Spurning the rich subtleties of the English language, JD Vance has a penchant for words that he perhaps thinks display manly vigor, and express a populist’s rejection of refinement. In a recent social media post, he called someone whose posts annoyed him a “dipshit.” He recently told an interviewer that anyone who criticizes his wife can “eat shit.”
Now, Vance might reasonably believe that many Americans enjoy potty-mouthed high officials. The “Access Hollywood” tape became public 32 days before the 2016 election in which the star of the tape, who mused about grabbing women’s genitals, was elected president. At a minimum, it would be reasonable for Vance to suppose that, after five years of a president who talks about “shithole countries,” Americans are inured to such pungent language.
And that people who look down their upturned noses at it are effete. (An earlier vice president, Spiro Agnew, warned against America’s “effete corps of impudent snobs.”) Vance might think that Americans who wince when he swears simply do not appreciate the earthiness of people who express themselves with a vividness not watered down by good taste. Besides, the man currently occupying Abraham Lincoln’s chair got there using the word “shit” dozens of times in speeches.
Although Lincoln’s large stock of humorous stories included ribald ones, you can scour his written and spoken record without finding any violation of his “time, place, and manner” standards of propriety. But, then, as has been said, standards are always out of date, which is why we call them standards.
Last year, a group chat of high-spirited Republicans, most in their middle to late 20s, two of them in their 30s, were recorded saying colorful things. (“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic”; “Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber”; “watermelon people”; “expecting the Jew to be honest”; “I love Hitler”). Vance’s avuncular reaction (he is 41) was that “kids” do the darndest things: “Kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do.” The kid Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
Vance seems to be of the George and Ira Gershwin school of language: You say eether and I say eyether,/ You say neether and I say nyther,/ Eether, eyether, neether, nyther,/ Let’s call the whole thing off. The Gershwins thought it disproportionate for lovers to get in spats because “you like this and the other/ While I go for this and that.”
Vance seems to think it comparably niggling to allow what he evidently considers comparably minor differences to interfere with friendships and political alliances. “Do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson?,” said Vance in an interview last month. “Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends.”
Last year, Carlson hosted a long, friendly podcast interview with the antisemitic, Hitler and Stalin admirer Nick Fuentes. (Trump had Fuentes to dinner at Mar-a-Lago.) In 2024, Carlson had an amicable discussion with an author he called “the best and most honest popular historian working in the United States today.” The author thinks Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II, for which Adolf Hitler is unfairly blamed.
Vance laconically says his “disagreements” with Carlson — who “has a place in the conservative movement” — are akin to disagreements he has with other friends. Vanilla, vanella, oysters, ersters, what’s the big deal?
When, during the 2024 campaign, rumors about Haitians eating the pets of Springfield, Ohio, were disseminated, with Vance’s help, this was his response when confronted with the fact that no facts supported the rumors: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” He has a duty to lie because the media are indolent.
Vance has a knack for late — very late — adolescent naughtiness. It is not easy being transgressive in an era when there are few norms remaining to transgress. Undaunted, he tries. Of Europe’s largest war since World War II: “I don’t care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” Very edgy.
Performative politics is almost the only politics on offer nowadays. But must it be a coarseness and flippancy competition?
Let it be said on Vance’s behalf that he refuses to present himself as other than what he is. But before celebrating him for his authenticity, attention should be paid to what he authentically is.
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