Why Weird Works

It’s partly because Ds are all saying it together.

Image: Kristine Slipson, CC

Kamala Harris has found the first major theme of her campaign. The theme is that Republicans are creepy weirdos.

This isn’t the first time Democrats and the left have pointed out that Trump and his MAGA followers are weird goons. The progressive The New Republic has used the term numerous time—like for instance in this November 2023 article. Jacobin has as well. But Minnesota Governor and VP contender Tim Walz is credited with the term’s sudden surge in popularity thanks to a couple of much-shared media hits. For example, in a much-shared CNN interview last week, he said “I see Donald Trump talking about the wonderful Hannibal Lecter or whatever weird thing he is on tonight ... That is weird behavior. I don't think you call it anything else.”

Numerous commenters on social and regular media have pointed out that labeling Republicans as “weird” is good messaging. First, it resonates because it’s true—Republicans are obsessed with women’s reproductive choices; they hate women who own cats. Trump is terrified of being laughed at; he natters on endlessly about electrocution and sharks and Hannibal Lecter for no discernible reason. Also he’s orange for some reason. He is a weird and horrible guy.

Beyond that, calling the GOP “weird” works well because Republicans are obsessed with projecting strength and power. Trump incessantly praises dictators like Russian leader Vladimir Putin because they brutally suppress dissent, and Trump thinks that’s cool. Talking about how Trump is a threat to democracy feeds into Trump’s vanity; he likes thinking of himself as a threat. Mocking him as a bizarre dictator-loving orange fool, on the other hand, triggers that thing where he hates people laughing at him.

Trump wants to be the bully; instead, for once, he’s being bullied. And Republicans have no idea how to respond. Some have doubled down on bigotry; others have claimed to be above this sort of name calling. These two tactics, notably, are at odds, and undermine the effort to craft a unified response.

Republicans, you might say, are in disarray. In contrast, Democrats a week ago instantly and staggeringly unified around Harris as a candidate—and have also instantly, and almost as staggeringly, unified behind this one message. Ex-Republican, left-despising conservadem Tom Nichols has been cheerfully pointing out that his former party, and all its works, are weird. Leading socialist left House leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that, “Being obsessed with repressing women is goofy”—ie, weird. Harris’ official campaign account calls Republicans weird. So do lots and lots and lots of Democrats and progressives with no direct links to Harris’ campaign.

Again, the message is good. But I think to some extent the fact that everyone is saying it is as important as what is being said. Republicans mostly exist in a partisan media bubble; they all get their talking points from the same place. Often those talking points are nonsensical gibberish to anyone outside the base, but the mere fact of repetition has a certain power. Banging on endlessly about Hunter Biden’s laptop can lead everyone to associate the Biden name with vague corruption, even if people aren’t entirely sure what the actual (lack of) argument is supposed to be.

Democrats, in contrast, are rarely so uniformly on the same page. But Biden’s resignation, Harris’ instantaneous ascension, and the subsequent veepstakes has led to an unusually unified party receiving a barrage of positive press attention, led by a focus on VP contenders. That’s created a unique opportunity for Democrats to coordinate messaging across media and social media.

Calling Trump “weird” is, again, a power move; it’s bullying him. But what’s even more of a power move is that the Democrats have completely flooded election news and horserace coverage with a single message—a message to which Republicans have so far had no real response.

Harris as leader and Democrats as her party have worked together to completely dominate the discourse for the last week since Harris became the candidate. It doesn’t guarantee an election win, and of course it won’t last forever. But it’s still an impressive achievement, which demonstrates both that loathing of Trump is widespread and that there is a broad, enthusiastic coalition ready to fight for reproductive rights, LGBT rights, school lunches for kids—for, in short, a vision of America as a fundamentally decent and neighborly place, built on caring for one another rather than on weird bigotry and hate.

Dumping on Trump is fun. Dumping on Trump all at once, in unison is more than just fun. It feels like hope.