Vance Jokes About Ass in Texas Town Hall as Midterm Losses Mount

Vice President JD Vance made a joke about a man’s rear end in a Texas town hall one week before the midterm elections. The comment came during a friendly exchange with Fox News host Jesse Watters and a supportive audience. It happened after a college student asked how young Republicans expected people to afford starting families given high living costs. Vance’s quip about Jon Husted’s ass became a symbol of a campaign that prioritized humor over policy.

The student, Kate White, was the vice president of the Turning Point USA chapter at Texas Christian University. She presented Vance with a direct question about the affordability of life for young conservatives. Vance eventually answered the question, blaming institutional investors and 20 million illegal aliens for rising housing costs. He also admitted that Republicans had not paid enough attention to affordability. The sequence of the conversation revealed a strategy that treated serious economic concerns as material for a gag.

For a decade, Republicans have followed the lead of Steve Bannon in treating politics as downstream from culture. This approach drove the right’s conflicts with big tech and social media platforms. Elon Musk’s purchase of X created a conservative space where right-wing voices held direct influence over those in power. Some on the right claim X is the only platform that truly represents the people, unlike left-leaning alternatives such as Bluesky.

MAGA leaders operated within an online echo chamber that convinced them the public supported their agenda, even when polling suggested otherwise. They overlooked valid base concerns about affordability in favor of sharing memes. The midterm results showed the consequences of this disconnect. Republicans lost historically red states including Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina. They won Florida by a narrow margin. The Senate race in Mississippi remained too close to call.

Vance is a prominent user of X, where he follows accounts with names like Raw Egg Nationalist and Bronze Age Pervert. White House aides and congressional staffers also inhabit this digital ecosystem. John Ganz calls this trend groyperfication, a term derived from followers of influencer Nick Fuentes. American Moment, a training program for young conservatives, reportedly screens out groypers to maintain professional standards.

Kingsley Wilson, the press secretary for the Department of War, has posted antisemitic conspiracy theories about Leo Frank. The Department of Homeland Security has shared posts featuring fascist references and white supremacist memes. These online activities contrasted with the concerns of voters who cared more about gas prices and groceries than cultural battles.

In the run-up to the election, the Department of Education promoted Malfoid, a gender-swapped version of Draco Malfoy. The Department of Homeland Security touted record lows in legal immigration. Pseudonymous posters shared memes comparing themselves to Anakin Skywalker. Elon Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars on Republican candidates and PACs, focusing his ads on culture war issues. Katie Miller, wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller, dressed as Padmé Amidala for Halloween.

Most Americans do not use X, but conservative conversations on the platform often bleed into the mainstream. Bo French, the Republican candidate for Texas railroad commissioner, lost by a large margin after posting anti-Indian memes on the site. Musk’s financial support failed to offset voter dissatisfaction with the party’s performance. One poll found that a majority of young men of all races, including young white men, voted for Democrats.

Stephen Miller told CBS News that he did not vote in the midterm election because he feared for his safety. Virginia law makes voters' home addresses public, though the Millers live on a secure military installation. Vance later posted a long analysis on X that he said was shared without input from White House officials. He claimed that pollsters told him voters cared most about the war with Iran, the cost of living, and relations with Israel.

The algorithm on X amplifies niche topics once a user interacts with them. This feedback loop mirrors how Trump consumed Fox News during his first term. MAGA leaders now rely on X to shape their reality. The platform feeds them content that reflects their existing biases, leading them to believe that the issues dominating their feeds are the primary concerns of the general electorate.