People don’t like JD Vance. His memoir overstated his Appalachian identity and negatively stereotyped the region. He went from being a “Never Trump guy” and calling Trump “America’s Hitler” to joining the Trump ticket. He insulted his opponents as being “childless cat ladies” and disparaged Harris for having no biological children of her own.
Each of these complaints has made the rounds on the meme machine circuit, but none has gone nearly as viral as the claim that JD Vance admitted to having an intimate encounter with a couch. Tim Walz and others have even referenced it obliquely in speeches.
Not only is the allegation false, but it’s also not the reason why people don’t like Vance. Instead, it’s become this overall aesthetic descriptor that seems to capture the vibes of all the critiques combined. Most meme sharers seem to know it’s not true and have still chosen to pass it along. This appears like a form of bullying.
Even if the power dynamics are different and insulate Vance from many real-world consequences, the basic structure of this situation is that the outrageous couch insult is being used to demoralize, denigrate, and beat down Vance as a political candidate. It’s personal.
Grant the following things for the sake of argument: 1) It’s plausible to call Vance and Trump fascists; Vance himself has made similar allegations about Trump. 2) Sharing the couch memes does amount to bullying.
Is this morally permissible? It feels sus.
Like the “punch a Nazi” strategy popular at the beginning of Trump’s first term, the tactic seems to be effective on several counts:
-It makes Vance look weak and weird, which is antithetical to his core brand. By making Vance look less threatening, it shifts the narrative away from framing him as scary, dangerous, and powerful, which directly denies him social power and damages his reputation among both supporters and opponents.
-It replaces the serious conversations about the real critiques of Vance (which Vance himself does not seem to care about) with an unserious insult (that Vance does care about). This reverses a common bad faith dynamic and closes off an endless debate about Vance’s moral character.
-It targets Vance specifically instead of Vance supporters, which avoids alienating broad swaths of the population. But it also reflects negatively on Trump, who likely picked Vance to mirror his strong man aesthetic.
If we’re just reasoning based on consequences, and those consequences are that fascists lose power and social clout, then the couch memes are likely morally permissible (if not obligatory). And that seems true even considering the sizeable group of people being misled by the memes into thinking the the event actually took place.
If we’re thinking about moral rules that should hold the same for everyone, then a principle like “you should never bully” or “you should never lie” would forbid spreading this false meme. There is likely some real harm done to JD Vance’s psyche and to others who fear being similarly falsely maligned.
But the approach I would like to take to the question is more holistic: What is this strategy trying to accomplish? Does it require dehumanizing Vance? Does it feed conspiratorial thinking and a reductive “own the repubs” mentality? (That, I’ll admit, doesn’t sound nearly as compelling as its opposite.)
Here’s the thing about tools and tactics: they’re often great to use in some situations, and not in others. If the couch memes are narrowly deployed to only target Vance, don’t displace the possibility of serious, good faith conversation, and represent only one of a number of tactics to shut down fascist behavior and talking points, then they may be distasteful but not emblematic of some larger pathology.
But if the couch memes are instead part of a general disregard for Vance’s life and a desire to seek revenge on MAGA conservatives at every opportunity, with the hope of completely excluding all of them from public life and with no regard for truth, then we have a real problem.
I suspect that both general approaches (and a number of other approaches around and between) are at play. No one common psychology informs the meme’s spread. They also likely caught on because they are so distasteful and eye-catching, much more so than the similar “weird” insult thrown out earlier in the election. Much of the current strategy of the DNC, official and unofficial, seems to be to try to convince Conservative voters that their leaders aren’t worthy. Some of these efforts are, I think, morally permissible, such as the musical remixes of Vance’s anti-Trump comments.
The couch meme, by contrast, is morally wrong. It is a proxy response to legitimate critiques of Vance, but it is false and defamatory. It does not directly respond to those critiques but instead uses unrelated shaming tactics to beat Vance into submission. It mirrors Trump’s bullying campaigns against other politicians such as Ron DeSantis (who, like Vance, is not especially sympathetic as a character).
At the same time, there are decidedly much worse forms of internet bullying and much more egregious campaign tactics that are fully outside of the bounds of democratic process. We shouldn’t get so caught up on the morality of the couch memes that we forget the bigger picture.
I hope that this unserious and absurd meme will eventually bring us back to being able to have serious, respectful policy discussions about where we want the country to go in the future. Maybe we can finally talk about how to solve affordable housing. If we can prevent Trump and Vance from taking power and abusing the recent Supreme Court decision, then maybe we can get back to a more stable form of democratic exchange, with civil presidential debates and thoughtful consideration for our neighbors.
There is probably no perfect tactic to push back against a candidate who is dramatically trying to undermine the American Constitution. While the couch memes are certainly morally mixed, they are likely preferable to other more violent exchanges, and a less aggressive tactic like the “weird” insults might be less successful.
Let’s collectively take the imperfections of this moment to move towards a better future, without forgetting the humanity of our fellow Americans.
