JD Vance, no fan of gender-neutral bathrooms, was photographed in his high school yearbook next to three girls posing in front of urinals in a bathroom during his senior year.

    • Dadd Volante@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      For normal people? It doesn’t matter in the slightest.

      For MAGA? Who knows. Probably something something trans ruining society

    • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I am very glad this community seems to feel the same. I was on a reddit post earlier and everyone was acting like this is some sort of damning evidence…it looks like a high school yearbook photo that doesn’t matter at all. I thought I was taking crazy pills.

  • forrcaho@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Ghod, I hope “Occupy Democrats” doesn’t run with this. They made a big deal out of Josh Hawley’s cross-dressing photos, and I was like “no, that’s one thing that should be totally fine”

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      When the people trying to criminalize crossdressing are caught crossdressing, we should make sure everyone knows.

      • forrcaho@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Did you read the piece? Although they claimed they were chastising him for “hypocrisy”, they never pointed out that cross-dressing is, in fact, ok – and the salacious way they treated it made it clear that the author thought him cross-dressing was scandalous.

        • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          It’s a news article. It told the objective truth. While I agree with the assessment that there’s nothing wrong with crossdressing, I commend TDB for not saying that explicitly, because it would have downgraded this article from objective news to an opinion piece, and this information is best served as fact, not opinion.

  • ATDA@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Weird photo.

    I mean I don’t care about the bathroom stuff, he’s just weird.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    3 months ago

    This is high school stuff. Humorous for the yearbook, not a big deal even with his current position on trans people. I’m far more concerned about him being supportive of book writers on fascist movements. As Obama has said in the past, stay focused. We don’t need to make things more than they are when there’s bad stuff readily available to attack.

  • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I went to a summer camp in the 80s and 90s and we had this big event where the camp was separated into groups and each given a country. There were a ton of events, but some of the events were writing a song about the country and then another where you would act out some spirit event for the country. Always points for being dressed up with “traditional” clothing from the country.

    It was a wretched hive of cultural appropriation and stereotypes. The song I remember the most is about how everyone was starving in Ethiopia. I saw some pictures of us all dressed and man oh man, if I were running for office those would be incredibly embarrassing.

    Know what I know now, I realize how wrong the whole thing was and doesn’t represent me at all 30 years later. In fact I even stand against these things now.

    One could easily look at these and claim im some massive hypocrite. But the reality is that I was a dumb teen having fun and now I’ve grown up.

    On some level, I feel bad for people who think we should hold shit that happened as a teenager against us…like were you not out having fun being an impetous dumbass? Is these nothing you did as a teenager that you wouldn’t do now or think is wrong?

    • n0m4n@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I agree with the teen stuff. At some point, we expect that people quit the dumb, attention seeking behavior. If they don’t learn, it becomes weird. It also is why the weird meme sticks so hard. It is MAGA signature brand.

      TLDR: Kleenex became synonymous for tissues. MAGA is weird in the same way.

    • twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      I basically agree with you, but the subtext is a little different.

      I don’t think this photo is damning in any way. It looks like some kids having fun in a pretty typical way. It’s pretty normal for kids to “joke,” and play around with gender. But this dude had some fun as a teen and now he’s trying his damnedest to ensure no one ever gets to express themselves in a way that is incongruous with their agab. It’s worth pointing out that that’s shitty for some specific reasons.

      • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        He’s a piece of shit because his policies are terrible. Whether or not his current actions are congruent with his actions as a teen, which is true for most all of us, are two separate things.

        I don’t believe he’s genuine, but if he is, like I am with my current beliefs, stupidity as kid shouldn’t be held as some evidence against who he is now.

        Don’t get me wrong, when I first saw this my reaction was “he’s the gift that keeps on giving” but after some introspection, the more I think about it, the less I like it.

        • AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          See that’s just it I don’t think this picture shows that he was stupid as a kid I think it shows that he’s unwilling to grant the freedom of self-expression and self-discovery that he went through to kids today.

          It’s not his participation in this picture that is damning in any way, It’s who he is now that damns him.

          The kid in this picture was doing normal kid shit, I can’t even figure out why someone might be offended by it but I know a Republican WOULD immediately reach for their pearlsif they saw this picture thinking it was taken recently. They would call it wokeness, and attribute it to the deep state.

          It seems like JD Vance hasn't always been a creeper weirdo, and maybe at one point in his life people found him funny.

        • twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          That’s a good point. It’s just kinda funny because my reaction to it is basically “wow. maybe he actually used to be a real human.”

          I think probably this just illustrates that he’s not genuine. That said I like your reflection that past behaviour should not be used as evidence against who a person is currently. That’s probably a good baseline, even if the past evidence could actually be viewed in a positive light.

          Anyways. Thanks for the thoughtful exchange.

    • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’ve always said that you can’t just take one piece of a person’s life out of context to judge them. You have to look at the complete picture. You from 30 years ago doesn’t represent who you are today. BUT…it can inform a complete picture.

      Remember the news articles about teenaged Mitt Romney holding a classmate down and forcibly cutting the kid’s hair? By itself, it just said Romney was a jerk as a kid. If Romney turned into an upstanding person over the years, it would be unfair to judge him based on what he did as a teenager. But we have the family dog incident and the numerous Bain articles to add to his teenaged antics, and we can build a complete picture of him, a picture that shows year after year, he was a jerk that liked to lord it over ‘inferiors’. We harped on that, all the way to his 47% comment, to illustrate that he thinks people who aren’t multi-millionaire hedge-fund conservatives should shut up and take the boot to the face. We convinced enough people in 2012 that despite Obama’s handling of 2009 through 2012, Obama should get a second chance rather than let “Better Than Thou” Romney get into office.

      JD Vance (and his boss) fit in the same boat. We’re NOT just hammering him based on the fact that he did stupid stuff as a kid. We’re pointing the hypocrisy of getting all up in other people’s business while having some really weird shit going on in his business. And his history of telling other people what to do extends all the way to the present day.

      In short, Vance hasn’t changed, so his teenage antics are fair game.

      • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        I don’t see how this picture shows that he was getting up in other people’s business while a kid. Besides, why not just focus on the BS he is doing now? That should be enough.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    3 months ago

    “Kamala Harris created inflation that’s crushing American families, caused a historic crisis at our southern border, and allowed deadly fentanyl to flood into communities across our country, (complete bullshit) and this is what the media is worried about,” a spokesperson for Vance told The Daily Beast in a statement when asked about the photo.

    “A goofy high school yearbook from over 20 years ago? Get a life,” the spokesperson concluded (I actually 100% agree with this.)

    This is just fucking stupid. There are half a billion more important things to discuss, we don’t need this kind of stupidity in the national conversation.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      3 months ago

      You might actually be right for all the wrong reasons, actually. This IS a critically important issue for many voters, as JD Vance is making the subject of this photo strictly illegal with criminal charges for minors or even justifying “self-defence” style assaults on minors.

      However, anybody who cares about this issue likely isn’t a swing voter, we’re not going to attract moderates with this sort of publicity.

  • Aolley@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    who cares about this? I mean if it’s something he’s still into yeah but teenagers will take lots of photos that are not to be taken seriously

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    The three other girls in the picture were the president, treasurer, and secretary, according to the outlet.

    Are they trying to bait him??!! 😂