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“Hacks” Stand-up Comic Deborah Vance Sets the Record Straight on Her Namesake JD Vance: A Q&A
by Debbie L. Miller
Q: So, are you and JD Vance related?
A: Good God, people keep asking me that, just because we have the same last name! Look, I don’t recall sleeping with a Kentucky backwoodsman 40 years ago, but I’ve had sex with a LOT of men, so I suppose anything’s possible. I’ve been pretty busy and could have blocked out having a son.
Q: Where did JD really grow up, then?
A: He grew up in Southern Ohio, where his role models were Li’l Abner and Snuffy Smith. Oh, come on! You know you were thinking it! In that part of the country, men are men, and dogs are nervous, if you know what I mean.
Q: So, it’s dogs for JD, right?
A: All the way! We know what he thinks about cats and the unmarried women who own them. He’s a dawg person through and through. I hear he’s got a Blue Tick Coonhound named Bubba he spends late-night couch cuddles with (yes, I said couch — he’s partial to sofas), with a carafe of Diet Mountain Dew and a pile of cheap cigars.
Q: Are your political views similar?
A: I’d rather have my gums scraped than talk politics. Basically, people assume I’m conservative, but compared to JD, I’m a friggin’ Bernie Sanders-loving, bleeding-heart liberal, left-wing PC snowflake socialist.
JD, on the other hand, is friends with a far-right fring conspiracy theorist who believes some pretty wacky stuff, like Covid is caused by snake venom, the government puts LSD in our water supply, and vaccines lead to Satan worship and homosexuality. JD wants to banish the Democratic party and all Californians to Mars. He’s convinced aliens control Kamala Harris’s brain and that immigrant zombies are selling barbequed dog and cat burritos at Ohio street fairs.
Q: Is JD honest?
A: Please! He’s a royal bullshitter and huckster! Sure, I hawk my branded fuzzy slippers on QVC, but he pedals paranoid political half-truths and lies. And, he changes his opinions asl often as I change my Cartier sunglasses. Remember when he called Trump a reprehensible idiot and compared him to Hitler? Well, now they’re besties. And, boy, is he slimy…
