Tim Walz Shouldn’t Get a Pass for Pushing the Weird JD Vance-Couch Sex Conspiracy Theory

Isaac SchorrAug 7th, 2024, 10:52 am
 
Tim Walz couch joke

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Democrats and their reliable allies in the press tell us that vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is “folksy” and down-to-earth — the very embodiment of “Minnesota Nice.”

But that’s not how he came across while pushing the gross conspiracy theory that his Republican counterpart, Senator JD Vance (R-OH), wrote about having sex with a couch in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

A few weeks ago, a random X user tweeted that Vance “might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to f****** an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions” while supposedly citing pages from the book. It was a crude, unclever joke — but one that online progressives nevertheless clung to.

Google searches for “JD Vance couch” skyrocketed, the Associated Press briefly published a fact check of the accusation, and on Tuesday, Walz used his introduction to the nation to promote it.

“I gotta tell ya, I can’t wait to debate the guy [Vance]. That is if he’s willing to get off the couch and show up,” said Walz. “You see what I did there.”

The crowd roared with approval.

I’m not here to clutch any pearls on behalf of Vance, who is all-too-happy to advance falsehoods and launch cruel attacks on his opponents. But pretend for a moment that you don’t know the names or partisan affiliations of any of the involved parties here: What does it say about our politics that a major party nominee for vice president is intentionally giving life to such a baseless and disgusting rumor? What does it say about that nominee?

We either have standards or we don’t. Every time Trump speaks, every network trots out their resident fact checker to examine every word he utters from every possible angle. When he or any other Republican says something grotesque, it’s the subject of several news cycles.

Yet when Walz gleefully repeated this strange smear during a nationally televised rally — which both he and Harris’s campaign account both boosted later — the media dutifully parroted him without bothering to note that it was a smear.

And for those who might submit that it’s so preposterous that everyone is obviously taking it as a joke, you underestimate the gullibility of BlueAnon:

Walz shouldn’t get a pass for using his platform to launder such a falsehood, no matter how much most of the media detests Vance, or has decided that he “deserves” it. And perhaps Americans should reconsider whether Walz is the man that his hagiographers say he is.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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