6mo ago

"Old and quite weird": Democrats finally discover new effective attack — and Republicans hate it

www.salon.com "Old and quite weird": Democrats finally discover new effective attack — and Republicans hate it

After nearly a decade of being forced to take Trump seriously, Democrats increasingly call BS on the whole charade.

After nearly a decade of being forced to take Trump seriously, Democrats increasingly call BS on the whole charade

Sure, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy — a would-be dictator on day one who has called for terminating the U.S. Constitution so he can hold onto power even after losing a free and fair election. But while draped in the rhetoric of populism, Trump and his MAGA movement are not actually popular; the man himself has never won more votes than the person he ran against, a majority of Americans twice rejecting him and his off-putting cult of personality. That he was ever president is more or less because a few thousand swing voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania thought it would be fun.

President Joe Biden won in 2020 largely by promising to a return to normalcy and baseline competency. In 2024, Democrats are making a similar argument but more forcibly: They’re pointing, laughing and dismissing Trump and his circus as a total freak show to which we can’t return.

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I hate this messaging because I’m proudly weird. It’s a rhetorical step towards ostracizing and othering those who are different. I think this is a really bad move that can and will backfire, especially when the opponent is fascism.
Weird is just anything you aren’t used to. Kamala is “weird” to trump supporters who aren’t used to seeing women or POCs in positions of power. Compared to every president before her, she stands out as a lot weirder than Trump.
“You’re weird!” Is a really bad strategy. Queer and weird were once synonyms, and mostly still are. Don’t disenfranchise your base.
- There are subtleties of language that depend on context. I think most people understand that this line of attack refers to malignant weirdness as opposed to quirky or outside-the-mainstream weirdness.
  For example, the GOP’s obsession with micromanaging women’s bodies is fucking weird. From context, you can probably see that I mean it is sinister, strange, and gross.
  
  Gross! Now that's a good second word. Creepy is another.
  Trump and MAGAs are weird, creepy, and gross.
  
  Then call him malignant. Weird is a word that has mostly positive connotations and it sounds like she’s complimenting him when quotes are taken out of context and put into a headline.
  
  "Weird" is incredibly effective in this context because thinking of themselves as "Normal" is really, really important to right wingers, and especially to the MAGA cult. Just look at how often they use terms like "silent majority". Being the norm, the baseline, the average, that's essential to their understanding of who they are. Meanwhile the liberals and leftists and Democrats are the kookie weirdo freaks who want to destroy their decent, simple, God fearing way of life. That normality is exactly what they think conservatives are conserving. So the idea that their "Normal" is a myth undercuts their entire way of thinking.
  
  Interesting perspective. My exposure to MAGA folks has tended to be from edgelords who take pride that they aren’t “normies” and that they are different from the mass of “sheeple”.
  I suppose it depends on whether you associate MAGA with the alt-right or with traditional conservatives. Both are important voting blocks for trump. I don’t know many traditional conservatives that haven’t jumped on the centrist neoliberal bandwagon.
  I associate a desire for “normalcy” and a rejection of those who have “weird” opinions with the aging neoliberals in my life. They often use attacks on the “weird” to resist progressive and inclusive actions that don’t fit within their neoliberal boomer mindset. The non-centrists reject normality and embrace weird and unusual ways of approaching the problems in our country, at least in my social exposure. It’s one of the ways that I’ve seen both extremes differ from the center. The difference between the left and right extremes are just the brand and direction of deviation from the crumbling and untenable centrist positions. One side celebrates weirdness and diversity, the other celebrates what they think makes them superior to normal, and therefore worthy of surviving the genocide they advocate for.
  
  Then call him malignant
  Too clinical. Sorry, but “weird” hits harder for a bigger portion of the electorate.
  Weird is a word that has mostly positive connotations
  Not to everyone, and not in every context.
  
  It's also a word stupid people are going to have to look up, and it's easily disregarded as just being against them because they're republicans (how they feel about Democrats) and not because their beliefs are fucking weird and creepy.
  I like the weird messaging as a weird dude, because it's pretty clear it's being used because it makes them feel like they're not in the in-group anymore. You can see by how badly they react how effective the message is, and changing messaging just when something starts working just makes you look incompetent or like you're trying to sabotage your own message. The Democrats already have enough of that kind of baggage, they don't need to shoot themselves in the foot right now.....
  
  Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I’m not really seeing much evidence of them reacting badly or the messaging being effective. The article claims it, but then mostly just talks about what Pete Buttigieg and MSNBC have to say about it.
- I think it's part of a larger reframing of the conversation. You're right, it used to be that queer and weird were synonymous, but why should it be?
  Queer should be normal. Trans should be normal. Black and Brown and Asian and Native should all be normal. Fucked up right wing ideologies should not be normal.
  And the only way we get there is by acting like we already are. You reframe the narrative. You move "normal" to where it should be instead of where it is. You bring all the people who used to be the "weirdos" and outsiders into the tent, and you leave the bigoted xenophobes standing outside in the rain.
  Queer is the new normal. Bigot is the new weird. That's a world I'm down for living in.
  
  This I can almost get behind, except that “weird” has a lot of queer and diverse and non-white connotations/baggage that can’t be ignored.
  A white-on-the-inside coconut may not see it immediately if she was raised in a California context. That word didn’t just fall out of a tree, and it exists within the context of all the uses that came before hers.
  Sure, we can reframe what behavior is acceptable vs not, but “weird” does not mean and has never meant “unacceptable”. Weird Al is generally considered to be acceptable. “That’s weird” is usually quoted as the fundamental driving statement of advances in science. Rejecting weirdness is fundamentally antithetical to progress, and carries with it baggage of rejecting solid portions of the democratic party’s base.
  
  I think there's more than enough specific context to how the term is being used here that I feel confident in saying the risks you're imagining don't really exist.
  I'm openly bisexual and married to a trans woman, and also a massive nerd, and I really don't feel threatened by this. Words can have different meanings depending on their context. Gay can mean homosexual, and gay can also mean happy. Idiot can be a term of abuse or a term of affection. Weird can be cool, or it can be creepy. Language is just like that.
- You're weird. I'm weird. We both know that weird is where it's at, and the worst thing either of us could aspire to be is "normal".
  This strategy is about rattling folks whose identity is still external rather than internal. Introspection surrounding the idea of "weirdness" is the goal.
  The expectation to conform to a set of principles foisted upon you by superiors is the idea that we're fighting against. The people who support that way of thinking want wealth consolidation, conformity, and all others in cages. Weird is a dang battle cry in the face of something so oppressively ordinary.
- Yes, "creepy" would have been way more accurate to describe these guys anyway.
  
  Hey! Some of us proudly identify as creepy over here!
  
  Sorry, I forgot about Radiohead.
  
  I can get behind that. Total creeps.
  
  They're going for laughter, not disgust. Authoritarians hate being laughed at.
- Sorry but linking it to "queer" is just completely ridiculous. Nobody is calling them queer and nobody is hearing them being called weird as being called queer.
  
  Weird and queer are clear synonyms.
  No matter what, it’s making fun of someone for being different and diverse.
  It’s functionally extremely similar, the only difference is that some parts of the lgbt community have claimed queer as their own.
  Language matters.
  
  If you think calling those freaks weird is somehow an insult to gay people, that's your problem because that's fucking idiotic. Sorry but there's really nothing else to say.
- "We should choose the moral high ground against people who would exploit us taking the moral high ground. 🤡
  
  It’s not about taking the moral high ground against them, it’s about not disenfranchising and alienating large portions of her base so she can win, and it’s about not using an attack that frankly is more applicable to her candidacy than to his.
  She’s the weird one! That’s why I’m voting for her! Trump is just more of the dark side of America that has always been present. Nothing weird about him. Plenty weird and unique and novel and different about Kamala. I’m voting for the weird candidate.
  
  She’s the weird one!
  Is she really, though? I think she's refreshingly normal. She only seems weird because we're used to politicians who don't laugh, who aren't relatable. Her views are majoritarian views. Her views are views that the majority supports.
  I guess it's all relative. It's a sad indictment of our political system that it's "weird" to have a presidential candidate who's a likable human being with ideas that most people can get behind.
  
  Trump is just more of the dark side of America that has always been present. Nothing weird about him.
  Are you fucking kidding me? Dude walked into beauty pageant dressing rooms while they were changing - that's fucking weird
  Dude wants to roll back rights for large segments of the population - that's fucking weird
  Dude talked about wanting to have sex with his daughter - that's really fucking weird.
  I could go on, but don't pretend the demented diaper shitting fucknugget is "normal". There's a reason trump was so effective in 2016, because he was fucking weird and fired up a lot of the weird ass cracks of the internet without exposing his weirdness to the population at large.
  America may have had a dark side, but there's a reason it's called 'the dark sode' - they're fucking weird.
  
  All of that behavior is problematic, but not “weird” in the context of people in power throughout American/world history.
  It frankly is normal. That’s why he has such a large base. That’s why he’s dangerous. That’s why our whole country needs to face its alarmingly common dark tendencies.
  
  It's not normal though, and his base only seems large because close to half of the country is disaffected and chooses to not participate. The base is "large" in that it's a significant portion of the voting public, but that's still less than 30-35% overall at most. The rest of the country knows this shit is weird, and that's why you're seeing a strong response now that there's someone younger than the crypt keeper running.
  Don't let their control of the media make you think this is normal, that's what they want. They want you thinking this is normal because you're less likely to fight against it and instead do what you're doing and continue propagating the lie they're putting out that they're the normal group, you're literally doing what they want.
- I somewhat agree with you, which is why I refer to them as old convicted felon and couch fucker. It doesn't have a great ring to it but seems accurate
- He is weird, though. It's a different kind of weird from mine, but still weird.
  
  Sure, but everybody’s weird. That’s why it doesn’t work as an insult unless you are anti-diversity.
  
  ... which is precisely why it's an excellent tactic to give pause to your average American.
  
  Fortunately it's being used against the anti-diversity side.
  
  So, it's aimed appropriately and hitting the mark?
  We do not have to be anti-diversity to use attacks against them that key off their own shitty beliefs.
- Being weird is not an insult to us, we wear that hat with pride. But our weird behavior falls on one side of the "normalcy range", the quirky, the funny, the confidently different, the queer side.
  There is another side of "weird", the side of creepy weird, the side of child predators, the side of tikki-torch nazis, the side of whatever the couch fuck is wrong with J.D. Vance. And they don't wear that hat with pride, they wish they were normal or think of themselves as normal.
  To the ones who hate us, who can't stand our confident weirdness, and to the ones who are on the wrong side of weirdness, it's an insult. That's why we can be proudly weird, while they start foaming at the mouth at the mere implication that they might not be "normal". That's why this attack lands, they are the anti-queer, the anti-weird and pointing out that Trump behaves outside the accepted range of "normal" behavior (just in the opposite direction of our weird) is an effective attack.
- I'm feeling the same way. Using "weird" to attack anyone is just shallow and mean, and isn't going to resonate well with people that grew up being dismissed as weird. It's a bullying tactic that politicians should be above.
  *It's also worth commenting on how this serves to legitimize their own bully tactics. If just saying someone is weird matters now, so does all of the right's attacks on names, looks, disabilities, etc. Emboldening those tactics is a mistake.

277 comments