US Democrats have spent recent days trying out a relatively new attack line on Donald Trump: that he is weird. The tactic is almost certainly calibrated to resonate with young and independent voters who, polls show, are moving from marked disinterest in the now-dropped matchup between Joe Biden and his presidential predecessor to engagement in the 100-day contest between Trump and Kamala Harris.
In a press release Thursday, vice-president and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris issued a list of the main takeaways of what Trump had given the American people. “Is Donald Trump OK?” the X message said. The seventh of nine entries was: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
At a fundraising event in Massachusetts on Saturday, Harris tried out the line again, describing what Trump and running mate JD Vance had been saying about her as “just plain weird”.
“I mean that’s the box you put that in,” Harris said after Trump had called her “a bum” the previous day and Vance disparaged her in 2021 as a “childless cat (lady)”.
i really hope they move past this “we need to use gentle soft language in our criticisms of rapist convicted felon con man trump” bullshit
Using hard language is seen by his supporters as an attack on them all and drives them into the defensive making Trump stronger. Calling him weird sidesteps that reaction and deflates Trump, especially if he launches a weird rambling speech as a response.
i see the point you’re trying to make… to think, all it took to beat trump this whole time was mollycoddling him and his followers…
like they’ve been doing for almost 10 years…
No, it’s making fun of him. The trick that always worked on him and nobody has been using lately is simply making fun of him. Do you remember how defensive he got about all the talk about him having “small hands”? That shit drove him nuts. This bruises his ego, and the man is all ego…
It turns out that the schoolyard name-calling tactics are very effective on him, but Democrats mostly feel they’re above that.
The previous approach was to focus on how he’s a dangerous fascist, which his supporters were able to spin as strength. Focusing on how he’s the kind of off-putting creep that you instinctively cover your drink as he walks by can’t be spun that way.
i see that now, and it makes perfect sense in hindsight. if i had kids, they wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near him
but also, fascism
Buddy, they think literally everything is an attack on them.
Or have you not seen the article about Christians getting upset about the Olympics because some drag version of The Last Supper (only it was actually based on a Dutch painting portraying Bacchanalia, but that would take knowing more than 3 famous paintings, so forget it).
It’s time to stop making choices based on how this group of highly irrational people might react.
The hard core will never change their mind and be offended. The people that matter the most are the ones still capable of thinking by themselves, so I can understand not pushing them away.
And you have evidence that these people exist (in an amount that is not statistically insignificant)?
That is language that Trump detractors like but doesn’t convince anyone new. If someone was supporting Trump, they aren’t going to be convinced by you re-stating that he’s a felon. Everybody knows that. If they support him at this point, they don’t care or they think it is an unfair attack because the arrest was political in whatever way. “Weird” strikes to his character which is at least a value judgement that you can reassess, and also relative to who he is running against.
You went easy on the lying treasonous, traitorous coward.
i genuinely shake my head sometimes at democrats’ strategy. “weird” is not a bad thing to many many people. it’s a term that’s ridiculously easy for someone to say “yea. i’m weird. so?”
and then what? “so, THERE!!!”?
recall also that one of the most D cities in a deep red state, austin, celebrates their weirdness.
ffs democrats. get your shit together
edit: i hope I’m wrong, and “he’s weird” actually does something, and I’ll be more than happy to eat crow if it catches on and has a positive effect
“weird” is not a bad thing to many many people
I’m one of those people, but fascists are REALLY not.
Seeing themselves as the only “normal” ones and declaring everything outside of the norm scary and evil is how they keep marginally functional in spite of enormous cognitive dissonance.
To a fascist, weird = abnormal = the OTHERS = evil
it’s not cognitive dissonance, it’s doublethink. there is no ‘dissonance.’ it seems insane, but they absolutely believe in 2 or more contradictory things with absolutly no qualms about it. they see no problem with bleating about “family values” while voting for a rapist adulterer with pornstar hush money problems.
It evolved from one to the other. It’s like the brain developed their ability for double think as a response to the constant bombardment of cognitive dissonance. So instead of paying attention to that little ping of “hey, wait a second,” and having to make a semi-consciuos choice to ignore it, their brains straight up skip that part in order to reduce psychic pain.
It’s kind of insane just how on the money Orwell was.
I remember every time I’d read 1984 after the first, I would get to the part where he has that long, dry, treatise on the power of language as a means of control, and I used to dread it (skipped it usually after the first read through). It always seemed boring and just completely far-fetched. Yeah the whole world-building aspect of doublespeak and doublethink was great, but surely humans aren’t that susceptible to being controlled through language…
Welp. About that…
it’s not just words they’re trying to eliminate, but also everything else that someone can use as a form of expression. ever notice how republicans generally dress the same, act the same, etc-- there’s a strictly defined idealized image of the “true american man (or woman–nothing in between)” they adhere to, and anything that doesn’t look like that is implied to be “other.” one of THEM, not one of US.
republicans push for sameness, another concept used as a core feature of society from another dystopian book (The Giver).
Absolutely. Another Hallmark of fascism.
It’s like they’ve been using Eco’s Ur-Fascism as a guidebook and checklist rather than a warning/description.
Btw if anyone hasn’t read the (very short, like 8 page PDF it’s worth it trust me) essay “Ur-Fascism” by Umberto Eco, you really should. Hey look here’s a PDF of it: https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Eco-urfascism.pdf
Only takes a few minutes, but just does an amazing job outlining what fascism is (with first hand accounts of growing up in fascist Italy), why it’s a nebulous concept that is hard to pin down, then does the impossible by pinning it down using 14 “defining features” of fascism, and wow are they eye opening…
Things were different min 1995, and Eco believed that it wasn’t possible to form a coherent government around all 14 because they can be at odds with one another at times. According to Eco, only one of said features is needed in order to consider a state (or person, etc.).
Again, as Eco could not have foreseen, turns out you can go for the high score of 14/14. Unfortunately. Then again, I’m not sure I would ever say that the fascism of maga is “coherent”. But that’s just another plus for them. But seriously, go read it
Anyway here’s the link to the PDF again. It’s a must-read: https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Eco-urfascism.pdf
Well duh, who could know better about family values than one who has had 3 official families and worked with beautiful women and girls so much? /s
The thing is, normalcy bias prevents people from listening when you call them rapists, fascists, totalitarians, and all those other things they actually are. But “weird”? Weird is obvious, and it cuts into the Republican brand to the bone.
Trump’s whole appeal is based on a fiction of him representing the common man; the “blue collar billionaire”. More than that, the Republican party has built their entire brand for decades on a sort of radical normalcy, on being the voice of the “silent majority”, on being the representatives of “real America” against those latte liberal elites from the coasts. “Weird” takes all the wind out of those sails. They don’t actually represent middle America; they’re way too out there for that. And it’s long past time somebody said so.
And I sincerely doubt Austinites are going to flock to Trump because of the “weird” thing. Austinites are the kind of weird that Republicans have been trying to suppress for decades, and they know it.
Yes, Austin, known for its republican base. /s
Agreed. But if this gets more young people or low information voters to the polls, so be it.
I’d like to see something to address his wannabe dictator tendencies
there are SO many things they could attack, and they choose “let’s call him weird”
i get more annoyed the more i think about it
It does make a little sense, when you consider that one of the goals is to demotivate fascists from voting at all.
Straight facts don’t dissuade fascists. They have every argument and deflection in their back pocket ready to go. Trump is a rapist/racist/traitor? Fake news, fake news, fake news.
But… Trump is weird? That hits them right in the ego. They’re not a principled policy-based voting base, it’s a cult of personality. Even if they want to say he’s NOT weird, it’s not a fact, it’s an opinion. So all it takes is showing a bunch of really strange gaffes, irrelevant rants, and incoherent ramblings, and you just might get would-be Trump voters to feel too embarrassed to vote for him.
It’s a long shot, but based on what I’ve been seeing, it appears to be effective so far. We’ll have to wait and see.
My guess is Harris’ polling of the younger demographic is showing they’re fed up with the vicious rhetoric that’s been bounced around. So words that don’t cut most people - but would annoy the hell out of Trump - are used … if for no other reason than it becomes this joke that can be laughed at vs. enraging people.
Maybe your annoyance (understandable) is part of the point? There are so many things to attack, so many legitimate concerns, that simply calling him weird could spark a little reflection in his supporters and would-be voters, let alone the obvious shock to Trump’s vanity.
It’s not something you can easily deny as a conspiracy theory or fake news or any other excuse about his words and behavior. The man is weird. And psychologically, I think it’s harder to defend a person described that way, or at least makes a defender get a little self-conscious. Trump being deemed weird is really indefensible, and I think it could work in deflating the cult of personality around him.
Not everyone can identify maniacal dictator rhetoric for what it is, and the power dynamic is clearly alluring to Trump supporters. However, knowing a weird person or even being called weird at some point is something almost everyone has experience with. It’s uncomfortable. It makes you ask yourself what it is about a person that makes them weird. I think they’re on to something here. It might give supporters pause and will most definitely give Trump a complex.
I’m sorry, I just don’t see it. If, 10+ years later you don’t already fucking know this guy is “weird” (to say the least), then hearing (more) Democrats say it won’t change your mind about anything.
Have you met these people? They embraced the term “deplorable” because they thought it was cute/clever.
10 years of telling my parents in various ways that this man is “weird” (among many other, much worse, things), and suddenly they’re gonna give a shit because Kamala Harris said it? Nah.
This is weak shit from the Democrats. Disappointed but not at all surprised.
I get where you’re coming from, and you make a point with “deplorable” being meme-ified into some twisted identity thing. But I also think the collective “basket of deplorables” doesn’t apply here. Harris isn’t calling Trump supporters weird; she’s calling just him weird.
This does a few things: it keeps the focus on Trump, allowing supporters to distance themselves from the statement. The lack of attachment to any particular action, statements, belief, etc. lets a person think about it “nakedly.” Why is he weird?
Yes, we both know why, but this flips the script from the last 10 years from “here are various reasons why Trump is horrifying and could also be considered weird” to “Trump is weird, I’ll let you chew on that.”
It’s all in the delivery. Stating what he is without explaining why.
I think it’s worth returning a bit of agency to people in general to assess how they feel about that statement and come to their own conclusions. Edit: Especially because many of these people have attached themselves to Trump because they feel they have no agency otherwise. Could this be a means to cracking through the brainwashed masses? Something akin to, “wait, why am I idolizing this guy again?” Wishful thinking, yes, but being"plain weird" is such a broadly sweeping generalization that something should organically pop up in trump supporters’ brains, without our prompting.
There are various reasons why Trump is horrifying and could also be considered weird” to “Trump is weird, I’ll let you chew on that.”
I guess we’ll just have to see, but these aren’t people who “chew” on things in that way. If they were capable and willing to think critically and rationally about this, they wouldn’t be there in the first place.
These people aren’t just going to suddenly become rational overnight about their cult-like devotion to a man that they essentially worship as a demigod, because this time you said “weird” instead of “fascist.”
Principled criticisms, accurate names like Fascist, Dictator, joke names like Don Poorleone and Orange man that we’ve used before work with Democrats but cause the Trump cult to turn their brains off.
Weird might be just the word that plants the seedling of doubt in a handful of Trump supporters’ minds.
To be fair, they haven’t stopped using hard language either. They released a statement after his “you won’t have to vote ever again” rambling with very direct warnings about how dangerous he is and has been. “Weird” is just another line of attack, hoping to cut in a way that might resonate with some more than the (imo rightful) high stakes talk.
Fucking seriously… “He’s just plain weird”? Fucking really?
Of all of the adjectives, “weird”??
The other direct attacks have substance. But calling Trump the weird guy and not saying why he’s weird takes away all the instant counters. And when he throws a tantrum like a toddler because of this, you can damn well keep calling him weird.
Normally I wouldn’t love indulging in ad hominem attacks, but he’s built an entire political strategy around them, and this I think hits that sweet spot where it’s adopting the technique, including the impossibility of logically refuting it, without stooping to the same level of pure meanness and implicit sanctioning of violence.
“If they go low, we dip down just a little bit to tell them how creepy that is.”
I love this
Denormalized and demoralized is exactly how I want him
The following was initially part of a reply to another person:
Maybe the simple, gentle, “everyday” language here is truly the point? There are so many things to attack about Trump, so many legitimate concerns for his fascist, racist, sexist, ad nauseum behaviors. We’ve heard it all before. But simply calling him weird could spark a little reflection in his supporters and would-be voters while obviously delivering a shock to Trump’s vanity.
It’s not something you can easily deny as a conspiracy theory or fake news or any other excuse about his words and behavior. The man is weird. And psychologically, I think it’s harder to defend a person described that way, or at least makes a defender get a little self-conscious. Trump being deemed weird is really indefensible, and I think it could work in deflating the cult of personality around him.
Not everyone can identify maniacal dictator rhetoric for what it is, and the power dynamic is clearly alluring to Trump supporters. However, knowing a weird person or even being called weird at some point is something almost everyone has experience with.
It’s uncomfortable. It makes you ask yourself what it is about a person that makes them weird and how you should deal with it. It prickles something very basic in the human psyche. So I think they’re on to something here. It might give supporters pause and will most definitely give Trump a complex.
Moreover, it makes them do the same thing (unless you’re a god-tier narcissist, like trump) and consider it you are, in fact, weird.
Since he’s an insecure narcissist, it’s gonna drive him nuts, and make him want to spend energy to show how he’s not weird
And screeching about how normal you are never works. You have to put in time and effort. It requires humility and honesty, and often therapy.
I wish him good luck.
You reflect my thoughts from the other day well and explain thoroughly the reasons why I think this is an excellent angle of attack for reaching new corners of the electorate.
The Democratic party should keep this line, use it tastefully but consistently all the way up to November. It’s going to drive Trump nuts, if nothing else.
You know the more I think on this, the other comments are right. The “small hands” thing caused him to flip out.
He is weird. He doesn’t make sense half the time, and seems out of touch with reality - even his supporters. He’s all the other things we have pointed out, but to sum it all together, hes strange. He wants to be the in-group, but his in-group consists of only him. What kind of dude wants to lead a country where he thinks the rest of the country is wrong about everything?
I think this is to try to achieve two things.
First, criticizing / annoying Trump.
Second, to try to recast Harris as the more mainstream American. Your typical mayo-American suburban mom type’s immediate reaction to Harris is going to revolve around a comparison of skin tones and evaluation of just how other Harris is. Pointing out that Trump is weird implicitly implies that Harris is normal by contrast.
Same reason she’s going to pick some completely uninteresting Generic White Guy as her running mate.
Yes. This is a careful, calculated, psychological move, just like you said.
It’s very clever. By asking if Trump is weird, the natural response of a human is to check Trump’s actions and traits against your natural biases and expectations based on your ‘in group’, either to evaluate if he’s weird or to try to defend him by building a rebuttal. Unless you hang out with racist billionaire authoritarian narcissists often, he’s going to be very weird to nearly everyone.
And again like you said, it takes the wind out of the most obvious counter to Kamala, her ‘otherness’.
It’s brilliant.
I agree with you. I read an article (can’t remember where it was from) that basically said right wingers have become detached from reality and normal America because they are insulated in their little online world and social media safe spaces. The general public has already heard that Trump and his ilk are a threat to democracy, this point has already been made. Highlighting the fact they are weird, gross and lack basic human decency is a brilliant move, like you said.
While this can’t be the only line of attack, it is a good one. Already, Trump seems to be having difficulty attacking Harris, as he has to work to continually suppress saying the most racist and sexist things he can think of. Imagine if he has to react to the ‘weird’ criticism by continually, on the fly, suppress some of his stranger speaking topics too. I’m guessing the mental load of doing that might put an amusing amount of strain on the old man. Imagine Trump, if the rallies weren’t fun for him anymore. How’s he going to recharge that narcissistic brain of his?
I really don’t get this tactic. I mean even ignoring the obvious that we shouldn’t downplay his literal dangers to our entire society which this kind of language seems to do, I don’t like it cuz weird isn’t even bad to me. I like weird. I’m weird. That’s not going to have the effect they think it is. They don’t need to say he’s weird. They need to say he’s a deranged lunatic who wants to destroy your country and put the lives of the people you love in danger. Cuz that’s the reality.
It’s more effective because it’s lower stakes. Voters are sick of hearing about the end of democracy and most just treat it like hyperbole one side is throwing at the other. Meanwhile, othering is a time-tested and results-proven tactic. It’s more relatable and it makes voting for the ticket provoke a common, undesirable, visceral feel.
Calling Trump weird is a bit like belittling him. Maga shitheads like to see him as this untouchable guy, who says what’s on his mind. Harris calling him weird kind of makes him seem small.
It’s kind like calling Putin a raging homosexual. I have nothing against homosexual people, but Putin and his bootlickers do. If that’s a problem for them, all the better.
It reminds me of Clinton’s “deplorables” comment in that it just came off as cringy and didn’t really gain any traction. Trump is an expert level shit talker so you gotta bring your A game. I think they should take from his own playbook and keep harping on about how old he is and how nonsensical his statements are.
expert level
His insults are on par with my kid’s playground
And yet the typical stuff coming out of the DNC pales in comparison. You can’t out troll a troll but you can turn their shit right back around on them.
Calling him ‘weird’ just doesn’t have any sticking power. You need meme and bumper sticker phrases that are catchy and easy to remember.
Fuck me. If he was only “weird” 80% of the world wouldn’t be scared shitless that he’ll get in power again.
Yes, but proven to be bought by the Saudis and alleged to be blackmailed by Russia just does not seem to be the topic voters care about
I hate this country
Just spitballing here: He doesn’t pass the vibe check? He gives us the ick? He’s giving Ohio?
He’s very Ohio. ( That insult makes me happy as I HATE that shit hole)
he is very easily rizzed
He’s got brainrot for fascism. Weird guy.
Yes… If weird equals racist, loser, pedophile, soulless, senile, moron.
I am in full support of Harris, but I hate this attack. Am I understanding this correctly?Describing that asshole as weird is an insult to weird. Weird is what most of us are. I very much hope it is not something I have in common with that orange shit stain
for some reason, out of all of the adjectives you listed, weird is the only one that seems to have an effect on boomers. If it works, it works
I like the weird attack - it’s quite dismissive and robs him of power. I absolutely agree he’s a threat to democracy but he loves that attack because his narcissistic ass is empowered by it… Weird fits well enough but it also leans towards dismissing him from being a mainstream figure.
I’m amazed how his taste for well-done steaks slathered in ketchup hasn’t alienated all the proud carnivores. Because that shit is fuckin weird, man.
how about Slimy?
What’s that dwarf got to do with it?
calling trump “weird” is the textbook definition of “going soft on crime”
Tired trump would work better. But him saying “I’m so normal, the normalest” would be funny
Bigly normal
I know they don’t want to use words like ‘senility’ and ‘dementia’ because of Biden, but come on. He’s not running now and he’ll only be president for a few more months.
I’m on the fence for using dementia or senility. In fact I think I prefer the ‘weird’ reference more than the other two, if for no other reason than there is no proof he is … but ‘weird’ covers a fair portion of what he is/does.
Bonus points if they start incorporating ‘convicted felon’ as the campaign progresses.
This is politics. It doesn’t really matter if he’s got dementia, it just matters if he’s perceived as having dementia.
That language could backfire a little right now, but hopefully they do pull this out closer to election.
Seriously I can’t understand how anyone who has listened to him talk can vote for him and there is no way folks did not hear him at some point during his first tenure. The randomness of it all is so crazy.
I’m NOT Weird! YOUR WEIRD!
-Stable Geniuses!
I like how the MSM aren’t at all overhyping this by publishing articles about how brand new and brilliant it is several times a day for about a week.
I mean yes, it IS true that the American Fascist Party are a bunch profoundly weird creeps and squares and it’s probably ALSO true that that insult hits them harder than the more serious ones, but that’s not gonna keep being the case if the media makes everyone sick of hearing about it…
