'Get off the couch': Walz's JD Vance joke throws dirt. Some say it's about time

An obscene hoax targeting Sen. J.D. Vance took over the internet last month after former President Donald Trump selected the Ohio Republican as his running mate. The hoax, based on a doctored page from Vance’s memoir, involves a couch and is as false as it is unprintable.

That didn’t stop Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz from giving the nasty and wildly popular meme prime time play Tuesday night at a raucous Democratic rally in Philadelphia.

“I can't wait to debate the guy—that is, if he's willing to get off the couch and show up,” Walz told a crowd of 14,000 people – and millions more on TV – after Vice President Kamala Harris introduced him as her vice-presidential pick. “See what I did there?”

Social media is thick with lies and misinformation aimed at major politicians, with Democrats – including President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris – dogged by false conspiracies alleging some of the worst crimes imaginable .

So why did Walz, whose brand leans heavily on Midwestern decency , inject that hint of slime into his speech Tuesday? And what does it say that the Democratic ticket is willing to traffic in a denigrating hoax?

'Total war' or political misstep?

“For years, the Republicans have had a blitzkrieg and the Democrats have had a zitskrieg,” said Hank Scheinkopf, a New York Democratic consultant. “That’s done. There are no more gentlemen's agreements. This is total war.”

In this line of thinking, no amount of fact-checking or “When they go low, we go high” buoyancy is going to get the Harris-Walz ticket to victory against a conspiracy-mongering opponent like Trump.

On Tuesday night, Trump speculated that Biden, who left the race under the weight of sinking poll numbers and worries about his age , would try to snatch back the Democratic nomination after surrendering it to “the people in the World he most hates.”

“I hear there is a big movement to bring back ‘Crooked Joe,’ ” Trump said in an all-caps post on Truth Social, even as Harris pulled even with him in national polls.

The only answer to Trump’s falsehoods , some Democrats say, is to hit him and Vance where it hurts, even if that means amplifying a ribald lie.

“The Republicans are not going to get a pass,” Scheinkopf said. “As tough as they get, this guy will get,” he said of the stocky Minnesota governor. “People should stop wringing their hands.”

Dems getting Trumpy?

Others say Walz misstepped by taking the low road in that energized moment in Philadelphia.

“I don’t know why a newly minted vice presidential candidate, in the middle of a very successful rollout, would stoop like that,” said Ron Fournier, a Detroit-based public relations consultant and former political journalist.

While “the crowd loved it, Democratic activists love it,” Fournier said, the Harris campaign risks alienating independents and undecideds in an election that could be determined by small groups of voters in a few swing states. “Why do something that might turn them off? The Democrats can beat Trump without being Trump,” Fournier said.

For Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Walz’ couch comment was par for the course.

"I think the American people see through it, " the chair of the House Judiciary Committee told USA TODAY ''The American people see that J.D. Vance has lived the American dream.”

Walz, in a deft act of political judo , became a rising Democratic star this summer by using some of Trump and Vance’s statements on abortion, race, and gender to brand the Republican Party as “weird” and outside the American mainstream.

If he went too far on Tuesday night, that’s just fine, some Democrats say.

“For 2 years we had to hear that Joe Biden was an international super criminal mastermind from Despicable Me 3,” Rep. Jared Moscowitz, D-Fla., wrote on social media , referring to fizzled Republican claims of a so-called "Biden crime family." “You will listen to (the) couch story.”

Walz didn't repeat the couch crack at a swing state appearance with Harris in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on Wednesday afternoon. But a clip of the one-liner posted to governor's account on X was still up − and had been viewed 5 million times.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Get off the couch': Walz's JD Vance joke throws dirt. Some say it's about time