During the 2024 campaign, a post went massively viral claiming JD Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” contained a scene in which Vance had sex with a latex glove jammed between two couch cushions. This was a total fabrication.
In interviews, the poster responsible for the meme said he was inspired by a story about Lyndon Johnson spreading false rumors about political opponents having sex with pigs to try to force them to publicly deny the allegations.
The fact that the claim about Vance, which came with page numbers that could easily be checked, was totally false, easily falsifiable and came from a source who openly admitted he made the whole thing up was irrelevant. The story spread across the internet and into mainstream media and discourse.
Stephen Colbert joked about it repeatedly. He shared AI generated meme images of Vance with a couch. John Oliver also spread the memes. And, eventually, so did the Harris/Walz campaign, with Walz saying he couldn’t wait to debate Vance, if Vance would “get off the couch and show up.”
On the first episode of his 2005 show, “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert, who gleefully spread the couch memes, famously promulgated a widely concept called “truthiness.” He explained that certain things that are not true nonetheless “feel true” because they validate priors, and people would rather have their beliefs reinforced than debunked.
He said: “It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that’s not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.”
“Truthiness” was not a criticism of liberal discourse — it was presented as the animating concept of his parody of Bill O’Reilly; that conservatives didn’t want truth, they wanted “truthiness.”
Liberals like Colbert and Oliver demonstrate no self-reflection or self-awareness with regard to their previous criticisms of conservatives and conservative media when they spread viral misinformation like the JD Vance couch meme, which was a perfect example of “truthiness,” in that it was a completely fabricated claim that had the feel of truth to progressives because it validated their beliefs about Vance.
Anyway, here’s my point: A screenshot is currently circulating of a passage from the Wall Street Journal article about Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s history of infidelity, sexting and hookup apps, which says that Platner refers to his penis as “Mein Fuhrer.”
A lot of people are saying this screenshot is fabricated. Some of these people are claiming that they are WSJ subscribers who have read the paywalled WSJ article, or even that they are journalists who wrote this article, and that this passage does not appear in it.
You should not listen to these people.
Graham Platner refers to his penis as “Mein Fuhrer,” and also, he has shaved his pubic hair into a “landing strip,” which he refers to as “Der Fuhrer’s mustache.”
This is the truth, or at least, is exactly as true as it needs to be.
I’m begging you all to get a WSJ subscription so you can actually click through to our amazing regular political scoops and not look foolish falling for the “Platner called his dick the Fuhrer” fakery. It’s $2 a week!