Hillbilly Eulogy
JD Vance is the unintentional kryptonite to MAGA.
by Rich Herschlag
Dear JD Vance:
I have a longtime friend who taught middle school and junior high school English for a tumultuous 15 years. He spent most of that time in Pennsylvania inner city schools teaching a large number of at-risk students. Over time he became renowned for going above and beyond the call of duty—tutoring countless students after class, taking groups of students to meet with professional athletes as a reward for a full semester of never missing a homework assignment, tracking down runaways, convincing students to walk away from using and dealing drugs.
In his next incarnation my friend became an author and a motivational speaker drawing robust school audiences around the U.S. and using his own time, money, and contacts to start a college scholarship fund for the same at-risk kids back in the district where he had taught.
Over the course of my knowing him he’s had the terrible misfortune of attending the funeral of at least 30 former students. In many of these tragedies my friend went door to door, phone to phone, to raise money for both the funeral and the burial and counseled the family. During our quarter century friendship, a year without at least one such tragedy was a blessing.
The flipside of this awesome responsibility was all the kids who grew up to beat the odds. A few years back I attended my friend’s annual Labor Day weekend party and was confused for a minute at all the kids running around. Until I realized these kids were the children of his former students, many of whom were now well into their 30s with husbands, wives, corporate jobs, law practices and in some cases, of course, teaching careers of their own.
At that same party, with a beer in my hand, I walked up to my friend and asked him how many former students were in his phone. His guess—500. And many of them called him often. By the way, my friend, who was childless, just recently married an amazing woman his own age, a widow, and now finally after all these years my buddy, the tireless miracle worker, has a grown stepchild.
So, JD, if I asked you whether my friend had any stake in America you would answer with a resounding “No.” Because apparently that stake, as you see it, is at its core based on procreation rather than concern, effort, or sacrifice. Even though we both know procreation on the male end typically takes even less effort than kissing Donald Trump’s ring. Even though we know beyond the shadow of a doubt there are countless biological parents who did little more for the benefit of their children than copulate—for example, your own biological father.
Yes, JD, your hopelessly warped, cynical, morbid world is filled to the brim with “stakeless” teachers, nuns, counselors, pediatricians, OB/GYNs, aunts, uncles, psychologists, social workers, drivers ed instructors, family friends, adoptive parents, foster parents, school crossing guards, lifeguards, and school bus drivers. Because if you didn’t ejaculate or gestate en route to helping young people it’s all a vast meaningless void.
Obviously you’ve received an onslaught of criticism in the days since your whiny, absurd, self-serving “cat lady” quote was unearthed by cable news services and aired coast-to-coast on an endless loop with a periodicity of four nanoseconds. In your short time on the national stage recently you’ve made yourself persona non grata to ladies, cats, and IVF clinics everywhere. I know I’ve been beaten to the punch tens of millions of times, so why am I even bothering to pile on?
Well, here it is, James David Hamel or whatever your name du jour is. My assignment this morning was to figure out why your ilk repeatedly comes out with verbal toxic waste like this and disseminates it like a masturbating pedophile on a merry-go-round. And I’ve settled on this—the MAGA core philosophy, your core philosophy, is to invalidate as many people as possible while still somehow hanging on to enough folks to snatch 270 electoral votes. This is a tricky, dicey endeavor, especially given the utter mediocrity and in many cases depravity of your fellow Republicans. Therefore, you and others of your soulless, calculating type end up promoting the most unremarkable qualities imaginable, right down to basic bodily functions. I guess you really don’t have to do much to qualify for MAGA sainthood—gripe, aim, and cum.
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Problem is, James Donald Bowman or whoever you’re campaigning as this week, you are a bull in a china shop with a firecracker up its ass. While sitting up late at night figuring out ways to further divide neighbor from neighbor, while ceaselessly trying to solve a virtually unsolvable gerrymander Rubik’s Cube, did you ever for a moment stop to think how many incels were previously leaning Trump? How many childless, divorced angry blue collar dudes are driving half-cocked in their Ford F-150s right now plotting revenge on their ex’s new CPA boyfriend? How many infertile evangelical couples are in a megachurch this very moment dousing themselves with holy water, speaking in tongues, and praying to the Almighty for an heir to one day inherit the AR-15 collection?
Welcome to your eulogy, Jimmy. Not that you are dead, but rather that your rancid “philosophy” is dying before our very eyes. It’s not just that the math doesn’t work or that you will never quite manage to deliver the word vomit necessary for an electoral victory. It is, moreover, that millions upon millions of voters at this late date are finally seeing through your tired game of exclusion and are exhausted by it.
Though it is perhaps ironic that a spineless pandering political chameleon like yourself, rather than a dyed-in-the-wool MAGA, is ultimately breaking the fascist back, there is a kind of mystical logic to it. While many of your cohorts drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago, we all know you took a big swig of it in November 2022 and spit it out under the podium. A phony but savvy hillbilly like you isn’t buying this crap for a second—only the spoils that are supposed to go with it. There are real hypocrites and fake hypocrites. You are the latter and you are MAGA kryptonite.
Sorry, Vice Presidential Nominee Vance, you got on the bus too late. You are a political zombie living on time borrowed from Mike Pence. So go gentle into that good night. Or give an apocryphal hillbilly yodel on your way out. Rest in peace. Or rest in turmoil. We really don’t care. Just go.
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Trump’s Thermonuclear Shit Show in Chicago
This was a train wreck of truly epic proportions.
by Bob Cesca
WASHINGTON, DC – By now you’ve probably heard about or seen clips of convicted criminal Donald Trump’s radioactive trainwreck at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago. Allowing him to sit on that stage was, bar far, one of the biggest blunders in his nine year political career. If he were more self-aware, he’d fire whoever was responsible for setting it up, but he won’t. In fact, despite what we all saw, Trump insisted on his failing social media app that he “crushed it.”
There was definitely something being crushed on that stage – mainly his chances of becoming president again, not to mention his odds of wiggling out of prison sentences should he lose the election…
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This is brilliant.
I’m changing my 6 figure tech job to become an overworked mental health counselor. I’m childless and will always stay that way. Instead I will be working diligently to help heal those kids from all those abusive parents that really didn’t want any kids, just got them because they thought god wanted them to procreate. As well as those kids that are abused because they aren’t what their parents think their god wants them to be (cis). As well as kids from other people, that are abused, bullied and oppressed by those same “god fearing” wypipo simply because of the color of their skin. But go ahead Jelly Dick Vance, tell me again how I’m worthless trash because I don’t have kids of my own… really makes me want to vote for you (fucking not, oh hell no not in a million years, it’s bad enough I simply know of you, let alone vote for you)