Pweeease and Phhwaank You, Mr. Pwesideeeent

Were I a Romanist, I’d entreat my confessor accordingly: Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. The late-summer delectatio morosa is too tempting. I have entertained impure thoughts of the next American presidential election… when it’s over two years away!

*Flies into furious weeping, gnashing teeth, tearing at my own breasts.*

The life of a lowly political columnist is a life of uninterrupted sin against good taste. With every prognostication, every handicap, every conjecture, we scribbling soothsayers put the Gods of the Copybook Headings into a rage.

Ah, well. To invoke another Latin ethic: audentes fortuna iuvat. Plus, Labor Day weekend approaches and my sack of columnizable grissle grows lean.

Enough prosey prolegomenon: J.D. Vance is an underestimated 2028 presidential candidate. Kalshi currently favors the V.P. as our next chief exec, though that’s a bit some barflies thinking he has easy sledding ahead.

Vance has a leg up on the chomping competition, which is sure to include dozens of hopefuls who have spent half their life slavering for power. But the Veep’s pole position comes not from his incumbency, nor his relatable upbringing, nor even from not vocalizing like a pre-programmed android.

The Vance edge stems from a normally diabolizing source: exaggerated caricaturization. A hillbilly who turned his hardscrabble memoir into political magic beans, Vance has been called many things: white trash, “weird,” sycophant, Machiavellian chancer, traitor to his class, Robert Smith-wannabe.

The sharpest disparagement came after his heated jaw with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. When Vance, just a month after taking the second-banana oath, crossed his arms, pouted his lip, and harumphed “have you said thank you once?” to a man whose capital city faces daily ordinance strikes, lightning struck a data center.

The great puerile minds that hatch all the bizarre polygons of demented “internet culture” set to work. Overnight, the Appalachian underdog who lifted himself out of the cig-studded, Mountain Dew-soaked holler to the highest echelons of American life was slingshotted to whence he came.

A meme was born: fattened, youthened, mop-topped, lollipop-suckered J.D. Vance flashed across the ‘net, complete with alveolarized elocution in a word bubble: Didjjj youuu sey PWWEEASE ‘N’ PHHHHWWWANK YOUUUUU???

Most image-burnishing statesmen would have the political bi-reaction: muted disregard in public; explosive resentment in private, complete with pink-slipping innocent staffers.

Spending his formative years binging irreverent TVtainment presented Vance another option: own it. Be in on the joke. Laugh along. Last Halloween, he even donned the curly wig in homage to his Insta-alter-ego, and recited the infamous catchphrase. The didos was not unlike a once-working-class hero making an inane idiotbox cameo, or the beaming codger mocking his own crusted age. Republicans have to laugh at the sundry animadversions darted their way, lest all the NazibigotsexistracistHitlerisms do a number on their self-worth.

Grinnigly embracing your own derision is a good way to blanket mockery. But Chub-Chud Vance hasn’t gone the way of most jokey JPEGs. It’s joined the stable of recognizable internet mascots, like Harambe, Salt Bae, Wojack, Chad, Roll Safe, Side Eying Chloe, Distracted Boyfriend, Galaxy Brain, and any random 5-second “The Simpsons” bit circa seasons three through eleven.

The TikTok account NostromoCore may find itself gasping in the I.R.S.’s clutches come January 2029, when J.D. Vance takes the oath of office, spitting PHWANK YYYYOU at John Roberts. More than any SuperPAC, dark-money committee, R.N.C, or supercouncil of mustache-twirling oligarchs, the parody channel is softening voters to a man whom half the country’s women despised two years ago.

How so? Posting endless videos placing the impish, wide-eyed, endomorphic Vance in all types of cartoonish situations, such as breakdancing, piloting a speeding motorcycle, downing a steaming pitcher of glizzie juice, quadruple backflipping into a lake, leading a miniriot inside Walmart, longboarding the Seyðisfjarðarvegur, dandling a fledging-sized President Trump, and, my personal favorite, leading a shoal of mini-mes underwater to the tune of the Super Mario 64 menu screen.

These brainmelting spoofs often feature our pudgy, demented deputy prez joined by a coked-out Kash Patel and the slovenly lush who acts Pentagon chief in between watching “Cops” reruns.

The critic Anthony Lane once wrote that “Trump is the embodiment of the American Meme.” Anyone with an internet connection can hardly deny it. The mannerisms, clownish mien, booked scowl, campy jig, penchant for rebranding, off-piste capitalization, swerving syntax—all are far beyond the corporeal body stuffed into a Brioni three-piece every morning. They are, in Baudrillard’s phrase, “its own pure simulacrum” and will last long after aspartame overcomes the President’s vitals.

J.D. Vance’s artless MAGA pantomization should have spelled political doom. But leftists, in their creative prowess and eagerness to garrote the competition, have minted a beloved burlesque. What American wouldn’t want President Homer Simpson? To quote the parodically prophetic paper of the century: “Admit It: You People Want To See How Far This Goes, Don’t You?”

Father, forgive our late-empire frivolities!