Trump, Sweeney, and the Woke Mob Reporter Roundtable
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
JD Vance Defends Sydney Sweeney Amid American Eagle Ad Backlash: 'Dems Are Calling People Nazis for Finding Her Attractive'
Vice President JD Vance has waded into the controversy surrounding actress Sydney Sweeney's latest campaign for American Eagle, criticizing what he calls a 'Democratic meltdown' over the ad's allegedly coded messaging. Speaking on Friday's episode of the conservative 'Ruthless' podcast, Vance delivered an incendiary rebuke of critics who have accused the campaign of playing into white supremacist aesthetics. 'My political advice to the Democrats is: continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive that they're a Nazi. That appears to be their actual strategy,' Vance said. 'You have a normal all-American beautiful girl doing a normal jeans ad—and they've managed to unhinge themselves over it.' Vance's comments come amid a swirl of online discourse over a series of American Eagle ads featuring Euphoria star Sweeney. The campaign, which launched last week, features playful wordplay on 'genes' and 'jeans.' In one ad, Sweeney tells viewers, 'Genes are passed down from parents to offspring,' before smiling and clarifying, 'My jeans are blue.' Another features a billboard proclaiming 'Sydney Sweeney has great genes,' with 'genes' humorously scratched out and replaced with 'jeans.' What was intended as a lighthearted back-to-school campaign has instead exploded into a full-blown ideological clash, with critics accusing the brand of peddling a eugenicist subtext and idealizing whiteness. One now-viral MSNBC opinion piece, titled 'Sydney Sweeney's ad shows an unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness,' argued that the ad centers Sweeney's Anglo-Saxon features as a beauty standard in a way that subtly reinforces racial hierarchies. No Democratic Officials Have Actually Commented Despite the online furor, CNN White House producer Alejandra Jaramillo clarified in a report Thursday morning that 'no prominent Democratic Party leaders or officials have commented on the ad.' The backlash, she notes, appears to be coming primarily from progressive commentators on social media and in opinion columns, not from the Democratic establishment. Still, that didn't stop Vance from seizing the moment to score political points. 'So much of the Democrats' identity is oriented around hostility to basic American life,' Vance continued. 'You have a pretty girl doing a jeans ad and they can't help but freak out. It reveals a lot more about them than it does us.' The vice president, who has leaned heavily into culture war issues since taking office alongside President Donald Trump in January, framed the ad uproar as emblematic of a broader 'liberal obsession with policing beauty and tradition.' 'I actually thought one of the lessons [Democrats] might take from the November 2024 election was, 'We're going to be less crazy,'' Vance said. 'But no—the lesson they've apparently taken is, 'We're going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful.' Great strategy, guys.' White House Spokesman Weighs In Earlier this week, White House spokesman Steve Cheung also slammed the backlash to the Sweeney ads, calling it 'cancel culture run amok.' 'This warped, moronic and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024,' Cheung posted on X. 'They're tired of this bullshit.' His post included a screenshot of the controversial MSNBC headline and ignited further conservative support for the actress and the brand. Sweeney herself has remained silent amid the uproar, choosing instead to continue posting promotional clips from the campaign across her social platforms. American Eagle has not issued a formal comment on the backlash but continues to run the ads on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, where they have garnered millions of views. The post JD Vance Defends Sydney Sweeney Amid American Eagle Ad Backlash: 'Dems Are Calling People Nazis for Finding Her Attractive' appeared first on Where Is The Buzz | Breaking News, Entertainment, Exclusive Interviews & More.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Labour Can't Decide What It's Doing With The Internet
Labour seems to be in two minds over how to handle the internet. While Keir Starmer's comms team is now briefing influencers on government policies, his ministers are cracking down on harmful online content – and facing accusations of mass censorship at the same time. On Thursday afternoon, the prime minister will be hosting a reception for up to 90 influencers in Downing Street, who reportedly have a combined following of a quarter of a billion followers and have already been chatting to No.10 over the last year. Invitees allegedly include cookbook author Chetna Makan and former Love Island contestant now anti-revenge porn campaigner Georgia Harrison, along with other TikTok stars and YouTubers. This move has been criticised and praised in equal measure. While a handful of online users claim no serious influencer would want to be associated with this government, some political pundits claim it is a sign that Downing Street is finally getting with the 21st Century. And that may be true: Ofcom recently found 82% of 16 to 24-year-olds use social media for news, along with 28% of people aged over 55. This online-first attitude also seems to be rewarding their largest electoral threat, Nigel Farage, who has 1.3 million followers on TikTok and is currently leading in the opinion polls by a healthy margin. But, at the same time, the government has just rolled out its Online Safety Act, rather undermining their new approach to the web, as critics have pointed out. Meant to protect children by putting age restrictions on various sites, the legislation has created an uproar in some quarters over fears it would create mass censorship and political debate – while also making it harder to monitor online risks for kids. That's because there's been a huge uptick in the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow people to circumvent the age restrictions by masking a user's identity. Data from the Age Verification Providers Association also found an additional five million online age checks a day are being carried out because of the new legislation. Fears that the Act is too broad and vague in its definitions of 'harmful content' have fuelled further concerns that it will force adults to share personal data with global porn sites – paving the way for mass data breaches in a dangerous overreach. Then there's the ramifications that come with putting up barriers online. Starmer even had to laugh off warnings from Donald Trump earlier this week over fears the new law would limit access to his website, Truth Social. Reform UK have leapt on the opportunity to attack Labour, claiming it would completely tear up the legislation – although the party has confirmed it has no new ideas to protect children from the worst corners of the internet. Still, their debate spiralled out of control when the technology secretary Peter Kyle claimed Farage's criticism indicated he would have been on the same side as the late prolific sexual predator Jimmy Savile. The Reform UK leader has since asked for an apology. Of course, plenty of people are in favour of the legislation, which has been quietly worked on by successive governments. The suicide prevention group, the Molly Rose Foundation, noted: 'The Online Safety Act will help save young lives.' The organisation's CEO Andy Burrows pointed out there has been strong cross-party consensus to protect children online in the past. Scrapping it altogether would actually 'go against what Reform voters think,' he told LBC, noting that more than seven in 10 people who voted Reform at the last election want to keep and even strengthen the Act. Meanwhile, Chris Sherwood from the charity NPSCC wrote in PoliticsHome that 'it's deeply concerning to see the rhetoric around the Online Safety Act shift toward loss of free expression.' The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology told HuffPost UK: 'The Online Safety Act is the biggest step change in children's online safety since the internet began. 'It protects young people from harmful content and holds platforms and tech companies to account. 'This is about creating a safer internet – not censoring it – where children can explore, learn and connect without fear of what's behind the next swipe.' But can Labour really expect a positive reception by using influencers to spread its message while fending off accusations of censorship? Only time will tell if the government can have its cake and eat it too. Related... If You Think Adolescence Is Just About Online Incel Groups, You Missed The Point This 1 Hidden iPhone Feature Could Instantly Make Your Online Data Safer – And It's So Easy To Activate Sorry, The Emoji-Over-Face Parents Might Be Right About Online Privacy
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
JD Vance latest GOP politician to enter Syndey Sweeney jeans ad debate
Sydney Sweeney's jeans – excuse us, *genes – are continuing to stir controversy. Vice President JD Vance became the latest Republican politician to weigh in on a controversial American Eagle ad featuring Sweeney that critics argued promoted eugenics. "My political advice to the Democrats is continue to (call) everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi," Vance joked during an episode of the conservative "Ruthless" podcast on Friday, Aug. 1. "That appears to be their actual strategy." The Nazi party used the pseudoscience of eugenics, which promotes some genetic features as better than others, to justify the killing of Jews and countless other minority groups during the Holocaust. Sydney Sweeney dishes on the best jeans, her favorite rom-com and what's on her playlist American Eagle's campaign, which has spawned a fierce cultural debate, used wordplay to describe Sweeney, 27, as having "good genes," a wordplay to promote the brand's denim jeans. Critics have said the ad blitz amounts to a glorification of whiteness and a dog whistle for racist ideologies. But her supporters have said the ad is meant to be a light-hearted wordplay, defending the "Euphoria" actress and the brand. Sweeney previously told USA TODAY that denim was a staple of her wardrobe, but left out AE in her list of favored brands at the time. "I'm very much a white, plain T-shirt kind of girl. I jump around from a bunch of different brands and that kind of depends on what vibe I want to go for," she said. "I have my Levi's white T-shirts and my Cotton On white T-shirts that are just paired with casual jeans. Jean wise: I mean, I love Levi's, Frame, Agolde." Sydney Sweeney controversy, explained In one of several videos for AE, Sweeney, clad in a denim-on-denim outfit, says: "Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color." "My jeans are blue," she says as the camera pans across her blue denim and her blue eyes. Soon after the campaign dropped, people began to sound the alarm on what they saw as a dangerous message about the beauty ideal, race and "good" versus "bad" genes. Vance, though, chalked the whole ordeal up to an overreaction from the "left" and a doubling down on a strategy that he thinks lost the Democrats the 2024 presidential election. Dunkin' ad about 'genetics' draws comparisons to Sydney Sweeney drama "I actually thought that one of the lessons (Democrats) might take is 'we're going to be less crazy.' And the lesson they have apparently taken is 'we're going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful,'" he said on the podcast. "Great strategy, guys. That's how you're going to win the midterm, especially young American men." The ad's critics, however, argued that a campaign selling jeans to women should not have been shot so clearly from the male gaze. Some consumers were quick to point out what they saw as the regressive nature of the material: A buxom blonde woman drawing attention to her body and employing a sensual tone, they argued, calling back to a stereotypical symbol of a bygone era. "Wasn't she the one who said she didn't want to be seen as an object?" one commenter asked on Sweeney's Instagram page, while another chided: "We can leave Nazi Germany back where it got conquered ty next!!!" Sweeney has not yet spoken out about the controversy, though several prominent members of the GOP have chimed in on her behalf. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance, took to X on July 29 to blast the left for criticizing the ad. "Wow. Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women. I'm sure that will poll well…." he wrote. White House's communications director Steven Cheung, a longtime adviser for President Donald Trump, also maligned the criticism, calling it "cancel culture run amok." "This warped, moronic and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024," he wrote on X July 29, adding that people are "tired" of this way of thinking. But, when a second ad campaign, this time from Dunkin', dropped featuring the same "genetic" themes, many critics felt vindicated, arguing that it signaled a greater cultural shift toward genetic hierarchy and racism. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sydney Sweeney drama: JD Vance addresses American Eagle ad controversy
