hIt looks a bit like an episode of South Park. After months of apocalyptic rhetoric from Democrats and warnings that American democracy would collapse if Republicans returned to power, American voters became increasingly indifferent. Now a new line of defense has quickly emerged and is gaining popularity, which simply says: “Those guys are just weird.”
Within a week, Democrats jumped on the weird bandwagon en masse after an interview with Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, was viewed 5 million times. “I’m telling you: These guys are weird,” he wrote in the excerpt, explaining that Republicans are more concerned with banning books and what people do in the bedroom than with good education and affordable health care.
A day later, Kamala Harris’ campaign posted a video of JD Vance making some failed and, indeed, rather strange jokes, with the caption: “It’s getting weird.”
Much to the amusement of Democrats, Republicans reacted angrily to the accusation. “This argument from Democrats that ‘they are weird’ is stupid and childish,” wrote Vivek Ramaswamy, until recently a Republican presidential candidate. “This is an election, not a high school prom queen pageant‘We’re not weird,’ Donald Trump said a few days later, ‘they’re weird!’
Yes, “weird” as a strategy is childish and silly. But “weird” also exudes self-confidence. It fits the moment, with Kamala Harris giving a relaxed impression. You laugh at strange people — they pose no threat. “We’re not afraid of them,” Walz said. “Just a little scared.” It’s down-to-earth language, he wrote. politicallanguage that resonates best with people who follow politics from the side (almost everyone) and who wonder: what are those people talking about? This is how neighbors talk to each other about those crazy politicians. It is the language of young people on the Internet, of cringe, strange, strange.
Democracy is an abstract concept, especially for those who have never experienced anything different. You can explain many times that pickets are being torn down, that it is dangerous for politicians to attack journalists, judges and scientists, that acquired freedoms can be taken away again, that checks and balances can be dismantled one by one, but many will still think: it’s not so bad, it doesn’t affect me. Or: As long as it’s the best for me, I’m fine with it.
So call them weird, if it works. People may prefer to vote for a politician who radiates joy, hope and self-confidence rather than someone who presents himself primarily as the last barrier on the road to dictatorship. It is a lesson that the opposition in the House of Representatives should also try. Big words of warning – however justified – have a limited scope and are subject to inflation. It paints a picture of a future you are waiting for.
There is also the risk of the bizarre accusation. Trump, Vance and other prominent Republicans should be allowed to be called bizarre. But if you start ridiculing their supporters, which happens a lot on social media: videos of Trump supporters with little bandages on their ears or shouting incoherent conspiratorial language, and the text: stop calling us weird – then you enter the territory of contempt, then you are not very far from the people deplorable call. And if there’s one thing people like to find evidence of, it’s leftist elitist arrogance.
It’s not very difficult: just laugh at the people above you, there are many weirdos among them.
