True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet.

So there's this rumor that an innocent couch was once sexually assaulted by Donald's Trump's creepy vice presidential pick. It started on Twitter - the font of all truth - on the truly authoritative parody account created by fans of professional wrestler "ravishing Rick Rude". Click here to see what sleazy Rick Rude looks like. I mean, if there's anyone who you can trust on the issues surrounding couch fucking - it's this guy...

Later others would claim to have found the exact passage in Vance's memoir where he acknowledged the shameful secret. ("Years later, I looked at my wedding party of six groomsmen and realized that every single one of them had, like me, fucked a couch... It is a rite of passage into the chambers of manhood...") And of course, some people even claimed they'd found authentic documentary footage...

But it was that first tweet from the notoriously reliable "Rick Rude's Calves" account that had instantly racked up 1.8 million views - along with 32,300 more likes and 2,343 reposts - and convinced everyone JD Vance was a couch-fucking pervert. You know things are bad when even Weird Al Yankovic starts making fun of you on Threads. And before you can say "Hillbilly Elegy", everybody on Twitter started sharing sexy couch photos. One of them had a Barry White soundtrack. And another seductive anthem tempted its viewers with a series of seductive couch photos...

There were earnest warnings to never show your sexy couch photos to JD Vance. One tweet even claimed a couch photo was actually a picture of JD Vance's high school girlfriend... Some of the JD-Vance-fucks-a-couch jokes were truly horrific. Some shared their own insightful political commentary. ("Look at his face! That's the face of a couch fucking man and you can't convince me otherwise...")

And some just blamed the entire shitstorm on Elon Musk...

But there's something beautiful about this whole grass roots phenomenon. No, I'm not arguing that there's something beautiful and pure about the love between an innocent young man and the couches that he fucks. But there is something beautiful about all the people online, collectively creating a shared tall tale -- a laugh and a legend. Joining together in our rowdy, dirty-minded fellowship. Which is very, very different from joining together with a couch...

And yes, maybe there is also a dash of delicious malice in all of this. But maybe it's just the internet taking care of business in its own way. It's giving back a little bit of comeuppance to a target that truly deserves it. (Unlike an unsuspecting couch...)

What I'm saying is that in the face of all the other lies being spread during this campaign, as one online commentator at WrestlingClassics.com pointed out -- "At least the couch thing is actually funny."

And that's the most beautiful thing of all. That the sharpest and most insightful commentary on this meme is now coming from a professional wrestling forum. In an internet miracle, the great unwashed masses of dirty-minded jokesters have been transformed into political commentators in this great American moment. Where the 18th century had Thomas Paine, we have a political pundit named "FuzzFace". America's fate and its future shall be decided by juvenile strangers on the internet.

It's a true and spontaneous uprising.

Kind of like what a hillbilly does when he sees a sexy couch...

It's like a window into the great hive-mind of generation Z -- or a stand-in for all the huddled online masses yearning to breathe free. Or maybe it's just teenagers thrilled to see that a parody account (pretending to be their wrestler-hero's calves) had suddenly entered the national dialogue in a big big way. With their fingers on the darkest pulses of the national zeitgeist, what wisdom will these "Common Sense" commentators enlighten us with today? For example, one asks, does this new meme somehow lend credibility to those pundits who'd been warning that voter apathy would leave campaigns waging a desperate battle against the couch?

"Does this mean that pundits who've said that 'the couch' will be the deciding factor in the election are going to have to change their imagery?"

"I mean, technically, we don't REALLY know that he DIDN'T have sex with a couch. Just that he didn't write about it in the version of his book that he published. He still LOOKS like a sofa fucker."

"They're a buncha weird fucks.... From the moment they wake up until they go to bed...other people's genitals are all they talk about."

"So the Associated Press removed their story about JD Vance not having sex with a couch. Does that mean he did fuck the couch? The people need to know!"

And again, what I think is the wisest and most inspirational thing I've heard so far in the face of a discouraging campaign season that's already been filled with far too many lies.

"At least the couch thing is actually funny."

Check it out yourself

maclisp@pigdog.org