JD Vance, Just Another Bully Who Thinks He’s A Wisecracking Maverick
The latest entry from The Couch Fucker Chronicles
JD Vance thinks he’s funny. That was his defense last week when CNN’s John Berman confronted him about sharing a 2007 video clip of Miss South Carolina Teen USA Caitlin Upton bombing an answer to a question about why Americans couldn’t find their own country on a map. He wrote: “BREAKING: I have gotten ahold of the full Kamala Harris CNN interview.”
Berman informed Vance that when Upton’s gaffe went viral, the then 17-year-old was so humiliated that she considered committing suicide. Not a trace of remorse was visible in Vance’s dead eyes. Instead, he said he “hopes she’s doing well” but that he won’t “apologize for posting a joke.”
“Look, I’ve said a lot of things on camera; I’ve said a lot of stupid things on camera,” Vance said. “Sometimes when you’re in the public eye, you make mistakes. And again, I think the best way to deal with it is to laugh at ourselves, laugh at this stuff and try to have some fun in politics.”
But he wasn’t laughing at himself. His “joke” was at someone else’s expense. They usually cover this in the “How Not To Be A Sociopath” section of grade school. MAGA collectively freaked out when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made light of his own limited spice palate and preference for “white guy tacos.” These aren’t people who can laugh at themselves. They can only demean and disparage others.
Hating women as a political platform
JD Vance has an obvious issue with women. He thinks “childless cat ladies” run the world when their rightful place is subordinate to men. His raving misogyny isn’t new. He’s clearly modeled himself after Donald Trump, who he once compared to Hitler but presumably in the “ran a country for a while” sense. Trump disrupted the political scene in 2015 with his total disregard for the feelings of others. During the first GOP primary debate, Megyn Kelly told Trump, “You’ve called women you don’t like, fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. … It was well beyond Rosie O’Donnell. Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?”
Trump shrugged off the question, “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time, either.”
He did almost apologize, though, which is one up on Vance: “Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry.” Of course, he tossed in a threat: “I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be based on the way you have treated me.”
Trump would later say that Kelly had it out for him, which he could tell because, as he told CNN’s Don Lemon, “There was blood coming out of her eyes … Blood coming out of her wherever.”
This sparked backlash from many conservative pundits who’d later submit fully to Trump — including Megyn Kelly herself. They apparently didn’t have time for “political correctness” either. It was like the early episodes of M*A*S*H when Major Margaret Houlihan (Loretta Swit) would get fed up with Hawkeye and Trapper’s unprofessionalism and make her case to the big brass, but the visiting general is always so blown away by the doctors’ surgical skill that he lets “boys be boys.” All that matters is getting the job done, and if this means a surgical hospital operates according to the rules of behavior associated with a frat house, so be it. This sentiment fed a lot of the later anti-PC backlash, from politics to the arts. (The California Supreme Court threw out a sexual harassment suit against the producers of Friends on the grounds that misogynistic remarks from the show’s writers were simply part of the “creative workplace.”) Of course, Trump was never any good at his job. He was just a jerk.
Major Houlihan would later “mellow out” and become “one of the guys.” That was considered character growth, and in exchange, Hawkeye (Alan Alda) would stop calling her “Hot Lips,” though it’s clear that this is entirely his choice because she’s now his buddy. It’s not the basic level of respect she’s owed in the workplace. This is similar to how Trump treats women who dare defy him. Kelly is now one of the MAGA gang, and he’s stopped calling Nikki Haley “birdbrain.” All she had to do was surrender her dignity to him.
Major Houlihan (Sally Kellerman) endures a worse fate in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H movie. She’s too rules-orientated for Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) and the guys, so they orchestrate a campaign of sexual terror against her. Her consensual sexual encounter with Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) is non-consensually broadcast to the entire camp. Afterward, the male doctors take obvious pleasure in her rattled state: Hawkeye and Trapper (Elliot Gould), putting on effeminate voices, wonder aloud, “Oh, what’s the matter with her today! It must be one of those ladies’ things. I think she’s gonna have a nervous breakdown.”
Our “heroes” push for an actual breakdown later when they pull down the tent where Major Houlihan’s showering, exposing her naked body to the entire camp. The major demands that Col. Blake finally discipline the men or she’ll resign her commission. What she says probably resonates with many women today: “It’s your fault because you don’t do anything to discourage them! … It started with their calling me Hot Lips and your letting them get away with it. You let them get away with everything!”
However, Blake — who’s in bed with a nurse — doesn’t care that Major Houlihan was just publicly assaulted. He angrily replies, “Goddamnit, Hot Lips, resign your goddamn commission.” Then he returns to his drink and inappropriate workplace sex.
Major Houlihan didn’t actually murder anyone. She’s just serious about her job and sexually unavailable to the male leads. It was often suggested that the TV series’s Major Houlihan had slept her way into her position, a sexist smear that’s often flung at Vice President Kamala Harris.
JD Vance is a less appealing Frank Burns
Trump’s 2016 campaign harnessed and exploited the misogyny that had cast Hillary Clinton in the mold of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. (Ratched is presented as a heartless tyrant, while the film’s supposed hero is a child rapist.)
Nurse Ratched in particular is a clear response to the women’s movement. Far too many men (and women) receive a misogynistic thrill from seeing powerful women taken down a peg. However, Vance comes across more like the M*A*S*H TV show’s Frank Burns (Larry Linville) or even Jason Alexander’s creepy character in Pretty Woman. He’s a moral scold and a hypocrite.
Sharing that 2007 Miss Teen USA video was a cheap shot but also bad politics: Caitlin Upton is a Trump supporter, but now she’s publicly slammed Vance as a bully. She posted this statement on social media before apparently closing her account: “It’s a shame that 17 years later this is still being brought up. There’s not too much else to say about it at this point. Regardless of political beliefs, one thing I do know is that social media and online bullying needs to stop.”
In Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, idealized Republican Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) publicly humiliates a young blonde woman who naively asks him why America is the greatest nation in the world. He’s condescending and verbally abusive, dismissively calling her “sorority girl.” This clip goes viral but the audience isn’t intended to wonder how that impacts her. Instead, the narrative focuses on the fallout for Will, which is at most a minor inconvenience. (His ex is put in charge of his show in classic screwball comedy style.)
Later, when he meets the young woman again, he still resents her for the consequences from his own churlish actions. “You ruined my life,” he tells her because somehow she’s responsible for everything bad that’s happened to him.
JD Vance thinks he’s funny, but he confuses humor with cruelty. He’s just as much a bully as Trump, but he’s not even that good at it. You’d almost feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a couch fucker.
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It’s amazing how sexism was so baked into the culture I couldn’t even recognize it. I always thought M*A*S*H was hilarious but as it turns out that humor was 99% at the altar of sexism.
Thank you, Stephen. The misogyny shown in MASH the movie and TV series, in Cuckoo’s Nest, and other productions from that era always seemed obvious and repugnant to me. Yet even today, some supposedly lefty blogs share and celebrate them anyway. You’ve nailed it beautifully.