If this is the best the Republicans can do in 2028, they’re in a real mess.
“Think about turkey.
Who really likes it? Be honest with yourselves. Who actually likes turkey? You’re all full of crap. Everyone who raised their hand. I know,” Vance said to a group of U.S. troops at Fort Campbell, Tennessee.
“Think about it.
And here’s how I know every single one of you who raised your hand is lying to me. How many times do you roast an 18-pound turkey just for fun?” Vance continued. “Just, you know, on a nice summer afternoon, we’re going to go get an 18-pound turkey.”
“Nobody does it because turkey doesn’t really taste that good,” he insisted. “
But on Thanksgiving, on the most American holiday, I got a fan over here. On the most American holiday, we’re going to cook a turkey by God because that’s what Americans do.”
“We cook this big American bird and we do all kinds of crazy things to make it taste good,” Vance went on. “
I talked to a soldier today who said she’s going to deep fry a turkey. And I’m actually going to deep fry a turkey myself tomorrow.”
“And look, here’s the thing.
If you’ve got to deep fry something to make it taste good, it probably isn’t that good,” said Vance. “That’s a pretty good rule of thumb when it comes to food. Chicken is good all the time. Chicken is good when you deep fry it, but it’s also good outside of it. But here’s the thing about Thanksgiving, it is so American because at the heart of it is the spirit of gratitude.”
Clearly, Vance was trying to charm his audience with this odd, lengthy bit but this man is a black hole of charisma.
Everything he says comes off as weird, stiff, and unnatural. He is deeply inauthentic, overwhelmingly cynical, and is simply going through the motions of what he thinks that a charming politician would say and do.
Trump, while deeply evil and an unmitigated failure as a president, at least had an instinct for riffing and working a crowd (or at least he did before the cognitive decline hit like a haymaker).
Vance doesn’t even have that low level of talent. He’s an empty suit pushed into power by Peter Thiel and the dark money oligarchs, and his presidential campaign in 2028 is going to crash and burn harder than his attempts at humor.
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