Would it “just be worse under JD Vance?”

I am begging you to be so fucking fr rn

photo published Saturday 8/30/25 by TMZ

In the wee hours of this last Friday night, when many of us were snoozing through the first free moments of the long weekend, something magical started to happen online. A horde of digital sleuths began to realize something all at once: wait… has anyone seen 47 in a hot second? In fact, they hadn’t. And now the president’s weekend was mysteriously free: his calendar absent of public appearances. And though his online golf tracker was showing weekends on the links without many interruptions, photos and video were scarce, if they existed at all. There were no late night calls to Fox News, cancelled flights, a newfound interest in staying firmly on the ground in DC, and a host of striking physical changes that even the most MAGA-pilled die-hard would have a hard time ignoring. Why has the kaleidoscopic ink blot bruise on his hand been growing week after week? Why is he struggling to walk in a straight line? Why is his voice growing softer, and his former appetite for public, energetic rallies waning? And now? Radio silence from one of the men least capable of staying quiet in recorded human history.

If this were someone I loved, it would be “call the cops for a drive-by wellness check” time.

Is it possible that his disappearance means something sinister?

Is there a chance he’s… not fine?

By Saturday morning, a photo appeared of Trump at a golf course in Virginia, taking much of the wind out of the swirling speculation. But as the day wore on, the theories ballooned again. Was this photo from this weekend, or 2019? Some were saying 2023. If that were true, his granddaughter would appear to be younger, wouldn’t she? Does it look like him? Where is the bruise? Is this a double? Doctored? AI? Why was Trump, a man who never carries anything, conspicuously lugging his own suit jacket on a hangar, like a soap actress trying to conceal a pregnancy behind a basket of laundry?

Personally, I have been locked the fuck in since I woke up to the digital conspiracy convention on Saturday morning. I feel the same part of me ignited by this that was once set alight by a particularly gripping fan fiction. The intrigue, the mystery, the community, the schadenfreude— I’ll take twenty more chapters, thank you.

I made my own video about the higgledy-piggledy right away, when we were starting to learn that he might maybe be okay perhaps, where I asked my followers (and now 400,000 other strangers across two platforms) what song we should get ready to launch to the top of the US charts, in the same way that the UK made “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” an iTunes bestseller after the 2013 passing of Margaret Thatcher. The playlist I made with suggestions is now almost three hours long, and I average another 15 recs every two to three minutes.

The discourse is discoursing

It’s safe to say that people from sea to shining sea are having a far different reaction to the potential demise of this particular leader of the free world than they did when Lyndon B. Johnson was taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One in the hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

My father, who was barely forming long term memories in 1963, has told me many times about the black cloud of hopelessness that seemed to shroud the nation after that fateful day in Dallas more than sixty years ago. It stands in stark contrast to the energy permeating the atmosphere now, where bursts of joy are sprouting like dandelions in concrete.

I want to say, for the record, that I don’t think he’s kicked the bucket… yet.

I have no idea why the white house isn’t nipping this in the bud right away, but I seriously doubt the cohesive conspiratorial capabilities of this administration. I am enjoying, however, picturing the halls of the west wing right now if there IS some major tragedy that is simmering behind the outward appearance of stonewalled silence. I like to think that the theme from Curb Your Enthusiasm is underscoring the whole affair.

It’s also easy to see why this bizarre situation is a breeding ground for conspiracy. Why won’t the general public accept the health and vitality of our president as undisputed fact? Well, because these people historically fucking suck at telling us the truth. This is the same administration that expanded the blast radius of a hurricane with a sharpie, tells us that every lackluster ill-attended rally and inagural address was actually ten thousand people stronger than our eyes can see, and has a habit of publishing embarrassingly bullshit medical reports about our president’s physical health. We are turning to conspiracy because conspiracy is all we have. We’re less and less trusting of legacy media as we watch them bow to every gentle breeze from Pennsylvania Avenue, and official press releases and web pages from the motherfucking WHITE HOUSE now read like live journals written by 15-year-old edge lords. We don’t trust them because they are untrustworthy.

There was a period of time, way back when I was a young public high school teacher, when I used to pass the time during my free period walking in large loops around the school grounds, shooting the shit with my favorite gabbing buddy: a government and economics teacher. We talked politics quite a bit, and we were starting to get nervous about the upcoming election. Was it possible that this Trump guy could actually win? We compared notes and talked through every terrible thing we knew about him: the failed businesses and unpaid debts, the sexual assault allegations, the history of real estate discrimination, and the malicious public menacing of the Central Park Five. My friend paused for a moment at the top of a long flight of stairs, and he turned to me with a haunted look that I’ve never forgotten, though we’ve long since lost touch.

”I think…” he said, his hand on the railing, “I think I might hate him more than I’ve ever hated another living person.”

And that was before he was elected… twice.

The comment section on my “Big Beautiful Playlist” video is now nearing four digits, and I think it’s time to address some of the most common nay-saying concerns, because BOY do I have feelings. So here we go:

1. ”If it does happen, it would just be worse under JD Vance”

Just a crusty heartbeat from the presidency

Maybe, but probably not. One of the most inexplicable parts of the Trump phenomenon is how he’s able to wriggle out of impossibly binding situations— there’s some kind of extra lubricated slime he must excrete that keeps him out of accountability, or else never leaves a box around him locked for long. His policies aren’t popular, and his scorched earth strategies leave smoking wreckage in his wake 24/7, but his cult of personality manages to keep his head above water. Trump sycophants haven’t given us a reason to believe that their love is unconditional in any other direction, however, and JD Vance has the charisma of a festival port-a-potty. I don’t think the whole house of cards comes tumbling down the day we get THE announcement, but I also don’t believe that we’re going to start seeing AI portraits of a shirtless and ripped JD Vance flying off the back of every RAM 2500 the morning after. Better? Could be. Worse? No.

2. ”I’m not disappointed he’s alright because I’m not some neoliberal who thinks everything would just magically be fixed if he kicks it”

Let people enjoy things, Dave.

Really though, if the standard is we’re only allowed to celebrate once every objectively evil person has snuffed it all at once, we’re going to be keeping the party hats and champagne in the basement for the rest of our lives. If you don’t have feelings about the T Swift engagement, this is really the first bit of ear-perking news we’ve had in a while. There’s this fear that a lot of activists get where they believe the rest of us are going to check out from “the work” the moment something goes right for us, but it’s baseless and exhausting. If this isn’t exciting for you, feel free to scroll over to horse shoeing or sheep sheering or water color tutorials without us, but refrain from projecting your premature shame onto a population that deserves a moment of titillation. We’re tired, boss. Let us have something. ACAB also means the cop in your brain.

3. ”You shouldn’t wish death on anyone, no matter how bad they are”

Example of an upstanding American who wants me to “find my compassion”

Respectfully, fuck all the way off with this one.

I spent my entire career in education serving the children of immigrants, the children of families living below the poverty line, the children of the unhoused, and the children of the working class. I’ve had queer kids and disabled kids, and DREAMers. I’ve taught students when they were seven months pregnant, students who have had abortions, and students who have been abused. There is uncountable evil in the world, and no one is ever going to tell me how to feel about it when a source of that evil finally shrugs off their wrinkled cape of mortality and takes a one-way elevator to the molten core of the earth.

It’s likely it hasn’t happened yet, but I’m keeping the champagne chilled just in case.

This is the part where I tell you that becoming a subscriber (especially a paid subscriber) is the number one way you can support my work. I also wrote a book! You should buy it and read it!