Joseph Zambon
J.D. Vance and Chris LaCivita teamed up to orchestrate what might be the weirdest campaign strategy of this election cycle. Combining Vance’s alleged upholstery obsession with LaCivita’s evil political wizardry, they’re strategizing to win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes.
Couch Love in “Hillbilly Elegy”
The foolishness started on X (formerly known as Twitter), where someone conjured up a wild story that Vance confessed his deep, personal affection for a couch in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. The story is blatantly false. It has as much truth as Bigfoot moonlighting as a Walmart greeter. But that didn’t stop the story from exploding on social media like popcorn in a microwave. Suddenly, Vance was the internet’s favorite punchline.
Among the social media’s response to the story, some enterprising soul in San Francisco jumped on Craigslist, selling “JD VANCE’S USED COUCH!!!” – “well-loved but still in great condition.” Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz piled on, saying the vice presidential debate would happen “…if he’s [Vance] willing to show up and get off the couch.” Vance even played along, telling a crowd in Nevada, “Now, I would call her [his wife] up here to come and speak, but then I think I’d have to sleep on the couch tonight.”
Stephen Colbert Chimes In: “Adam and Eve, Not Raymour & Flanigan”
The internet couch-spiracy hit peak ridiculousness when Stephen Colbert stepped in. In his nightly monologue, Colbert half-seriously warned against amplifying falsehoods, saying, “Even a well-meaning fact-check can wind up amplifying a false story, so all of us—please—have a responsibility to stop the spread of vicious rumors.” “J.D. Vance is a very religious conservative. He knows it’s Adam and Eve, not Raymour & Flanigan.” The Associated Press fact-checked the whole episode but pulled it 24 hours later.
From Couchgate to Cancun Cruz
You’d think that would be the end, but the internet decided Vance’s couch shenanigans were the new “Cancun Cruz.” As you might recall, freezing weather in Texas strained and then broke Texas’ electrical grid, resulting in widespread suffering and numerous deaths. Senator Cruz chose that moment to head for the hills, going to Cancun on a family vacation rather than face the drudgery of assisting his constituents. For the negligence and disdain he showed his fellow Texans, he was nicknamed “Cancun Cruz.” This self-inflicted political damage was an absolute disaster for Cruz. Democrats frequently refer to him as “Cancun Cruz.” during his current re-election campaign.
And so, the comparison was born: Vance had his couches, Cruz had Cancun, and the internet couldn’t get enough of either. It’s as if they were saying, “Sure, abandoning your state in a crisis is bad, but cozying up to a couch? That’s just unforgivable!”
Enter Chris LaCivita: Swiftboats, Cemeteries, and Sofa Strategies
If one man knows how to turn a scandal into a campaign asset, it’s Chris LaCivita. This guy is the evil genius who turned John Kerry’s distinguished Vietnam war record into a political liability in 2004 with his fabricated “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” campaign. More recently, LaCivita orchestrated the Arlington National Cemetery debacle, where Trump gave a thumbs-up photo op over a soldier’s grave, breaking every rule of decorum and decency in Arlington National Cemetery. LaCivita even threatened a cemetery official who dared enforce the cemetery’s rules against political exploitation of our nation’s fallen heroes.
But what’s a cemetery scandal when you’ve got “Couchgate” to address? Like the best magicians, LaCivita knew he needed to misdirect the electorate. And Vance rolled out the truly bizarre claim that legal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating pet dogs and cats.
A Bizarre Pivot: Dogs, Cats, and Misdirection
Apparently, Trump hadn’t been clued in that eating pet dogs and cats strategy was entirely fabricated. During his embarrassingly poor debate performance against Vice President Harris, he announced that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating pet dogs and cats. He knew this was true because he’d seen it on TV.
The Trump campaign dominated the next several news cycles with this ridiculous claim. But it may have backfired against Trump. The claim he repeated is so outlandish that it’s resurrected widespread discussion about Trump’s advanced age and diminished mental competence.
But truth will out. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked JD Vance if Haitians in Ohio, the state he represents in the Senate, were eating dogs and cats, he admitted making it all up. “The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. 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,” the Ohio senator said.”
Suddenly, people weren’t talking about JD Vance’s infatuation with couches. They were too busy worrying if Fido and Whiskers were in danger from immigrant hordes. And the focus shifted from JD Vance and couches to the tried and true issue of immigration.
Immigration is a winning issue for Republicans in this election cycle. And it’s always been easy to demonize immigrants. It’s a strategy used for hundreds of years, ignoring the fact that American preeminence largely derives from the energy immigrants bring to America.
As President Reagan said in his last speech, “For it’s the great life force of each generation of new Americans that guarantees that America’s triumph shall continue unsurpassed into the next century and beyond…This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness… we continuously renew and enrich our nation.”
The most aggressive border security and migration overhaul bill in decades was negotiated last February by a bipartisan group of senators including Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla. (a conservative and Southern Baptist minister), Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. The proposed bill would have even given emergency authority to close the border if too many migrants tried to cross.
But Trump killed it. Trump cynically told his minions not to advance the bill. He wanted to use immigration as an issue for this campaign. Trump-controlled Speaker Mike Johnson said, “If this bill reaches the House, it will be dead on arrival.” And so it was. Trump and the Republicans wanted an election issue more than they wanted to solve the problem of the border.
The North Carolina Connection: The Ultimate Couch Campaign
Which brings us to North Carolina. It emerged as a critical battleground state in this election. Trump carried North Carolina in the 2020 election but polling shows Trump and Harris within 2-3 points. North Carolina could go either way.
What if JD Vance’s couch saga was part of a plan to win North Carolina? Because of the false narrative, when someone thinks of upholstered furniture, they think of JD Vance.
North Carolina is a major center for furniture manufacturing—couches, recliners, the works! Trump was in North Carolina just the other day lamenting the decline of furniture manufacturing in North Carolina.
It would be a brilliant strategy to turn the embarrassment of JD Vance’s “Couchgate” into an appeal to the furniture workers of North Carolina.
Does this seem farfetched? No more farfetched than turning a Vietnam war hero and recipient of three Purple Heart Medals, the Silver Star Medal and the Bronze Star into an alleged liar and war criminal. That was the work of Trump senior political advisor Chris LaCivita whose name will forever be synonymous with “Swiftboating.”
Once Republicans find a campaign strategy that works, they’ll use it again and again. So it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility that LaCivita is turning JD Vance’s embarrassment – even though none of it is true – into a political advantage.
Conclusion: From Fabrications to Furniture Fame
Chris LaCivita and J.D. Vance have done the impossible—they’ve turned an election cycle into an absurd, living meme – a political campaign shaped by couches, internet legends, and the willingness to embrace the ridiculous. And if J.D. Vance ends up fluffing couch cushions in the Oval Office, we’ll have witnessed another LaCivita magic act.