Being Called ‘Weird’ Is Only Making Republicans Weirder
Being Called ‘Weird’ Is Only Making Republicans Weirder
I've been loving this whole calling Republicans "weird" thing. It's as if Democrats have finally cracked the code, or figured out how to take the lead in the Republican game of Calvinball.
Calling Trump and the ilk out will be rebutted as exaggerated, doesn't mean it, all politicians are part of the same corrupt system, etc. etc.
Disengaging with the namecalling and running on policy alone, while a noble strategy, gives all the attention to the Trumpists who get a free microphone to say whatever the fuck they want and media can't help themselves but run with their lies.
Now we've got the Democrats playing their game but without fully stooping to their level. Using a word to specifically insult Trump his ego and their authoritarian platform, yet is relatively benign in itself (there a lot of good kinds of weirds, but none of them are applicable to Trump and friends). It's a calm gateway to say, "Both sides are NOT the same, pay attention to what's actually being said!", and get people to put aside the horserace framing and consider the real and dangerous consequences of another Trump term.
Republicans are panicking big-time and trying page after page of their playbook, to little effect against this new strategy.
- "No u"? flip
- "Where's your decooooooruuuuum?" flip
- "Wha- wha- Whatabout pronouns and immigrants!?!??" flip
None of it's working. The Democrats are cheating!!! Only we're allowed to cheat!!!!!
I noticed the pivot in dialogue. I’ve seen him called weird a few times, which is the lesser quality one would think to call out compared to racist, fascist, rapist etc.
But I think that’s the point. All his heinous words (lies), personal attacks, and coups attempts have been normalized and the people have been desensitized. I see this pivot as a reminder of: THIS IS NOT NORMAL. This is not “all politicians are the same.” Instead of pointing to newest horrible thing, it reminds us we don’t need to be okay coexisting with fascism.
I think it unboils the frog a bit.
It really shows how the new right is saying crazy things that old guard republicans would never. It refutes without getting bogged down in the impossible to win serious debate. You can't seriously debate these weird ideas because it gives them credibility. Not worth it they are just weird
That's pretty weird dude.
In rural areas, being normal is the highest priority. If you do one thing that's 'weird' that thing will define you in that community for the rest of your life. You'll never escape the weird thing you did. Your life is over.
Yeah, you fuck one couch and people just never shut up about it.
"I've been farming this land for decades, do they call me Vance the Farmer? No.
"I built that bridge with my own two hands, do the call me Vance the Bridge Builder? No.
"But you fuck one couch..."
Have you lived in a rural US area?
Yes.
I immediately achieved a reputation as the nerd who hung out at the Mom&Pop bookstore/coffee shop in town, did computer repair for half the price of the Geek Squad, and shared extremely "weird" ideas about politics with anyone that dared to ask.
Never did lack for business, but folks stopped talking to me about politics after I ranted to the local Republican party chairman that the Tea Party was just a bunch of rich assholes trying to astroturf them into lowering their taxes at everyone else's expense.
I was right, of course, but it was a red county in a red state and nobody around wanted to hear it. XD
It's keeping them off balance. They were already thrown off by the switch in candidates. Keep them this way for the next three months, and Democrats will win. The alt-right doesn't play defense, but they've been forced to the last few weeks. They're really bad at it.
Things that we know about that will help:
- Democratic Convention is the time when Democrats get to own that particular news cycle
- Trump sentencing in the hush money trial on Sept 18
- Marijuana rescheduling (comment period is over, which is the last step before a review of those comments followed by a ruling)
- JD Vance dropping from the race, blunting any argument that Democrats are chaotic and aimless with the switchover
- JD Vance staying in the race, because he's JD Vance
These might not be enough on their own, but they're the one's we know about. Keep hammering "weird" and take other opportunities, and there you go.
"If you're going to accuse someone of having sec with a couch, you better have video." Is the weirdest way to ask for AI generated JD porn ever.
I am begging someone to do this for the memes
I’m worried they’ll just embrace it like they did with “deplorable”.
I'm not sure they can. Embracing weird would mean acknowledging that their own positions are not the moral majority, perfect, divinely correct ideas they think they are, and it might cause a few people to look around and realize how silly it is to wear an ear bandage to a scorching hot rally to hear an old man ramble.
An old man that was also wearing an unnecessary ear bandage.
I think that’s a risk, but Trump’s pathological ego will not allow anybody to call him weird, or strange, or abnormal.
My only concern is it is the start of August, and this weird argument is very powerful. I wish we were doing this in late September. My worry is weird will park and become old and stale by November.
They put up giant marquees patting themselves on the back for being domestic terrorists.
This election will be won at the margins. If Harris can peel off like 1 or 2% of voters in the swing states, that’s enough to win. The MAGAts, who are a total loss, will embrace weird. They’re perfectly fine with a traitor, obligate liar, convicted felon, rapist, daughterfucker. But there will be a tiny sector of would-be trump voters who will decide “fuck it, I’m out” when confronted with exactly how fucked and weird their candidate is.
Nah, they know what weird means. They didn't know what deplorable meant.
A 6 year old knows what weird is, it's not something you would want to attach to.
I feel like this works for humanity's collective benefit
What a weird response...
They are just so fucking weird.
What's so weird about checking people's genitals before they're allowed to use the bathroom?
I feel like I really need "Weird" Al's take on this.
He’s got plenty of aluminum foil to go around
He dropped the Deja Vu (But Worse) video on youtube about a month ago. It's all about Biden vs Trump again and uses lots of debate footage. Since Biden dropped out, the video is no longer particularly topical. But think about it, there's a new candidate going against Trump and the democrats are calling the republicans weird which has to strike a chord with him. Al has to be in a room somewhere scribbling down lyrics, assuming he's not already in the studio recording something. I can't wait to hear what he comes up with. Sadly, he works very hard to be apolitical so I doubt he'd put out anything leaning too far to the democrat's side of the court.
I would absolutely kill for a Weird Al parody of "Not Like Us" about how deeply and toxicly creepy and weird these rightoid freaks are.
The incel/manosphere portion of the qons was never going to react well to being called out.
I've heard people calling these freaks "creepy weirdos" for years (for instance: bluegal on The Professional Left has pointedly used that phrase). I'm just glad to see it being take up much, much more broadly.
Because the creepy freaks that are xtian nationalists ARE weird. Very, very weird.
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Beep boop. This action was performed automatically. If you dont like me then please block me.💔
If you have any questions or comments about me, you can make a post to LW Support lemmy community.What a headline. I'm not even going to read the article, because it's all going down a path of total meaninglessness. Trump doesn't really care what nicknames he's called. His hardcore followers don't either. So why are we pretending that one word we say might somehow have a magical effect?
I've explained myself at length here and in many places in the past week, and I'm fully convinced that Democrats have found the magic, silver bullet word, if there was ever one.
Democrats have tried many times to describe today's Republican party accurately: a party of facists, authoritarians, racists, rapists, homophobic, misogynist, anti-worker, reminiscent of Nazis, classist, on and on. Yet these words seem to shut non-political voters' brains off and Repubs have even co-opted 'domestic terrorist' where they felt it suited them. The word 'weird' hits differently, and fits well with the new direction the Harris campaign is taking. Excessive use by the Dems may cause it to lose effectiveness, and neither can one word be their entire campaign of course, but I'm watching it with great interest.
"I'm not going to read the article, I'm just going to make statements about it (which might not be true because I haven't read it) and ask questions that might be answered on it."
Good contribution.
Exactly. If the editor is that bad at filtering out terrible headlines, it says a lot about the quality of that media company. That's the one thing they ought to get right all the time. And when they don't, they don't deserve readers. We can always come back tomorrow if they want to do a proper job.
Republicans are definitely weird but a childless cat lady it's even weirder..
This is the "No U" stage, haha.
How do you figure?
They don't.
Swing and a miss.
Poe's law?
