If you’ve been on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter today, you’ve probably seen it. Republicans and other far-right extremists have been posting yassified photos of JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, and a very weird dude. Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia even posted an altered photo of Vance, making the vice presidential candidate slimmer with higher cheekbones and stronger jaw. Why are they doing this? Your guess is as good as ours. But Republicans are definitely not beating the weirdo allegations.
“Gm,” Collins wrote along with the yassified Vance photo on Wednesday, an abbreviation for “good morning.”
Gm. pic.twitter.com/Koe8f0uhnF
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) October 2, 2024
The tweet has been appended with a note that explains Vance’s appearance has been digitally altered. And plenty of others have shared the original photo before it was yassified. But it’s still not clear why this particular photo has taken off among far-right users of X.
Rep. Collins has a long history of embracing far-right ideas and received national attention earlier this year when he replied to an account known for its antisemitism. An X account called @GarbageHuman24 tweeted “In case you were wondering, yes she is,” about a reporter from the Washington Post. The question, given the extremist cesspool that Twitter has become in the Elon Musk era, was apparently “is she Jewish?” Collins responded with “Never was a second thought,” though Collins insisted in a follow-up tweet that his response shouldn’t be interpreted the way that everyone else interpreted it on the social media platform.
“I guess pointing out that a Washington Post journo excusing crime because she believes USA is on ‘stolen land’ makes her a garbage human is anti-Semitic? Y’all just see stuff that ain’t there,” Collins wrote.
Collins has also posted approving references to fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet of Chile, writing in February about one New Yorker he didn’t like, “Or we could buy him a ticket on Pinochet Air for a free helicopter ride back.” Pinochet was known for throwing political dissidents out of helicopters as a form of execution.
Never was a second thought.
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) March 3, 2024
It’s not clear if Collins created the manipulated Vance photo that’s going viral on Wednesday or if he simply found it somewhere else online. His office didn’t respond to questions emailed on Wednesday afternoon. But the tweet has inspired others to imagine what Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate, might look like if he got yassified too. And rather than giving Walz chiseled cheekbones, the yassified version of the Minnesota governor just makes him look like a younger version of himself. Walz is bald, but the yassified version gave him a full head of hair, for instance.
https://t.co/VDNGP0Y9mV pic.twitter.com/lnnGIlrZxd
— Seth Grahame-Smith (@sethgs) October 2, 2024
Then you have the people who have really taken it a step further. For example, one X user called @DaveMcNamee3000 tweeted “For every 100 likes I will turn JD Vance into a progressively apple cheeked baby.” The results are about what you’d expect.
— 7/11 Truther (@DaveMcNamee3000) October 2, 2024
— 7/11 Truther (@DaveMcNamee3000) October 2, 2024
— 7/11 Truther (@DaveMcNamee3000) October 2, 2024
That’s the internet for you. Republican members of Congress make it weird and then the good people of our worldwide web make it weirder, creating more content for the weirdest Republicans to latch onto in a never-ending circle of strangeness. Good work, everybody.
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