Angry, rude and addicted to web troll-ery, the vice-president has the Make America Awful Again portfolio. Seems a perfect fit
You probably already know that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that just begs to be slapped. But honestly—how has this word not gone global? At the very least, how has it not been fully Americanized? Surely, if it had, the dictionary definition would come with a picture of none other than U.S. Vice President JD Vance—flawlessly embodying the role of worst American at your hotel.
You can see it now: breakfast on the terrace, every other guest hunched forward, shoulders raised, whispering, “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Now stretch that feeling out for four years.
Of course, I say Vance’s face would accompany the dictionary entry for Backpfeifengesicht, but then again—what is JD Vance’s face? The internet has taken such creative liberties with it that nobody seems to remember anymore. His real face is buried somewhere on page four of your mental Google search, way past the memes: Vance as a swollen man-boy, Vance as a Minion in a suit, Vance as a bearded egg. Somewhere in the depths of the algorithm, there’s an unedited photo of him—probably with eyeliner.
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if an American news outlet accidentally ran one of the meme versions because even their picture editor forgot what he actually looks like. Imagine the ensuing media meltdown: “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big, purple stain.”
Vance has crossed over into meme territory, and—silver lining—he’s extremely online, so he knows it. He’s practically a one-man government troll-feeding program. Please don’t cut him, Elon. The probability of the vice president personally seeing your insult is one.
And then, there’s his latest triumph: spending half the week both denying he ever suggested Britain and France were “random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years” and arguing with guys named Jeff Computers on X to prove he was adored on his recent ski trip. Just as Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did.
Legendary stuff.
From this side of the Atlantic, one thing is clear: the cultural gap between our great nations—and our great anti-elitists—is still hilariously vast. In Britain, a politician would rather confess to sexually harassing an intern than admit to going skiing. (Not that the two are mutually exclusive—many have managed both.) If a British cabinet minister ever logged onto social media like JD Vance just did and proudly declared, “Actually, I had a great time on the slopes!”, that would be the end of him.
Let’s be honest—our right-wing politicians still dedicate at least two days a week to drive-by sneering at “latte drinkers,” apparently oblivious to the fact that the only thing left in most British high streets, and quite a lot of people’s lives, is a hot milky drink at Costa. Here, ordering a cappuccino is treated like Marie Antoinette skiing past a workhouse, which might help explain why our economy is stagnant and why our many political failures play to near-empty rooms at conservative conferences in the U.S.
Vance: On Skis or Offski, Still Unbearable
But back to Vance. Whether on skis or—preferably—sodding offski, the vice president is fully succeeding in his chosen mission: to be mesmerizingly awful. Over on British army talkboards this week, I spent a delightful stretch watching U.S. veterans weigh in on JD—who, if I recall correctly, was some kind of military journalist for about 15 minutes. That wasn’t quite how they put it, of course. Real soldiers are masters of creative insults. Vance, on the other hand, is more drawn to the blunt-force stupidity best captured in his attempt to whine at Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “Did you even say thank you?”
Then again, while memes will undoubtedly keep us warm in the event of an unscheduled nuclear winter, other forms of digital manipulation are now slipping by almost unnoticed. Just a couple of years ago, people were wringing their hands over AI deepfakes and the existential threat they posed to democracy. And yet, this week, those same people were gleefully sharing synthetic videos of Zelenskyy slapping Trump in the Oval Office or Trump wailing like a toddler, as if this weren’t qualitatively different from, say, a meme of Vance as a lollipop-wielding child.
Not long ago, this sort of thing was considered corrosive, politically dangerous—even dystopian. Maybe people still feel that way. Or maybe, just like everything else, it only counts as a problem when the other side does it.
