From the answer: "This phenomenon has gained massive traction as of early March 2025.... The meme trend kicked off in earnest around October 2024, when an X user posted an edited image of Vance with slightly rounder cheeks, captioning it, 'For every 100 likes, I will turn J.D. Vance into a progressively apple-cheeked baby.'... What’s notable is the meme’s bipartisan appeal.... Vance himself has weighed in.... As of today, March 8, 2025, the JD Vance meme shows no signs of fading...."
— JD Vance (@JDVance) March 8, 2025ADDED: That image relies on the Leonardo DiCaprio "Pointing Meme":
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45 comments:
Good thing the Sewer is working hard on mocking JD.
He has this "Get a load of this, can you believe it?" look that I first saw in the debate that's just classic.
Now do Walz.
Considering what Vance was experiencing as a child, this is grotesque.
Vance seems to be enjoying it.
https://x.com/JDVance/status/1898372454235451694?t=FimvryeYZIig2gl3d93JiQ&s=19
I do have to say that it shows some sign of life for the left that they are starting to focus their fire on Trump's successor rather than on the term-limited man himself.
The Empty and pathetic rage-filled corrupt democrat party - have very little.
The elite Pelosi left HATE it when someone from a poor family is elevated.
You don't get flogged 74 times for making fun of the Vice President of the United States of America.
If you have to explain your memes, then you're doing it wrong
"The elite Pelosi left HATE it when someone from a poor family is elevated."
You mean like when readering, or Lefty Charles, or whoever it was, lectures me that I have no real sympathy for the working poor? Not like them, those people who have all kinds of "knowledge" about the working poor based on their theories of social justice as they imagine it, but have no lived experience of a working class life and don't actually like blue collar people IRL? Like that?
Speaking of movies..
Watched Flow last night.
Most excellent! Loved it.
I think this works in favor of JD Vance. His antagonists probably thought he was thin skinned and would demand respect (like the respect he demanded that Zelensky show to Trump). Now the meme is making him a pop culture icon and a standout in the fight for the 2028 GOP nomination. It's in the tradition of Trump, whose appearance and personality have been subject to endless foolery for decades.
JAQ - yes. Just like that.
The hivemind are posers. They have no actual feelings or sympathies for anything outside of their narrative driven Democrat Party loyalist Religious Cult.
Eric, I again protest that one is not flogged 74 times. One gets flogged once, with 74 strokes of the lash in the flogging.
If they were trying to humiliate him DiCaprio was probably a bad choice. Kudos for the guy for manipulating liberal’s hate into a cash cow…
I’ve always seen the VP as a ‘placeholder’. Vance is showing that this is not the case - even though it’s the dems/libs keeping him in the public eye. While they make him out to be a fool (hatred has no bounds) the reality, if someone looks outside, is very different.
More of this, please.
Vindman(D) (one of them - sadly -- there are many) was on CNN screeching and demanding the JD Vance resign ... based on something JD said that was misconstrued and turned into a lie by the hack-D-press.
"Some random country" - (not specific to any country and so what if it was? )
The insane & authoritarian rhetoric form the radical Vindman(D) sector.
Though this may have started as an anti-Vance meme, his supporters have taken it over and are outdoing themselves. Saw one today of him as Abe Lincoln. Funny stuff.
"Eric, I again protest that one is not flogged 74 times. ...."
You know this story struck me oddly yesterday. The jihadi martyr has 72 wives or virgins waiting for him in heaven, but meanwhile here on Earth, one gets 74 lashes. It would seem, for religious extremists, the potential punishment now always outweighs the potential reward later. Stone age thinking.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity.
What started as an anti Vance meme by his enemies will soon be tagged as racist and left leaning companies like the one I retired from will ban it from t shirts in the workplace lest any of the minority privileged class become offended.
Almost all of the JD memes I see are entirely positive, even glorifying. Neither he nor the memes are going away any time soon.
TWIP by Steve Hayward at Powerline has several Vance memes this morning, including the Abe Lincoln one.
a popular spanish crime novelist, gomez jurado rails against memes and 'fake news'
I think Trump has realized that Vance can help keep him on topic while still remaining respectful and subordinate. Both guys sort of felt their way to this arrangement. Compare some of the early double interviews with the Zelensky press conference and some other recent double availabilities. Big difference. Also note how Vance spent days out of the limelight during the transition. But now, Vance is able to slide in and redirect the question before Trump has a chance to make an emotional reaction. As a Yale Law guy, Vance speaks fluent postmodern, so he is also able to be the "woke whisperer" for Trump.
Very difficult to find someone who can strike that balance. Trump is realizing that Musk kind of upstages him without even trying, and he hasn't even tried to be in the same room with Homan; both of those alphas are best turned loose on the outside world. Lots of leaders depend on a close aide who can keep them on the agenda that the leader himself set. Trump never found one in his first term. This time, Trump just happened to find one in the guy who's already his VP.
JSM
I think we can all agree it’s healthy democratic hilariousness when we make memetic fun of their guy and deep dark sacrilege when they make memetic fun of our guy.
Facial recognition, baby. I think the cliche applies, he's heard worse from better.
Testing... Will this work? Probably not - but give it a whirl.
Prole - we get your drift... over and over. the purity of middle.
Got it. Again.
ooo It did work.
In that case... one more.
One of the things I love about Vance is he understands how the modern male game is played. In a way that very few women (virtually none on the Left) and very few of his elders (including Trump) understand. Given his upbringing, education, and military service, that probably isn’t surprising. But it is surprising that the Democrats seem to not have a single prominent person who can play in that space.
Which is going to help him maintain, and perhaps increase, Trump’s inroads with youth and minority voters.
Better the cracker you know, yes?
Don’t think of it as the middle, think of it as the normal. Most Americans are neither Republican nor Democrat. Very few freaky outliers are compelled to make politics their religion. You can spot them whenever their icons are besmirched.
J. D. knows how to play the game. And when the Dims attack him he shrugs it off and keeps on rolling. They are building a monster for 2028. And then I look at the Dims trying to play the game--and mostly not succeeding. Adam Schiff has discovered You Tube. He keeps making these videos where the pompous putz pontificates--but then writes a caption for the video "Schiff Demolishes X" or "Schiff Humiliates Y". Doesn't work very well, but I'll give Lil Adam points for trying. And California's own Brylcreem Boy Gavin Newsom has launched a podcast. With the slow dying of the print and major broadcast news media, politicos are having to learn how to play a new game.
Democrats tried sooooo hard to make Kamala the "fun" candidate.
And here we are.
The "normals" are all vacating the Democrat party.
JD Vance has good political character, I think, and this is shown in his ability to be good-natured at the meme-ribbing. He is not without manly confidence, his fat-ckeeked, smiling affability is not shallow, but is rooted in his hard times, his heritage, and his service. He's smart enough to already be a step ahead.
While some complain that Trump is thin-skinned, I have often observed that his reactions are more like a boxer's feints, getting his opponents to reveal their own weaknesses by provoking outrage. I think Vance just prefers to smile let the rain roll off. Both tactics will eventually drive opponents crazy.
Greg’s is better https://x.com/greg16676935420/status/1898453633731272718?s=46
Earnest Prole: "Don’t think of it as the middle, think of it as the normal. Most Americans are neither Republican nor Democrat."
This is one of the more misunderstood concepts, by the ignorant amongst us, regardinng the actual make up of the electorate. There are really very few independents compared with those who say they are independent or are registered independent.
Good pollsters know this and screen for markers that give strong indications of how an "independent" will actually vote and will use that information when they build their voters subgroups.
Earnest Prole: "Very few freaky outliers are compelled to make politics their religion."
Individuals who have a difficult time discerning right from wrong and good policy outcomes vs bad will often attempt to transfer their natural state of confusion into attacks on those who can recognize reality. This makes them feel more comfortable in their confusion and allows them an opportunity to think of themselves as better than those others.
Earnest Prole: "You can spot them whenever their icons are besmirched."
One is unlikely to come across a more smug creature than the one who sits in the middle, befuddled, but turning that befuddlement into some state of self-styled political grace and pretending to rise above it all. You can tell how protective they are of their politically agnostic religion by how extraordinarily upset they become when the answers are obvious and pointed out to them.
I used grok to make one where JD is dressed as a star fleet officer from Star Trek the next generation. He does look a bit like Riker.
Shorter version: blah blah blah.
When Trump picked Vance for his VP, I said to myself, "Trump's serious". Such a contrast with the very conventional selection of Pence in the first term . How did that work out?
But please tell me that the photo of JD with the cigarette and the beer is photo-shopped. I know he came from a deprived background, but he'll need 8 healthy years to complete the Trump agenda, and cigarettes won't help. (No problem with the beer.)
Earnest Prole: "Shorter version: blah blah blah."
You just "blah-ed blah-ed blah-ed" right smack in the mirror.
It was a wiser course than to engage....but then that's what you are "all about" isn't it? Not being "all about" anything.
Which is the point.
Ever since the VP and family started living on the Naval Observatory grounds, I have wanted to see more of the few buildings and grounds. Something like the program Mrs. Kennedy did about the White House in 1962. I know there are books available but looking for something a little more animated. Well Mondale (the first to live there) and subsequent VP's haven't been known for their relatability to the general public. Vance and his wife strike me as very relatable and would be great for sharing some positive non partisan history especially with the next major US birthday coming up. Why say that here instead of on his VP website?? I will when they fix their "verify" glitch.
Trying this again even though the meme has probably already shown up here by now (powerlineblog and some other sites don't allow linking).
More work for Glenn Kessler: explaining that there aren't four JD Vances and there never was a band called "Vance Halen"
There are a lot of distorted photos of Vance out there. Some are positive, some are negative, and with some it's hard to tell what the point is.
There may be few true independents, but there are an awful lot of people who don't vote. The apathetic and apolitical are also "independent" in a way.
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