THE SHORT AND STRANGE LIFE OF THE “WEIRD”. For a brief moment, every single Democratic speaker in the United States called former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator J. D. , “weird. ” Vance (R-OH). They still do it today, but in the last 24 hours the popularity of “weird” seems to be declining. And that leaves the question: what is it about?
Several news reports recommended it last week when Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who happens to be on presumptive vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ short list for running mate, “called Trump and Vance” just weird’ in an MSNBC interview, which the Democratic Governors Association, of which Walz is president, expanded on in an article about X,” according to ABC News.
Then the Harris crusade, which existed just a few days ago, began calling Trump and Vance “weird” whenever they could. Last Friday, the crusade issued a press release titled “J. D. Vance is a scoundrel (who needs to ban abortion nationwide). “The first sentence of the statement: “J. D. Vance is rare. “
Subscribe to the Washington Examiner today to stay up to date on what’s happening in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: $1. 00 only depending on the problem! On the weekends, MSNBC and CNN shows talked about it, giving credit to Walz. The head of the Democratic National Committee predicted victory in November in part because his warring Republican parties are “crazy. “Later, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), who dropped out of the vice presidents’ list, claimed that the “strange” topic of discussion making its way because of the Republican calendar and “the way they treat people, is strange. That’s strange. That’s strange. . . . And strange is a word that makes you laugh because it is strange.
At the time, it seemed like every single Democratic official and every Democratic best friend in the press was calling the Trump-Vance deal “weird. ” Watch this collection of clips to see them one after the other.
Works? Who knows? Democrats speak with one voice in obvious ways. But there’s something very strange about it: President Joe Biden, who was the Democratic nominee in 2024 until he was impeached through an organization of party members, founded his crusade on the risk he claimed former President Donald Trump posed to democracy. Say what you want about it – and it was necessarily nonsense, as the president would say – it was serious nonsense. It was a serious and profoundly solemn accusation.
And now? Oh, they’re weird. In general, the Democratic Party has shifted the focus of its crusade from safeguarding democracy to claiming that the other side has cooties. It was an ordinary decision, to say the least.
A few days ago, Politico warned that Democrats arguably would have placed less emphasis on democracy in favor of the “weird” because democracy simply doesn’t sell. Biden, Politico reported, “believed deeply in making the democracy factor a central issue of the campaign. But the president’s comments on the issue were marked by a serious tone and heaviness that, more than 3 years after the insurrection of January 6, 2021, the country seemed to ignore. Polls showed that the electorate rated Biden and Trump more or less lightly on which candidate would be more effective in protecting democracy.
This is a vital and serious question. Given Biden’s impeachment, the electorate could see the current president’s lawyer challenge the Supreme Court justices because he didn’t like their decisions; they may see their Ministry of Justice accuse their opponent not once but twice; they may see Biden supporters looking to remove Trump from the presidential election; They may see all of this and wonder which candidate would best protect democracy. It’s no wonder that other people are a little fed up with it. So, the Harris team think it might be better to abandon the big, serious issue of Biden’s crusade in favor of. . . “weird”.
Some argue that the term “weird” itself is a serious message. David Frum of The Atlantic called it a smart crusade aimed at millions of women, who will receive the anti-Trump, pro-Harris message even if Trump’s supporters don’t. “‘Rare’ is code for ‘expresses obsessive hostility toward women, adding women to personal life,'” Frum wrote, “and since MAGA Republicans don’t understand the code, they don’t understand why they lose power. “”.
Maybe. A huge gender gap characterized this entire campaign, with Trump having a giant lead among men and Biden having a giant lead among women. Thanks to Biden’s impeachment, Trump’s lead was slightly larger than Biden’s, meaning Trump was ahead in polls nationally and in key states. Perhaps “weird” is the magic word that turns all the women who have not yet met Trump into being opposed to the former president. Or maybe not.
Either way, while it’s never a good idea to speak too soon, it turns out that the “strange” wave has peaked. Some Trump supporters began posting photos of the Biden administration’s transgender birthday party, men dressed in women’s clothing enjoying the White House lawn, along with photos of Vance and his circle of family with the caption “JD Vance is rare”. This led to other types of rejection of the “weird” topic. And then Harris’s crusade released his first big ad, and it was an absolutely traditional case for his candidacy: no “weird,” no memes, just an outdated crusade ad. And now the term “weird” no longer appears every moment in some media and social networks. So maybe we’re getting to the point where all of this is becoming too much. And then, the electorate can have hope, the crusade can be a crusade.