An image of JD Vance allegedly dressed as a woman and wearing a blonde wig was posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday. The unconfirmed image quickly picked up steam and began trending under the hashtag #SofaLoren, a reference to the iconic Italian actress Sophia Loren and false claims that the Republican senator had sex with a couch.

Many commenters online connected Vance’s alleged history of cross-dressing with his legislative history—which has long been a point of concern for LGBTQ+ advocacy groups.

The Ohio senator introduced the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which aims to criminalize medical institutions that provide gender-affirming care to minors.

The Republican vice presidential pick also supports measures to limit classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, and labeled critics of so-called “don’t say gay” legislation “groomers.”

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      3 months ago

      The issue isn’t his hypocrisy, it’s “see? You clearly know this is fine. You all know this drag obsession is bullshit.

      Yeah, that is the hypocrisy that is being pointed out.

        • snooggums@midwest.social
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          3 months ago

          You are stating the literal hypocrisy and saying it isn’t hypocrisy. I have no idea what nuance you are saying is there.

          Pointing out hypocrisy is actually fairly effective with uninformed people. If they have only a passing interest in JD couch molester, but are made aware of his anti-trans/drag legislation at the same time they find out he was cool doing it himself, they will be likely to not believe his bullshit in the future. No, it won’t swing his base who are already on the cognitive dissonance express, but it might help motivate someone on the fence to get out and vote against him.

            • snooggums@midwest.social
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              3 months ago

              The issue is this: hypocrisy is a very surface level complaint.

              The ‘rules for thee but not for me’ kind of hypocrisy is extremely important.

                • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  I think there’s just a disagreement with your core premise.

                  There is a subset of people that are not engaged and unaware of Vance’s legislative history or public statements regarding drag. Those people will generally not engage with long thoughtful nuanced discourse. Those are the people that pointing out hypocrisy speaks to. An article or long post just doesn’t work. A quick meme does. It’s a simple cognitive shortcut to get them engaged, and it’s effective. Yes, I get a bit of masturbatory joy when I see that stuff, but it shouldn’t be meant for me. This stuff is meant to go “viral” so it gets in front of the non-engaged eyeballs.

                  We need to use every single goddamn tool in the toolbox we have to engage people and get them to turn out. All of it. Including pointing out hypocrisy.