Trump’s Millennial VP Pick Left a Facebook Pic Up of Himself Passed Out Drunk in College

How embarassing!

Passing Grade

An embarrassing Facebook photo of Donald Trump's vice president running mate JD Vance has publicly surfaced, showing the Ohio Republican politician apparently passed out drunk on the floor while in college.

Snopes went as far as to verify the authenticity of the 2007 photo, on which Vance himself seemingly confirms in a comment that he was indeed inebriated at the time, when he was a student at Ohio State University.

"You [sic] Danielle, this might be my first official blackout, I don't remember being asleep at all," he wrote from a private Facebook account several days after the photo was posted on the social media site.

Online commentators on Facebook are now having laughs over the photo.

"Funny thing is things like this will become more common, you will see photos that people posted long before they got into politics," said another.

As Gizmodo points out, that commentator has it right. People like JD Vance, who's 39 years old, are considered millennials and have lived a great majority of their lives online. And that means the inevitable embarrassing youthful photo will be made public if you ever become a bold face name in the news.

But while millennials and younger will shrug at these youthful antics, older generations who are more likely to vote may not look too kindly on the misadventures of youngsters like Vance, a rising hopeful in the Republican Party — making it a cautionary tale to anyone backing young candidates today.

Online Crumbs

Also, the Facebook photo is part of an extensive internet paper trail that paints Vance as an ambitious but opportunistic person who will betray his previous values for political gain.

Evidence of this is Vance's past friendship with a transgender friend, who felt betrayed by Vance's more right wing turn on issues such as gender-affirming care. The messages between them also revealed that Vance previously had more negative views about the police, which is the opposite image Vance projects now.

Besides his transformation from a Never Trumper to Trump's running mate, there are more eyeopening crumbs that Vance has left online.

One of the most notable is his now-infamous tirade against childless cat ladies. But what's probably more damning is Vance following two notorious radical right-wing writers: Steve Sailer, who's argued that Black people have lower IQs, and blogger Curtis Yarvin, who's proposed that a tyrannical monarchy replace the American republic system of government.

Put it all together, and the lesson is this: regardless of how high they climb, anyone who's lived their life online is going to leave a detailed tapestry of phases, experiments, and changing beliefs. Whether voters will let that slide is anyone's guess.

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