omnibus
If you can’t see the difference between that and making fun of him for being, in effect, girly, I can’t help you.
Generally, as a cis-het, middle aged, white dude, I try to stay as far from a lot of comments about race, gender, etc., as I can. I probably fuck it up once in a while because I was raised in the society I was raised in. When I do, I expect that people will correct me (hopefully gently, but what can you do). If they do, I try to do better.
Pink Tie
@Omnes Omnibus: but they AREN’T saying he is girly. they are saying he isn’t manly enough and isn’t good-looking. I’m not looking for your help, trust me, so no need to even offer. He is stuck in some type of limbo where he isn’t supposed to upstage Trump but can’t be too much of a Pence type. The beard and makeup are his attempt to look more like a casting-call guy and appear more macho. The makeup is him trying to look like a movie star rather than a queer thing.
BellyCat
@Sister Golden Bear: UPVOTED! Kick up while elevating down. 🏳️⚧️
BellyCat
@Brent: This is a truly thought-provoking comment. Thank you. Chewing on this…
Takeaway: In-group members are somewhat entitled to enjoy certain liberties that out-group members are best to steer clear of , as these expressions may offend the wrong group. Do I win a pony? :-)
Gvg
You know, the eyeliner doesn’t even make sense. When did he start wearing it and why? It is attracting attention and mockery and doesn’t seem to be helping anything. Why is he doing it? Are there old photos without so it’s sure that he is wearing makeup now?
K-Mo
@Brent: Thanks for your insights.
Starfish
@KatKapCC: As someone who lived through 80s glamrock and the whole goth thing, I want to remind you that men wore makeup, and it was hot in a way that was not necessarily gay.