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A little over two weeks ago, a user on Twitter posted a joke claiming, with a knowing wink, that J.D. Vance, the junior senator from Ohio and Trump’s running mate, had been quite intimate with an alluring chesterfield. They have since locked their account, but here’s the original tweet:
To be clear: there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that Mr. Vance engaged in copulation with a couch. You can confidently state to the folks in your life that this never happened.
But the joke took on a life of its own. For two weeks, the internet has been awash in puns, memes, and coy references to Mr. Vance’s (falsely alleged) furnish-curious orientation.
It hit a fever pitch on Tuesday at a campaign rally in Philadelphia when Gov. Tim Walz, running mate of Vice President Harris, included this reference in his speech:
“I can't wait to debate the guy—that is, if he's willing to get off the couch and show up.”
As the crowd roared in response, Mr. Walz followed up with: “See what I did there?”
I was in that audience. It was a hell of a line. Many of you were probably watching on television and laughing with approval, and I gotta say: it landed even better in-person.
Of course, not everyone agrees, particularly more than a few journalists and pundits who decried it as unnecessary and tantamount to disinformation.
Yesterday, CNN’s Jake Tapper characterized it as a “gross smear” while Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle opined on Twitter: “But the more people argue this is all in good fun, the more I want to write in a name rather than voting for either of the nasty tickets.”
The Intelligencer’s Benjamin Hart weighed in, too: “It does not follow that Trump accusing Democrats of killing babies and Kamala Harris of being a communist monster means that Democrats are allowed to lower their standards. That’s not how standards work.”
Ah, yes, standards — the expected consistency of holding a moral line, regardless of whom crosses it.
Of course, it’s been difficult not to notice that Mr. Tapper, Ms. McArdle, Mr. Hart, and every other finger-wagging, scandalized pundit didn’t have anything to say when, just last week, Mr. Vance decided to use his global platform as the Republican vice presidential nominee to falsely and cruelly claim that Olympic woman boxer Imane Khelif is actually a man.
Mr. Vance posted on Twitter: “This is where Kamala Harris’s ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match. This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it.”
He was quote-tweeting far-right commentator Charlie Kirk, who had written: “The Olympics just allowed a biological man, Imane Khelif, to pummel Italian Olympian Angela Carini. Her life’s work was stolen by a man who beats up women for sport. Will someone have to die before people wake up?! This entire ideology is pure evil.”
I wrote last week about the vile disinformation spread about Ms. Khelif by the likes of Mr. Vance, Trump, J.K. Rowling, and many others who slandered her online, along with all the reasons why this horrid accusation is patently false.
(Also: to be abundantly clear, there are no trans women competing in the Olympics.)
But here’s the most important thing to note here: Ms. Khelif is from Algeria, where being transgender is not only considered borderline criminal but trans people are particularly vulnerable to lethal violence, to say nothing of discrimination generally.
Mr. Vance encouraged a global pile-on against Ms. Khelif, quite literally putting her life in danger, all for a cheap political hit directed at Vice President Harris.
Mr. Tapper said nothing on the matter. Nor did Ms. McArdle. Nor did Mr. Hart.
Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has any other reporter or pundit who pontificated on Democrats making light of Mr. Vance allegedly having a tryst with an ex-lover from Rent-A-Center.
In the case of Mr. Vance, there is no victim of disinformation. The greatest cause for trauma and injury can only be claimed by a hypothetical, seductive settee.
But with the dangerous slander directed at Ms. Khelif by Mr. Vance, there’s a woman who has struggled all her life in pursuit of her Olympics dream, only to watch as people like the Republican vice presidential nominee put her and her family through an extraordinary hell for the past two weeks.
I don’t expect journalists and pundits to comment on every single issue, particularly every little comment from every bit player in the world of politics. That’s completely unreasonable.
But Mr. Vance is not a bit player. He’s on the GOP’s presidential ticket. He’s asking voters to consider him for the position of the second most powerful person in the world, and every single reporter and pundit in this country would understandably leap at the opportunity to book an exclusive interview with him.
The silence of people like Mr. Tapper and Ms. McArdle and Mr. Hart—knowing full well that what he was claiming is false and dangerous—speaks to an increasingly destabilizing double standard in American media. For some, journalistic integrity seems to be highly contingent on the degree to which their access is threatened.
If they had criticized Mr. Vance and set the record straight regarding Ms. Khelif, most likely jeopardizing their access with Republican elected officials, it might mean one less big scoop, one less primetime interview, one less panel invite or speaking gig or book deal.
And thus, it is much easier to publicly opine on the moral imperatives of Mr. Walz, the vice presidential candidate for the political party that is not going to restrict access or otherwise punish journalists and pundits who ask a tough question or make a critical observation.
It’s easy to “take a stand” when you know there will be no consequences for doing so.
I don’t care what Mr. Vance does or does not do with his couch or end table or swinging crystal chandelier. It’s none of my business. Granted, I would like a heads up, so as to avoid sitting there, but otherwise, it really has nothing to do with the rest of us.
I do care quite a lot about the vulnerable people that Mr. Vance and his ilk continue to put in danger through dehumanizing and horrific rhetoric, gleefully attacking women generally and LGBTQ people, in particular, with scant accountability from much of political media.
I would like to believe that Mr. Tapper and Ms. McArdle and Mr. Hart also value consistency in this regard, but the last two weeks have demonstrated otherwise.
This evening, Ms. Khelif won the final of the women’s boxing welterweight division in Paris, finally realizing, against tall odds, her lifelong dream of being an Olympic Champion. Immediately following the victory, she was warmly embraced by her opponent, China’s Yang Liu, the 2023 IBA World Champion.
The two smiled and took selfies at the awards ceremony, a joyous moment after two weeks of other women boxers rallying around Ms. Khelif in support against the violent disinformation spread by Mr. Vance and others.
I hope Mr. Tapper, Ms. McArdle, and Mr. Hart were watching.
Pundits, take a seat. Just not there.
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