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[Text/Ruan Jiaqi, Observer Network]

Vance, the Republican Party's "hotshot" who has always been considered able to help Trump in the campaign debate, unexpectedly "showed his weakness" in his first personal campaign event. He seemed to have told a failed joke in his speech, and the video clip of the speech, which was described by some American netizens as "embarrassing to the point of dipping one's toes on the ground", is going viral on social media, attracting a lot of ridicule.

According to reports from the People magazine website and CNN on the 23rd, Vance went to Middletown, Ohio, on Monday (22nd) and gave a campaign speech centered on working voters at his high school alma mater. The report said that Vance was waging a cultural war and trying to reminisce with his fellow villagers.

When complaining about the Democrats' tendency to label everything as "racist," he said: "I drank a glass of Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and another one today, and I'm sure they will say it's racist, too." There were only sporadic laughs at the scene, and Vance himself laughed so hard that he fell backwards, and did not forget to save his face, "I'm telling jokes in the front row, and you (the audience) may not hear them."

According to The Atlantic, Mountain Dew is a lemon soda that is closely associated with Appalachia and is loved by lower-class white Americans. The term "Mountain Dew Mouth" is used to refer to the serious oral problems caused by excessive soft drink intake in Appalachia. The article believes that Vance is trying to use this "symbol" of Appalachia to win over poor white Americans.

According to the New Republic magazine website, similar embarrassing scenes were prevalent during the 40-minute speech that night.

"The audience laughed politely." The New Republic magazine website said in the article that even though he was regarded as a "hometown hero", Vance still experienced an extremely embarrassing moment in Middletown. "In his sleepy speech, Vance's strange, anti-awakening baggage failed to deliver."

The article mocked that Vance's jokes were not powerful enough and sounded more like he was being lazy and trying to gain some benefits in the cultural war. And this was not the only embarrassing moment for Vance on stage. "Although there were constant laughs during the 40-minute speech, most of the laughs seemed to come from Vance himself."

The New Republic mentioned that Vance also made a joke about Harris in his speech. She had just replaced Biden, who had withdrawn from the election, to become the new Democratic presidential candidate.

"Someone told me (before) that I would debate Kamala Harris. Now, Trump is going to debate her? To be honest, I'm a little angry." After the crowd booed Harris, Vance seemed to lose his train of thought, stammering for words and suddenly laughing awkwardly.

This gave Harris, who was once criticized by Trump as "smiling like a fool," an opportunity to fight back. The Harris campaign headquarters account "KamalaHQ" quickly retweeted a clip of Vance's "soda joke," mocking the speech as "embarrassing," and said that even the Republican mouthpiece Fox News couldn't bear to watch Vance's nonsense and cut off his live broadcast midway.

The Daily Beast mocked that Harris seemed to have applied the nickname Trump gave her to Vance. When Trump attacked her as "The Laughing Kamala", the irony of Harris' campaign team calling Vance's laughter "awkward" was particularly eye-catching.

Vance and the Republican Party have not yet responded to the content of this controversial speech. On Tuesday local time, former Republican consultant Mark McKinnon expressed his concern when talking about Vance's "soda joke" during a CNN morning show, believing that his words alienated potential supporters and reduced the influence of the Republican Party. "Yes, it's really embarrassing, very embarrassing."

McKinnon joked that the embarrassing scene when he saw the video gave him PTSD: he recalled another Republican, Jeb Bush, who lost the audience after a long speech during his 2016 campaign and could only "politely and angrily" ask the audience to applaud his "wonderful speech", which was an "epic" embarrassing scene.

He believes that Harris has a good chance of winning the 2024 US presidential election and makes it an "undervalued stock."

McKinnon pointed out that Vance was chosen by the Trump campaign when they all thought Biden would be the Democratic presidential candidate. At that time, they thought they were in a good position to double down and pick someone who was very popular among MAGA base voters. "But Vance did not add other voters. He did not expand the support base at all."

According to a report by NBC, the Trump campaign took a fancy to Vance's upbringing in the industrial Midwest and used it as a selling point for Biden's turnaround in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, three key states in 2020. However, Biden has now withdrawn from the race.

Amidst the chorus of complaints, The Atlantic Monthly's interpretation was that Vance's "soda joke" might seem a bit inexplicable, but in fact it contained symbolic meaning about the history of rural white people in the United States.

"Just like in the mid-20th century, Coca-Cola and Pepsi were viewed by consumers as 'white' and 'black' drinks, respectively. Now, Sprite is sometimes considered a black soda, even though people of all races drink it. Dr. Brown's soda originated in Jewish delis in New York. La Croix sparkling water corresponds to the middle class, coastal elite groups." Similarly, the Mountain Dew soda that Vance mentioned is actually closely related to the Appalachian region in its origins, according to The Atlantic Monthly.

Before PepsiCo bought the brand rights in 1964, the word "Mountain Dew" had been passed down from generation to generation in Appalachia. In local slang, it actually meant "homemade liquor." After becoming an international brand, this soda is also the most popular in the so-called "Mountain Dew Belt" from Alabama to West Virginia. In the early days, even the glass bottle of Mountain Dew was printed with the image of a countryman, and the slogan "It will tickle your insides" was written on it. The advertisements launched in the late 1980s also had a country accent.

The article cites a 2015 magazine article by Kentucky native Sarah Baird, who wrote, “When I moved away from my hometown, it became clear to me that I should be ashamed of my love for Mountain Dew.”

The Atlantic believes that Vance's mention of Mountain Dew in his speech was essentially an attempt to reinforce his "country boy" origins in order to win over poor white voters. "Vance understands that Mountain Dew is a symbol of Appalachia, which is home to poverty, despair and drug addiction for white Americans. He uses Mountain Dew to represent this despair and the prejudice that comes with it. This is done to attract vulnerable groups in the United States who may feel that the country has abandoned them and chooses to help other equally vulnerable non-white groups. He turned the shame of drinking Mountain Dew into the source of class and racial hatred."

Some netizens complained: If Vance just said he drank Mountain Dew, it would be understandable because it is a common blue-collar drink. But it is strange that he said he drank sugar-free Mountain Dew, and this sentence alienated all voters.

However, there are also some dissatisfaction with Vance's claim to be the "spokesperson for the lower white population." Especially after the "soda joke," Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear denounced Vance as a "hypocrite" and "big liar" when he was a guest on CNN on Monday night.

He believes that whether it is Vance's autobiography "Hillbilly Elegy" that made him famous overnight eight years ago, or the current "soda jokes", they are all acts of consuming Appalachians.

According to Vance's book, before moving to Ohio, his grandparents actually lived in a small town in the eastern Appalachian region of Kentucky. He also believes that the Appalachian Mountains are his roots, and recalls in the book the change of Appalachian people from supporting the Democratic Party to supporting the Republican Party.

But in Beshear's view, he does not agree that Vance is "one of our own." "It's strange that he (Vance) joked about racism today and then mentioned diet Mountain Dew. Who drinks diet Mountain Dew? But seriously, he is not a local, he is not from Kentucky. This person may only come for a while in the summer, for weddings or funerals or something like that."

"Then he claims to be from Eastern Kentucky and writes a book about Kentucky profiting off of our people. I'm especially angry about the people of the East, the hardworking coal miners who powered the Industrial Revolution. He calls them lazy and acts like he understands our culture and he's one of us. He's not. This guy is a guy who went to Silicon Valley and wanted to be the 'Every Man,'" Beshear lashed out.

It is worth mentioning that many US media have recently revealed that Beshear, 46, is also one of the four potential running mates that Harris' campaign team is considering. Last year, he was re-elected in Kentucky, where the Republicans have an absolute advantage, and he has strongly entered the public eye.

US media analysis believes that Beshear's focus on health care and education, especially his support for abortion rights, will bring Harris all the political advantages of a Southern Democrat.

Earlier in the day, he expressed his support for Harris and expressed openness to the possibility of becoming Harris' running mate in an NBC interview.

This article is an exclusive article of Observer.com and may not be reproduced without authorization.