Did JD Vance write about exploring his sexuality with the assistance of a rubber globe and a couch? No, he did not. Despite that, does JD Vance possess some essential quality of a couch fucker? We discuss the origin of this false internet rumor and what it can tell us about the nature of truth on social media.
Plus we go over newly revealed details about Trump’s failed assassin and some of the conspiracy theories and speculation about the event itself.
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REFERENCES
Snopes: No, 1st Edition of JD Vance's 'Hillbilly Elegy' Doesn't Mention Couch Cushion 'Eroticism'
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-first-edition-couch-erotica/
Business Insider: The author of the viral joke post about JD Vance having sex with a couch breaks his silence
https://www.businessinsider.com/jd-vance-couch-sex-joke-author-speaks-2024-
Four Key Questions Still Loom Over the Trump Shooting
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/trump-shooting-bullet-shrapnel-motive-conspiracy-theories/
Trump has given no official info about his medical care for days since an assassination attempt
https://apnews.com/article/trump-shooting-transparency-db2f4437237ad03d3b04b0b5f1573977
Speculation Swirls About What Hit Trump. An Analysis Suggests It was a Bullet
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/us/politics/trump-shooter-bullet-trajectory-ear.html
Welcome to the QAA Podcast Premium Episode 254, The Thrill of the Sheds.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Brockitansky, Julian Fields, Levegar, and Travis View.
One of the most stimulating aspects of engaging with news and social media is assessing the truth and significance of the stories and claims that you come across every day.
Consuming content about current events requires you to engage with deep questions about your values and the nature of truth.
Questions like, did Donald Trump's running mate, J.D.
Vance, fuck a couch?
Does it matter if he did?
What's stopping you from saying he did, even if he didn't?
Or questions like, what would drive a 20-year-old man to make a doomed assassination attempt on a presidential candidate?
What actually led to Trump's ear being bloodied in that attempt?
Does that matter?
Can an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate have no impact on the campaign itself or really on history?
Wait, sorry, there was an assassination attempt on a candidate?
Yeah, what are you talking about, dude?
I think I must have forgot about that.
You know, there's been lots of stuff, yeah.
The couch memes?
I barely remember those.
Where are we?
Yeah, Olympics?
Are they still even going on?
I don't think the Olympics started or they ended.
I can't remember.
I think maybe they never happened.
If an Olympics happens in France, does it happen at all?
No, he does not!
If a glove is inverted between the couch seats and you fuck it, does it mean that you make cum inside of it or not?
We're going to attempt to answer all these questions on today's episode, and if everything goes well, we will bring ourselves and our listeners into perfect alignment with noble facts and metaphysical reality, transforming us all into a society of enlightened sages.
And if it doesn't go well, I think we'll have some fun during the attempt at least.
I feel like you're going to tell us facts about gloves and couches and stuff and take away all the immediately tiring fun that people have had posting about couch fucking online until I don't want to read the word couch anymore and mute it.
Oh, wow, that's incredible.
You seem to be very resentful of, like, you know, fact-checking the couch claims and also you seem resentful of the playful spreading of the couch fucking claims.
It seems like you've put yourself in a position which every perspective is miserable.
I am taking what they call the French Gambit.
I hate everything.
It seems like you don't want to be having any fun online.
I hate everything and I'm about to light a cigarette.
Oh, I'm so fucking jealous.
God damn it!
Especially these last couple weeks.
Oh, God, yes, the smoke filling my lungs, the same smoke that fills our public arena of conversation, making sure that we don't understand what is true or false.
The same smoke that fills each finger of the glove.
Sandwiched in between two cushions.
This analogy is getting confusing to me.
Come smoke like a vape or something?
It doesn't make any sense, but that's Jake for you, folks.
He is vaping.
That's a non-nick vape?
Yeah, it's like one of the plant vapes.
It's like Blue Chew, but for vapes.
Wait, wait, wait.
Wait a second.
Here, we've got another beautiful Jake moment.
It's like a dick pill that you chew, but for vapes.
You gotta cut it all out.
No, no, no.
We're not cutting any of this out.
You gotta cut me out.
Explain to me how your vape is the erection-encouraging pill, but for vapes.
I can't believe it's not Viagra dick pills you can order online for vapes.
Exactly, yeah.
It's the safe alternative.
It is.
First of all, stop advertising for somebody who does not pay us.
Second of all, it is not the safe alternative.
I think it's still a medication to make your dick hard, and most people die when they take it.
That's a claim I'm making, medically speaking.
Julian is a doctor.
I am a doctor, and I will tell you that the average person who takes a single Blue Chew dies.
Go ahead, Travis.
So let's start with the claim that, which was originally intended as a joke, that Donald Trump's running mate J.D.
Vance fucked a couch.
Or the more specific claim started as the claim that Vance personally said that he had fucked a couch in his 2016 book, Hillbilly Elegy.
I think that what really worked here is the idea, like, the specificity.
It was like, okay, this page to this page, and also he inverted a glove and put it between the couch seats.
Like, there was a lot of, like, kind of lore surrounding it that made it credible.
No, no, no.
As you know, it's like, yes, the specificity and the details.
And frankly, the broad fact that, you know, young man fucks stranger inanimate objects every single day made it very, very believable.
Yeah.
I mean, look, I personally know two men who have had sex with their wrestling buddies, which were these kind of these like pillows that were shaped like wrestlers.
They're very popular in the 90s.
Well, I mean, those are at least human-shaped.
You know, that's actually, honestly, more sensible than a couch.
Could you name the two men here?
Yeah, this is my friend Steve and Brian.
What the fuck?
Beautiful.
Okay.
Alright, here we go.
Let's move on.
Alright, so the truth of the matter is that Vance did not write about fucking a couch.
And, you know, just broadly, just to do just like a higher sort of like, you know, 50,000 foot level.
I think like fact checking this claim, like in the media and generally is important as a matter of routine.
If false claims get popular, you should like write about them.
And sort of put them in proper context and talk about what the relation to the truth is.
That's fine.
But at the same time, it's kind of futile and beside the point because the majority of the people spreading this claim or making jokes or memes don't really believe he fucked a couch and frankly don't care whether or not he did.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's just something he could have done.
It's like with right-wingers where, like, they'll show you, like, a photo of, like, Joe Biden asleep during, like, the debate, and it's like, well, it's not true, but they're like, but it could be true.
Like, it's the vibe of something that would happen.
My favorite part about this point in Travis's writing and thinking is that he's, like, slowly putting on the robe of the philosopher, and this is just the jumping-off point for, like, a much deeper conversation about truth.
Yeah, you know, I think that probably the big reason why it took off, besides like you mentioned, like it's pretty believable, is that it's also, you know, kind of tame.
It's not accusing him of committing a crime.
It's not accusing him of necessarily doing anything, even that's immoral.
It's just, you know, doing something that's, I don't know, creepy or weird or unusual.
I don't know.
I mean, you can't... First of all, if we were all forced to write about the weirdest sexual shit we did when we were like little kids, I mean, I'm sure nobody would come out unscathed.
Yeah, and it's not like there isn't like sort of weird shit in that book.
I saw someone post a clip about how he had like a, when I was in the third grade, I thought that I was gay sort of thing.
And his grandma was like, do you want to suck dick?
And he was like, no.
She's like, so you're not gay.
And he wrote that in his book.
That's a great grandma move, man.
My grandma just didn't have those kinds of chops to just be like, do you want to suck dick?
The only questions that my grandmother was asking was, you know, do you have to go make?
Like poopy?
Yeah.
There's like probably seven Jewish people who listen to the podcast who are going to laugh really hard at that joke.
Make.
You have to go make, like, you have to make a poo.
No, no, we don't need more.
I mean, we got it.
We need less.
All right, so let's talk about where this claim came from.
Because, you know, its origin and its evolution and how it started and what it became, I think it's pretty interesting.
So the claim originated on July 15th when the Twitter user known as RickRudesCavs tweeted this very amusingly specific falsehood.
Can't say for sure he might be the first VP pick to have admitted in a New York Times bestseller to fucking an inside out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions.
Vance.
Hillbilly Elegy.
Pages 179 to 181.
Okay, my favorite part of this is that he went on for three pages about fucking the club.
You've been listening to a sample of a premium episode of the QAA Podcast.
For access to the full episode, as well as all past premium episodes and all of our podcast miniseries, go to patreon.com slash QAA.
Travis, why is that such a good deal?
Well, Jake, you get hundreds of additional episodes of the QAA Podcast for just $5 per month.
For that very low price, you get access to over 200 premium episodes, plus all of our miniseries.
That includes 10 episodes of Man Clan with Julian and Annie, 10 episodes of Perverse with Julian and Liv, 10 episodes of The Spectral Voyager with Jake and Brad, plus 20 episodes of Trickle Down with me, Travis View.
It's a bounty of content and the best deal in podcasting.
Travis, for once, I agree with you.
And I also agree that people could subscribe by going to patreon.com slash QAA.
