“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” — Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance
I think this is my duty. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the volume of sinkholes opened daily by the words of JD Vance, then, by God, I will invent them. Some of the details might not be exactly accurate. The part about the sinkhole, or the number of people who fall into it. But I know that JD Vance opens his mouth and bad things follow, and it is my responsibility to make a story about that.
Sometimes, without warning, at the end of a speech or a cable news hit, JD Vance will activate his neck frill (picture one of those lizards, but taupe) and hiss. A corrosive acid will shoot from his throat and onto the faces of anyone he perceives as a threat. It is important that we keep saying this! It is important that we keep saying this, or people might not know that it was happening. It is not literally happening, but isn’t it a compelling visual? Isn’t it a powerful story?
And I feel a deep sense of obligation to all those people who have been dissolved by acid, whether they exist or not. I almost feel more of a sense of obligation to them if they don’t exist; fictional characters can be real in a way that real people never are.
There are things that are true and there are things that are real and there is this: my bone-deep conviction that JD Vance once spent a whole interview very slowly coughing up a series of large eggs. No one knew where the eggs came from. When they hatched, awful things climbed out of them and blinked and slunk into the shadows and disappeared. We have never been able to track them down, but the world is worse now because of what came out of the eggs. They caused three earthquakes, and New Jersey no longer exists. Some people are saying it does, but the important thing is the story. And all because JD Vance wouldn’t stop coughing up those eggs! People deserve to know.
It’s so important, as JD Vance told us, to create these stories, to call attention to what’s really happening. It can be a powerful thing, to open your mouth and create a story. Maybe I should tell another story about what happens when JD Vance opens his mouth. A story where elementary schools and colleges and hospitals are receiving bomb threats — by an eerie coincidence, in the very place that JD Vance has singled out in his stories. A story where JD Vance opened his mouth and frightening things happened, and sinister forces were unleashed to walk about. But do those stories count if they’re true?
