E.J. Dickson, senior writer at the Cut covering culture. Oct. 4, 2024

GOP Senate Candidate JD Vance Holds Election Night Event In Cincinnati

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Having attempted to convince us that J.D. Vance is a normal human being who can order doughnuts and use upholstery for its intended purpose, the right has moved on to another challenge: making people think JD Vance is hot.

On Thursday, the right-wing influencer Scarlett Johnson posted a totally real-sounding story on X about her daughter and her friends gushing over Vance during a sleepover, swooning over his eyes and his intelligence and wishing “more boys were like him.” The Daily Caller tried to frame Vance as a gay icon, writing that he came out of the vice-presidential debate “looking snatched” and that gay men “couldn’t help but fall in love” with him. The conservative women’s publication Evie Magazine even published an article titled “What Do JD Vance’s Blue Eyes and Sydney Sweeney’s Curves Have in Common? America Misses Classic Beauty and Wants It Back.” The piece praised Vance’s “piercing gaze” and “perfect posture,” inexplicably comparing the way female viewers received him after the debate to how men have embraced Sydney Sweeney’s “feminine charms.” This was followed by a screengrab of the debate featuring his lemur-esque peepers.

This is not the first time conservatives have attempted to reverse-engineer a vice-presidential candidate’s fuckability. (See: the 2012 Time magazine photoshoot featuring then-candidate Paul Ryan pumping iron in a backward hat). But it might be the most far-fetched.

The strategy here seems to be simple: After Vance was attacked by the mainstream press for being awkward and bizarre, right-wing media seems intent on rebranding him as awkward and bizarre, but in, like, a sexy, fun, Robert-Pattinson-during–The Batman–press-tour way. Unfortunately, while Vance may have succeeded at not openly advocating for the forced impregnation of college-educated single women at the debate, he’s not going to be successful in this regard. The reason why people think Vance is weird and creepy is because he has weird and creepy ideas. We have to speak truth to power: J.D. Vance is not hot, and no amount of coordinated information warfare is going to persuade the American public otherwise. Even if he is six-foot-two.

Stay in touch.

Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5607566&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310443",#48170554)