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He knows he’s not normal and that’s why this is seemingly working. He’s insecure and horribly self hating in his core, a loveless father produced by a loveless father. The reason why “weird” works is because it yanks him back to his foul childhood where his vast and unfortunate insecurities were born.
no need. Apparently they've been handing those out at trump rallies, and his supporters are holding them up behind his head... I'm not joking.
(in small letters that you can't read from far away it says Harris, "you're fired harris" but from the cameras, it just looks like they're holding up "youre fired" behind trump.)
He's a felon, rapist, grifter, serial liar & cheater, and likely pedophile, but calling him weird seems to be more effective than all that. Who knew a 5th grade schoolyard taunt would be so effective?
And be polite about it. They can't handle politeness because they don't know how to do it. So "bless your heart but doesn't that seem weird?" Beats "that's fucking weird". Be the American they used to be. And try to pull them back out of it.
The brilliance of “weird” is that it acts as a container to put all of his controversies in. Previously he would do something insane (or weird) and people would be like “holy shit, I can’t believe he did that”, and then a day later he would do some crazy shit and everyone would be focusing on the new crazy shit he did and forget about the last thing. Now? Trump did something “weird”. Hey, he keeps doing weird things. Holy shit, this guy is weird. And it just piles up into the “weird container”.
With all the insane things he’s said over the years, the tactic for Trump has always been “keep saying batshit crazy things and normalise it”
When you call him weird, people ask why and you can bring all the weird shit he’s said and buried. They think on it for a moment and come to the conclusion that “actually, now that I think about it, that is very weird.”
And not in a good way like “Oh he’s just quirky weird “ where he puts in milk before the cereal during breakfast, but the “Is it strange to be attracted to my daughter” weird.
You didn't need the "at least not and be effective" part. I don't think he can act normal, because he already thinks he's being normal, even though he's objectively abnormal if you compare him to a regular person. He can't understand the concept.
Seriously. Im so sick of people acting like this guy is a normal rich dude who wants power. No. He legit has a severe mental illness. He is not normal at all and never will be. He only thinks about himself, how he looks, who can get him things, how things benefit him. He has a track record decades old.
Also, it forces Trump to address the weirdness vs. being able to attack a direct response.
For example, if Kamala called Trump a coward for not debating her, he could respond “How dare you call someone who was just shot a coward! Word vomit…”
Calling it weird, he has been pressed on why won’t he debate because it is weird for a presidential candidate to pass on a chance to prove their policy is better.
I'm the "guady taste in decor and clothing with niche hobbies" kind of weird. Not the "sneak into a teen beauty pageant to see underage girls naked" kind of weird. I'm proud of my weirdness, they know they should be ashamed of theirs (but aren't).
The flip side of that is the many cities like Austin or Portland would need to step away from those bumper stickers that say “Keep (city name) Weird” as to not be associated with Trump. A fair trade in my opinion.
"When you call him weird, people ask why and you can bring all the weird shit he’s said and buried. They think on it for a moment and come to the conclusion that 'actually, now that I think about it, that is very weird.'”
They don't react that way, though. They say, "Oh, that's just Trump being Trump. He wants to be outrageous."
"Weird" isn't something to deploy at the magats. They are a lost cause. It's for the swing/typical non-voters who live on the periphery of politics and don't pay much attention, but consider themselves good, "normal" folk. It's about margins, not winning over the MAGA crowd
my ex had me making his tea by putting the milk in with the bag before the water, and liked beef well done. And those aren't even the reasons he's an ex!
For the record, if you know anyone who is putting milk in the bowl before the cereal, that person is most likely.a danger to society. Possibly a serial killer.
Fascism is about excluding people, cresting outsider groups to be persecuted. That’s how bullies work of course. Making fascists the outsiders completely spikes their guns or rather turns them against them. You hate weird people, guess what weirdo
We really need a place where all of his weird acts are collated. He has done so many weird things you kinda forget about them because there are just so many weird things he's done and continues to do..
That would make an awesome never ending series of coffee table books. I would even subscribe to make sure I don’t miss any of the. Come on, someone… <<insert Frye meme, shut up and take my money>>
We'd need another 3 earths to supply that much paper. For one and only copy. Of the entire catalog in its completed form, for events to date already, if it were magically done today.
Somebody else pointed out that it’s especially damaging to Conservatives because for the longest time they viewed themselves as the normal guys in a world full of freaks. They didn’t like gay people because gays weren’t normal. They didn’t like black and brown people because they weren’t normal. They didn’t like beatniks or hippies or leftists or atheists, etc.
But now the rest of the world is pointing out that they’re not normal at all. They’re weird as shit. And they don’t know what to do with that. They can’t process it because even when they push for American fascism it was always with the understanding that it wouldn’t really be a problem for them because they the normal people. You know, the guys who fly a flag with somebody else’s name on it from their house and have 1,000 anti trans memes. Normal shit.
It's been so interesting to watch. It's the same as calling someone gay. If you have no prejudices towards gay people then getting called gay isn't an insult, someone just made a mistake about your sexuality and you go on about your day.
If you're a raging homophobe then being called gay is devastating because you hate them and it's the worst thing you can be. Just like being called weird, you're not getting hurt by the word, you're getting hurt by your own hate and insecurity.
It's been hilarious to watch these people not know how to react to this stuff because they could fix all their problems by just chilling out and being less hateful.
If they chill out, become more accepting, and realize that everyone is weird then they can't get hurt by their own insecurities anymore but then they probably wouldn't be voting for people trying to hurt the gays and the weirdos.
If they would only think about it for a second they'd see the prison they've created for themselves. The only ones that care that they are weird or that they are gay are their own friends and party members. They've all locked themselves in but now people are calling them out for how fucking weird that is and hopefully it creates some self reflection... but I have my doubts.
That's because they are used to total denials and selective embracing of these accusations. They can scream 'fake news!' if reality gets in the way or even embrace the aggressive, unapologetic villainous style their critics paint. I mean, just look at the latest Trump interview at NABJ (or Gaetz's new face).
But none of this works with 'weird'. "No u" is forever weak, and denying it doesn't work, because it's largely inter subjective. It's something that only exists in the minds of those who observe you. You have very little control over that, especially if it accurately reflects people's feelings.
Democrats are finally realizing that elections are won on vibes and energy. Solemn speeches on democracy in danger and detailed policy discussion aren't enough. You need energy to lead a narrative that people can recognize as their own, that echoes their own frustrations, fears and hopes for the future - and makes full use of the organic way communication works today: virality. People wanting to share things that represent themselves, contributing organically to your larger narrative in a way you could never buy with money. That's what malicious populists understood more than a decade ago. Ask Steve Bannon.
Also, "weird" is the most politically correct, common word you can effectively use to describe these people and their policies, it's not even rhetorically extreme - they can't even ask democrats to be held to the insanely different ethical standards that MAGA never even gets close to, as they usually do.
They are so used to be the ones who police who is normal and who is not, they do not seem to know how to respond to it. Turns out, it's hard to spin "Parents should have more votes than non-parents" as non-weird.
On a deeper level, it also cuts through their self perceived heroism in the face of social sanctions for the things they say. It's not "Trump says this and the left gets angry" anymore, it's "Trump says this and the left dismisses it as weird as fuck" now. it's the ultimate dismissal, "were not going to waste time on this weird stuff", in contrast with following Trump in his bottomless rabbit hole of bullshit and venom.
Ultimately, it disrupts Trump's greatest asset and skill: discourse control. that's why you see him ramping up the extreme rhetoric in the last few days, he's trying to regain control of the public debate, get back in the spotlight. racist essentialistic nonsense seems to be the only strategy left to get people to pay him attention.
There's nothing wrong with being cool weird. When the entire collective identity of your in-group is founded on being entirely "normal", it's absolutely devastating, which is why this is super effective.
It's effective precisely because it's the exact kind of insult they've used against me, an autistic liberal with tourettes, for my 40-something years of life. I've long since embraced being weird and taken it as a compliment, but the fact that they're freaking out about it is just too goddamn delicious. They deserve this.
Welcome to narcissism and the effects of an overinflated id and shrunken super ego in a mind.
Their brains literally spend all their life thinking how they are god's greatest gift to the world and deserve everything at any cost. Doubt and insecurity would mean they're not perfect, so they lie to themselves, and react explosively when their view of themselves is endangered. It's also unfortunately not uncommon at various intensity...
trump will probably be one of the most studied subjects in psych for narcissism, since there's sooooooo much recorded footage of him.
Even beyond that. The idea that nobody has ever called him weird is itself weird. Almost everyone has been called weird at some point about something, and people in the public eye to that extent even moreso.
I mean people have been calling him weird for decades, long before he entered politics. His mannerisms, his intense narcissism, his gauche tastes, and his bizarre combover have always been the subject of mockery.
its actually perfect. Honestly you can say Trump is a pedophile and they will say fake news, you could probably say he had sex with trans people and they would say the same. But if you said he was gay their child brain would kick in and start screaming
I'm also not sure they have the ability to try and embrace/redirect it.
For one thing I doubt trump's ego could take it. For another their whole thing relies on thinking they are the mainstream. Lastly, you might be able to use it to point out how you are different from the opposition and how your policies are weird compared to the norm, but that's good. However, they can't use it like that because they don't have any policies they can actually campaign on that are broadly popular. They are relying on apathy, which this theoretical strat is incompatible with.
That's a good point. They cannot afford embracing being weird as they trained their base into thinking "weird = bad", in sooo many ways. Defining who is inside and outside of the ingroup is their whole shtick.
"Queer", their historical conceptual enemy, literally meant "odd", "strange". They definitely cannot be that.
Fascism definitionally requires in-groups and out-groups, no? I like the idea that such a simple word repeated enough times makes them suddenly terrified that they might have sided with the out-group.
Leopards, meet face.
I’d like to see the dems expand on the “weird” thing a bit since they’ve finally found it works. “Embarrassing” (or depending on who’s delivering the message, just “cringe”) is great because all but the most hardline MAGA chodes have 100% privately thought “oh Jesus Christ what is he doing/saying now” at some point.
They know on some level Trump is a total embarrassment, like 90% of supporting him is saying how he didn’t actually mean this, or what he meant to say was that, or what he did there was actually really smart because…
and unlike “weird” which could be co-opted in the same badge of honour way like “deplorable”, there’s nobody taking “embarrassing”.
Stop making excuses for this embarrassing, weird old asshole
As children, most of us were concerned with fitting in and not being "weird." It was a sensitive thing when we were very vulnerable, and I think that stays with you.
Meanwhile, very few kids get called a fascist. By the time they have to deal with that, they're older and have much thicker skin. But beneath that thick skin is a complicated psychology. It might still be holding onto childhood fears and worries in a deep seated way even they don't fully understand.
The actual best way to counter "you're weird" is "yeah, I know." and conservatives can never do that. Being "weird" is definitionally being part of the out-group, and conservatism is always about privileging the in-group. It's why Trump is so unpopular with traditional suit-based conservatives - he doesn't fit their class-performance expectations, so they think he's weird. But it's also why he's so popular with the poor - they aren't beholden to class expectations, because they have nothing to lose, so his tacky behavior and purposeful flouting of the norms of polite society make them identify with him and feel empowered. "This rich guy thinks it's fine to act like me, I don't feel fear, shame, or class anxiety when I look at him - I like him!"
And poor folks are often correct to ignore the way people react to their behavioral class signifiers, because those expectations are stupid. A fork is a fucking fork, who cares which one of three in a place setting is the "right" one? But a president, in my mind, should be able to respect various modes of interaction. They should not always be pushing or crossing boundaries to prove a point, because there are a lot of different ways to prove a point, and some of them involve demonstrating that you can be patient or steady or attentive to someone else's needs. And sometimes it requires knowing and obeying the rules.
If I could add, conformity is central to understanding their world view. Just think about how incredibly insular their day to day is. It is rare that they stand out in any of their preferred crowds. Not looking and dressing and praying the same would subject them to judgement. This is what they hate above all. Judgement by man, and worst of all, judgement by their doG.
"Weird" is the kid who wears all-black and smells bad and scribbles violently in his drawing pad in the back of the class.
"Weird" doesn't get laid.
The Boys don't want to be weird. Fuckboys don't want to be weird. Alphas don't like weirdos.
The MAGA people have spent nine years branding their weirdness as bad-boy DGAF. Recasting it as just creepy weirdness, which is true, just pops their balloon.
There was that one right winger that shoved a dildo up his ass I think on stream to prove that he wasn't gay. So them out weirding themselves to prove they aren't weird isn't totally off the table.
On a deeper level, it also cuts through their self perceived heroism in the face of social sanctions for the things they say. It's not "Trump says this and the left gets angry" anymore, it's "Trump says this and the left dismisses it as weird as fuck" now. it's the ultimate dismissal, "were not going to waste time on this weird stuff", in contrast with following Trump in his bottomless rabbit hole of bullshit and venom.
This was the main takeaway for me.
They love seeing their political enemies get upset over Trump. Call him a wannabe dictator, a threat to democracy, whatever you want, and they'll enjoy it, because he's "triggering the libs".
They feed off extreme reaction. Extreme love from within, extreme hate from without. Dismissing him as "weird" doesn't give them the antagonistic energy they thrive on.
Tim Walz wasn't the first to say it, but he broke through with his Republicans are weird messaging because he says it and then immediately ties it back to their policies in plain language.
They're weird because they want to ban books, they're weird because they want to ban contraceptives and IVF, they're weird because they want to raise the deficit to give away giant tax cuts to billionaires.
It's both parts together the have been so killer, but just calling them weird on its own isn't the silver bullet.
It’s actually what they’ve been doing— short, kindergarten attacks and insults people remember, like “sleepy joe”, “crooked Hillary”, Dems are now getting people to associate republicans with “weird”. I mean, I’m onboard— if it lands and hits their feels they’re “weird.” We’ve been using “big words” like xenophobic and christofascist, which doesn’t bother them one bit because it’s more than 1-2 syllables.
Exactly. This is what did in Ted Cruz. He was mocked roundly for being a huge weirdo and it — thankfully — seems to have derailed his national ambitions for now.
Yep. It’s not engaging or constructive. It’s a disruptive word that provokes. And I’m ok with that. It’s actually poking Republicans in a spot that deserves to be probed: their desperate need to conform and fit in. Also fuck em. This is a pretty gentle slap and they need it.
It's not that we never figured out. It's just I can't believe it's what is triggering these people, since rapist, pedophile, misogynist, racist, fascists and dictator didn't do it for them.
The MAGA sell is that they are taking the country back to a sane past. Its Make America Great Again. They work hard to frame themselves as a voice of sanity in an insane world, and it works for those in deep.
But they are clearly super creepy and weird. And what they want isnt a return to tradition, its a wholesale abandonment of key American traditions in order to insert their creepy weird ideology that has no precedent here. They want to get rid of birthright citizenship for fucks sake. Its only been working fine for... forever?
Calling them creepy and weird is kicking them out of their comfortable rhetorical role and exposing their ideology as NOT a return to the past, but actually a very radical change that most people aren't very interested in.
Man, I was going to reply to the above comment but this is a much better written and thought out post than I would have made—you nailed it.
I was just going to say that they’re rapists, pedophiles, misogynists, racists and wannabe fascists/dictators, themselves, which is why those names don’t trigger an appropriate response.
All of those terms connote outrage. MAGA loves liberal outrage. But "weird" is simultaneously belittling and dismissive (and, worse, indisputable).
If MAGA screams, "Yeah, we're fascist!" you'd be outraged, and they'll smirk. If they scream, "Yeah, we're weird!" you'll smirk, and they'll be outraged.
This, so much. “Liberal tears” has been a rallying cry for them for years. They have no idea how to deal with people laughing at them.
This whole thing demonstrates what a powerful tool satire can be. It’s much easier to defeat evil if you diminish it first through mockery. It you meet it head on with your anger, it feeds on it.
It reminds me of a video I saw of a dude walking along side a neo nazi march (or maybe it was a klan rally) playing this goofy repetitive march on a sousaphone. It was brilliant. Nazis know how to deal with people who yell at them or try to fight them, and are good at playing the victim when they’re attacked. They have no idea how to deal with mockery and it completely throws them off guard.
I think that’s because they want to be viewed trump as someone with power and is feared. That’s why calling him a dictator doesn’t work because they think that mean that he’s a threat to the people they oppose but being viewed as a weirdo? Who would want to be viewed as that?
I’ve had a theory that one reason conservatives shrug off some critiques from liberals is because they use words that conservatives don’t have a full grasp of. Even personally, if you asked me to define fascism beyond totalitarianism and being bad, i would have difficulty.
Being called old and weird is something even a 2nd grader understands, so they get it and it likely hits home hard. It’s also easier for their kids to imitate
It took people a while to figure out that laughing at fascists is far more effective than warning about their brutally violent authoritarian tendencies.
There's two great philosophers who I think need to be understood here, Walter Benjamin understood that fascism is not an ideology, but rather an aesthetic movement and that there was no real policy to it, no substance, it was simply about the march of soldiers, the waving of flags, the sounding of trumpets, and likewise, building upon that work the great thinker Mel Brooks the best methodology for defeating fascism was to make it look ridiculous. To make Hitler look a fool, the Nazis dopes.
Yep, highly effective. It stings because Republicans with half a brain can see that nobody thinks it's cool to be Republican. Celebrities are generally not Republican. Journalists don't usually support them. Neither do universities, most corporations, big banks, musicians, artists, or sports teams.
They're desperate to not be seen as weird, but...most of the country has labeled them that way for decades. Now the gloves are off and they're being told directly.
What indication do you have that it's effective? All I've seen are posts talking about how effective it is. I've yet to see anybody actually be offended by it
Given the state of decorum Pre-Trump it would have been hard for an official campaign to straight up call someone weird, they would have to be sly about it.
They may even have been asked to disavow it if too many of their supporters did.
Being respectful to people, even your opponents in public used to be whats was expected.
People are just now realizing how effective it is, when it could have backfired 10+ years ago.
than a cult of personality, one that is modeled after those of Hitler, Stalin, Mao,Hugo Chavez and others. They will scatter to the wind when he loses.
I really think the only time they will scatter to the wind is when he is finally dead and in the ground. He'll still have his grip on the GOP even after he loses. But once he's gone, the maga right will have no one to hang on to and it will all fall apart.
It's why I was kind of worried about DeSantis because he seemed more competent when give power to push the crazy agenda. Luckily he also seems to have the thinnest skin a politician has had in years so even Hayley has a good run against him.
This whole thing gives big 'Don't you think she looks tired?' vibes and I'm here for it. Just a very simple, hard to deny statement that puts doubts not only in the leader, but in those that follow them.
(And given the subreddit, it's a quote from Doctor Who back in David Tennant's first episode. He whispers it to the aide of a Prime Minister to completely end her career, essentially.)
it's a quote from Doctor Who back in David Tennant's first episode. He whispers it to the aide of a Prime Minister to completely end her career, essentially.
It's also a reference to the end of Margaret Thatcher's career. Her decline began with one of her aides saying she looks tired.
As an American doctor who fan thank you, it's always felt like there was some significance to that I was missing and it's been like 11 years since I've started watching lol.
As a non-American and Doctor Who fan, that line has been playing on repeat in my mind with the whole "weird" campaign. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought this!
The other words gave him power and framed him as a legitimate threat (dictator!). This makes fun of him. They want to be a respected threat. We are calling them weird. It’s a beautiful thing.
In the 40's, when the Klan was on the rise again, the Superman radio show had an episode of Superman fighting the Klan and they featured actual KKK rituals that were uncovered by an undercover reporter.
It made them look silly and their recruitment numbers plummeted.
There's a reason why we say that censoring fascists is the worst option. If you can see them, and you can laugh at them, they lose all their power. When the world sees them for the idiots they are, they aren't able to do anything other than stew.
This is a weird one off, but industrial musicians. They were into making fun of fascists since the beginning, and recognized that it was a legitimate form of dousing the flames of fascism. Here’s early German industrial legends DAF with arguably their most famous track, explicitly meant to turn the seriousness of Hitler and Mussolini into a stupid/silly dance.
“It’s a beautiful thing, you know. Strong men come to me with tears in their eyes and they say, ‘Sir,’ that’s what they say, they say, ‘Sir, I think you’re the weirdest former president of all time. Weirder than Washington, weirder than Lincoln.’ Even Lincoln. And he was a vampire hunter. Can you believe that?”
If weird runs its course, pivot to sloppy. He's built his persona as some exemplar of class, but it's so transparently a lie. Weird is confusing to him (not to anyone with half a brain), but sloppy would hurt him in a way he's never had to confront.
Bad and weird have a link between them--because people act weird when they are worried about what they have covered up, that Kamala will get to the bottom of. Like that scene from Fargo when pregnant Officer Marge is questioning Jerry Lundergaard at his car lot. How he has a tantrum in front of her and then drives off.
I’m annoyed it took Democrats 8 years to realize THIS is how to handle Trump. Don’t build him up to be this boogeyman threatening democracy. Don’t try to ignore him and let him get away with his antics. OSTRACIZE HIM!
Have to realize that the MAGA has zero self awareness. It's jarring at first because you think that they are being contrarian, arguing bad faith, or just being assholes.
no. they literally lack the capacity of self awareness. It's completely absent from their thinking. They don't see themselves as being hypocrites. It takes self awareness to see the flaw in the phrase "the only moral abortion was my abortion" they just don't have it. This is why typical counter arguments don't work with them.
That's when it clicks that the MAGA are unlearnable. Facts and logic DO NOT work on them. You cannot have an intelligent counter to anything MAGA says for they are void of having the intelligence of it affecting them.
Thus you have to accept and keep it simple. They are WEIRD. They do not have the self awareness counter their weirdness. They do not have the intelligence to explain that their cult like behavior is weird. They lack the capacity that their weird ideas and weird stances on anything does not work.
Its why Weird is working well. The moron is not offended by being called a moron for the moron will believe he's still the smartest person.
Omg I just got into it with a trumper on here and the “facts don’t matter” is seriously a thing.
This dude said the “elites” don’t hate trump because of what he says, they hate him because “he’s an anti war president who cost defense contractors billions”
I commented with 2 major defense contractors 10-k filings. publicly traded companies are required to submit annual reports with audited financial statements from an independent cpa firm. I pointed out that both contractors saw all of their profit metrics rising every year trump was president. So no, they didn’t “lose billions” they made more and part of it was their taxes dropping like a rock after 2017 thanks to the trump tax cuts.
I shit you not, his response was “but he’s an anti-war president, saying they made more money doesn’t logically make sense no matter what the finances say.” After I pointed out what a fucking idiotic line of thinking that was, he switched to “well, imagine how much more they would have made if he wasn’t president.” Again, railed into him about how stupid that is before he finally admitted “listen, I argue in good faith which means I don’t need to click links, I just speak the truth.” They are unbelievably hard R.
I almost feel bad because I basically bullied the shit out of him for being such a fucking moron, but the. I remember that they’ve been unbelievable dicks to liberals for almost a decade so fuck them.
Bro I've been saying this for the past 8 years, pointing it out that people should be calling them out on all the stupid shit they say and straight up laughing at them. Not arguing and trying to debate with facts but laughing at them like when two adults are having a serious conversation and an annoying kid interrupts and says something stupid and the adults just laugh and go right back to their conversation..
The right desperately wants to be perceived as normal and accepted by society. That's why they're so focused on talking about the "silent majority" despite the fact that they haven't won a presidency with the popular vote in 20 years (04 Bush, an incumbent) before that it was Bush senior in 88.
Weird works because it plays off of their insecurities and makes them feel like they don't belong. They desperately want to be perceived as normal. Especially when the things that make them weird are deeply unpopular with most folks.
In contrast, calling folks on the left weird is likely to get a "thank you for noticing," because they tend to embrace their eccentricities (and the eccentricities of others), so being weird is seen as a positive thing. They don't care as much about fitting in as much.
It's more their reaction to being called weird is why it's sticking. Because if I'm being called weird, I'm just like "yeah it hurts". But I can accept that I am nerdy and different than normal people. Like I'm writing a reddit post on a friday night and I'm going to guess very few people will read this comment!
But if these republicans just accepted that they are weird, we wouldn't say it so often. But then again, if they agreed that their views were weird, they wouldn't have those views to begin with.
Weird works because we've all universally spent the last decade listening to Uncle Mike ramble about fake news and demonrats at Thanksgiving and we're fucking tired of that weird shit. Grandpa needs to shut the fuck up before he ends up like half his buddies... no contact with his kids or grandkids.
They see themself as being the sane people who keep decency alive what is the core of someone identifying as conservative.
If you call them out as weird for their obvious weird views and behavior they will feel threatened down to their core identity what makes it so effective. They got this feedback all their lives and only by joining this cult of weirdos they felt validated, normal and empowered.
Calling them and their their cult being weird brings them back to square one as the lone weird outsiders they always have been.
It's a bit sad that politics has devolved to this, but I guess bullies only understand their own language, like calling them "weird" or "gross" or whatever. Thanks for saving me a click.
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20 years ago my cousin used to tell everyone I was scared of the dark. Any time I’d beat her in Mario kart, or laugh at her for crying or take a toy she liked, she’d say something like, “oh yeah, well at least I’m not afraid of the dark! Oh look at me, I’m chickencannon and I’m TERRIFIED of the dark like a little baby!” She’d do this for years, constantly bringing up that I was scared of the dark as a personal attack. She did it so frequently that everyone around me suddenly became aware that I was scared of the dark. It would make me so fucking angry, I’d absolutely spaz on her when she said it, adults would have to pull me off her because I would become utterly enraged.
You see, in reality, I’ve never been afraid of the dark, not even slightly. She completely made up the entire thing, and every time I argued it or yelled at her about it, she’d say “Look how mad he is, he’s so self conscious about being scared of the dark, he doesn’t want anyone to know how much of a baby he is”, which would make me mad enough to tackle her, and then the adults would intervene and tell me it’s ok to be afraid of the dark, and that I don’t need to get so heated about it.
Anyways, this is what the whole ”weird” meme feels like to me: being bullied by a 12 year old cousin. Can’t believe this is the state of politics in 2024. Honestly, it’s weird as hell.
Ok....well your cousin was a kid who was just being a lil shithead and is not a weird creepy dictator of the US wanna be. Trump talks so oddly, like says so much but of nothing, he makes weird sexual or sexist comments. He makes weird statements showing he doesn't understand interacial or African heritage. His flip flopping on Project 2025. His obsession with hate. His obsession with fame. His hair. His obsession with his height.
Trump is legit weird, it isn't like your cousin...
Your trauma is valid but the two aren't comparable.
trump casts an illusion of strength, but his behavior displays extreme sensitivity. look at how petty he was when asked a "horrible" question. the man is a pile of insecurities and calling him weird gets to his very core because it is an attack on the brand he attempts to market. trump does not wish to be strong, he wishes to be perceived as strong. why do you think he never lets people roast him on his businesses? deep down he is probably aware of his incompetence, and his worst nightmare is the whole world realizing it too.
People tune out the traditional message of “trumps dangerous” and call it hyperbole. This changes the message to, “something’s not right with this guy” which hopefully just gets 1 or 2% of voters to re-consider
MAGA is not normal. They are a cult and their actions are weird. They have always been weird. The only difference is they see their reflection in this super weird orange weirdo
Ya gotta admit the whole thing with a con artist failure at business full of shit TV celebrity can get to be the President of the USA is pretty fukin weird init.
This word frames their policy as well, which is where I hope the focus shifts.
For so long their “policies” were presumed reasonable, likely because they were perpetually bounced off Dem policies being poorly framed as socialist or whatever.
Now that we have the likes of Trump and Fancy-pants Vance headlining their 2024 “Family Values” tour, what does “weird” do? It casts new light on their culture and politics; reframing these, ironically, on a spectrum of normalcy and not the drab “America isn’t X” and “Dems are unAmerican” formula.
There’s nothing normal about turning neighbors against neighbors over abstract or theoretical fears. Likewise, it is abnormal to peer through people’s blinds, policing what they do in the bedroom. Similarly, telling them what to believe, on myriad issues having nothing to do with governance is just weird…and sus.
It’s plain weird how the GOP only focus on superficiality to attack opponents based on gender, race, etc.; or how they fight anything helping other Americans with abstractions like “hard work” and “no handouts.”
What’s weird and tragic is how long Republicans and the media have been pretending that Trump was a legitimate president and now a candidate, and getting away with it . The truth all along is that he’s a sociopathic grifter felon, a lying sack of evil shit, a national embarrassment and never was qualified to be president in the first place let alone be trying to run again, it’s Total madness.
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