IMO liberals thought they could ruin him just by mocking his appearance (which is weird, he's not a bad looking guy) and calling him a hick who changed his name twice, and when he just laughed about it, they have started to change tactics.
Now we have this:
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No good guy could possibly have that kind of lighting! He's dangerous, guys! Even worse than mecha-Hitler-Trump, somehow!
I think they've come to the end of the road on this. The hyperbole has become too extreme and Vance didn't have the notoriety or pre-existing "yuck" a lot of people had about Trump just from his affect and lifestyle. It was easy to convince a segment of the population that Trump was the worst ever because he was a political outsider and a billionaire who didn't know what he was doing. With no political record, Trump was a blank slate, so people could claim he'd be a massive warmonger and get us into a multi-front conflict with American boots on the ground on three continents, or that he'd round up all minorities into concentration camps, or whatever they wanted to say. JD Vance was a senator with a normal voting record. He relates pretty well to everyday Americans. None of the Trump objections really work on him. Making goofy photos didn't work, so they're just going to use more scaaaaary photos until you're scared! Yeah, that's the ticket. Surely that'll be effective.