J.D. Vance Just Stole Tim Heidecker’s Hack Stand-Up Act

Tim Heidecker’s idea of the worst stand-up set in history is unironically funnier than Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s best joke.

When Donald Trump took the country by storm in 2016, it’s hard to deny that humor played a large part in his unlikely ascendancy to presidency. Trump’s nicknames for his political opponents became memes in their own right, and his rants about undocumented immigrants scored major points across many internet forums where “ironic” racism is the most popular punchline. 

However, every successful presidential ticket in our country’s history has been defined by a balancing act of strengths and weaknesses, so, to compliment the former president and current felon’s successful command of comedy for political gain, the Trump campaign's choice for VP is the biggest hack loser to ever bomb in front of a white-hot crowd who thinks that Rob Schneider is a comic genius.

Yesterday, at a rally in Middletown, Ohio, Vance attempted to dunk on the Democrats for being too woke to joke, a strategy that had never failed to elicit uproarious laughter from die-hard Trump fans before. However, the routine Vance trotted out to a sedate response from the crowd seemed to be cribbed straight from Heidecker’s 2020 special An Evening With Tim Heidecker, which is an extended parody of old, whiny, out-of-touch, anti-woke comics who cry and moan that cancel culture made audiences stop laughing at their crap material.

To Vance’s credit, he absolutely nailed the anti-comedy character — although, at his next set, Vance should probably consider that Diet Mountain Dew is a Pepsi product.

Heidecker’s “Coke vs. Pepsi” joke, which is legitimately better structured and better executed than Vance’s “I like Diet Mountain Dew, it’s good” bit, comes from Heidecker’s most ambitious satire project ever. In An Evening with Tim Heidecker, the absurdist comedy master behind Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! fully committed to the character of a lazy, arrogant, late-career rant comedian who has run out of things to say but is somehow convinced that you can't say anything nowadays. 

But even for Heidecker’s deliberately hack stage persona, the punchline of, “I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today, I’m sure they’re gonna call that racist too,” is simply too on-the-nose and would spoil the joke that the person writing the routine is trying to be as creatively unfunny as possible — though Vance’s awkward, extended attempt to milk the few pity laughs he got from the audience while forcing a laugh himself would get high grades from Heidecker for its pure, painfully cringe anti-humor.

Even so, the premise of Vance’s bit could use a little work if he really wants to write the worst joke imaginable. Or as one comedy fan wrote on Twitter, “I actually do think it’s entirely possible that JD Vance found a way to racistly drink a Diet Mountain Dew.”