JD Vance committed the cardinal sin of smiling confidently on the debate stage, says New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
In a NYT opinion piece, titled "JD Smirks His Way Into the Future," Dowd went on a man-hating tirade ranting against what she sees as toxic masculinity on full display.
Dowd's column begins by bemoaning the portrayal of Kamala Harris in Trump-Vance campaign ads as "weak" and not "tough enough" to serve as commander-in-chief, a purported perpetuation of the misogyny previously faced by the "bubbly" Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, "a gold-plated hawk."
"The ad's subtext is clearly gender, trying to exploit Kamala's problems winning over Black and white working-class men," Dowd wrote.
In contrast, Dowd simultaneously chastised Donald Trump's return to the Butler rally location Saturday, saying he was "martyr-milking" the first assassination attempt by going back to the crime scene, where he displayed immense courage and unrivaled resolve in the face of peril — by standing up, with blood streaming down his face, raising a fist, and encouraging others to "Fight!" seconds after narrowly dodging a fatal gunshot to the head.
This weekend, Trump treated the shooting site "as hallowed ground for his quasi-religious lion imagery," according to Dowd, adding that "Trump lives in a miasma of self-pity" and "wants to wallow in accolades." Otherwise, in "Trumpworld," "sympathy is weakness," she says.
Pivoting to Trump's running mate, Dowd compared Vance to a "chameleon" donning "a mask of likability and empathy" during the vice presidential debate: "He was wily and deceptive in how he talked about abortion, stressing that women needed 'options' and sending his love to an old friend who he said had had an abortion."
Dowd says Vance was especially duplicitous when Tim Walz said that his teenage son once witnessed a shooting, which, in turn, prompted the Republican veep nominee, a father of three, to sympathetically shake his head and express earnestly, "Christ have mercy, it is awful."
No, it was not real empathy, Dowd says, but an act put on by a conservative man who, later on, dared to smile on the debate stage.
At one point, an amused Vance appeared to smile directly into the camera with his head slightly cocked, eyebrows raised in Jim Halpert-like fashion, as his wild-eyed opponent, who appeared like a deer in the headlights about to become roadkill, spewed a stream of lies. The knowing look Vance flashed went viral on social media. (He was actually just glancing at the speaking timer situated next to the camera, the senator says of the meme-able moment, and not intentionally side-eyeing the audience.)
"Vance's performance was chilling," Dowd decided. A "sham persona," she accused, "fak[ing] it to improve your favorability numbers.""Once I thought Trump would be an aberration for Republicans," she concluded. "But on Tuesday night, I saw the future of the party and it was lies piled on lies, and darkness swallowing darkness."
Dowd's criticism is reminiscent of the way the corporate media smear merchants defamed Covington Catholic kid Nick Sandmann for simply smiling while an agitator at the 2019 March for Life attempted to incite a reaction out of him by banging on a drum in his face.
VICE said Sandmann, a MAGA hat-wearing high schooler, was "caught on camera smirking at [a] Native man." The Washington Post called "the smirk" an "indelible image" of "the latest edition of America's thick book of Rorschach tests on race and difference." According to WaPo, what "that smirk represented to so many" — to those who are "not straight, white and male" — was "a world of hurt."
House Speaker Mike Johnson similarly couldn't catch a break over his countenance at this year's State of the Union address.
The New York Times charged Johnson with a slew of facecrimes: "His eyebrows arched and fell. He pursed his lips. He couldn't decide whether he should stand up, smile or frown. He smirked. He corrected himself. He sort of rolled his eyes. He looked down. He sighed. He shook his head. He swallowed. He smiled again. He looked amused and patient when he clearly intended to look serious and not pleased at all."
However, Kamala Harris, seated to Johnson's right, "managed to appear both relaxed and disciplined, her face always on message," The New York Times gushed.
In 2020, during Trump's State of the Union speech, as Nancy Pelosi sat behind POTUS, she noticeably performed "facial calisthenics," as Mary Grabar quips for The Federalist, i.e. "lip-moistening, mouth-smacking, tongue-rolling, denture-fixing, lip-pursing, side glances." The New York Times described the distracting performance positively as a perfect "foil" for Trump, "alternating a sarcastic clap with an unflinching scowl." At the end of Trump's address, "she calmly stood up and tore his printed remarks in half, like a dissatisfied customer rejecting a bill."
Kamala Harris, too, made many faces while Trump spoke during their one and only debate.
The New York Times said she "craftily" unnerved Trump with her "weapon" of expressions, apparently delivering a master class in body language.
Miranda Devine for The New York Post pointed out the purpose of her split-screen pantomiming, suggesting that the Harris campaign's Gen Z coaches must have hoped to manifest a "Brat Girl" moment with the dozen different looks she served.
But if you're a Republican man, expect the establishment to tell you to "wipe that smirk off your face."
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